Originally Posted by Tinydance
OK, granted I don't actually work with children and have no children myself (yet), but I've been working in the disability and mental health field for seven years. I have worked with people with a wide variety of conditions and what I've noticed is for an individual with certain conditions to be in recovery, they need to be treated with a very "person-centred" approach. In fact in my field of work it's all about the person centered.
So basically my advice would be not to treat this child (teenager?) as just your average child and to set up a full lifestyle for him that caters to his conditions. For example, if he enjoyed and was more successful at the special outdoor education school, then he needs to continue attending a similar school. It's very clear that the average school structure is not suited to him and he feels frustrated there.
Here in Australia the government also provides a student aide for free at school for children that qualify. So that means there is a specially trained student aide assisting either that child one-on-one or more than one child in the classroom. The aide knows how to work with children with special conditions and can help them learn in the way suited to them. I would encourage you to look into something like this also.
I suggest you continue to get psychiatric support for him because he may have even been misdiagnosed or not diagnosed with the proper conditions he has. However regarding the memory, I briefly dated a guy with severe ADHD and have a close friend with rare inattentive form of ADHD. They actually had very bad memory and even to the point where they'd just told you something and then would act shocked and be like: "Wait, how do you know this??" Not remembering it was them that had literally just told me the information! So yes quite possibly the ADHD could be causing the memory deficits.
My advice would be to focus on his strengths as best as you can and allow him to develop those skills. That's what I do in my disability work. If a person has disabilities and struggles with something immensely e.g. school and keeps getting told off about it, that can cause a lot of frustration due to being made to feel hopeless. But if the person is allowed to pursue something they are actually good at, that can help with the behaviour. You mentioned he is good with *some* things. What is he better at? Can you try to give him tasks he actually enjoys?