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Memory/Learning Strategies page has information regarding using a reference notebook for those with cognitive impairments (ie Alzheimer's Disease) and how to identify your child's learning strengths and how to change any school information into an auditory/visual/kinesthetic task.

Books that I usually suggest:

The Out of Sync Child, by Carol Stock Kranowitz (go to her website, too)

Healing ADD: The Breakthrough Program that allows you to see and heal the 6 types of ADD, by Daniel G. Amen, MD (go to his website, too)

A Mind at a Time: America's top learning expert shows how every child can succeed, by Mel Levine, MD

7 Kinds of Intelligences, by Howard Gardner (he has a website, too)

Auditory/Visual/Kinesthetic task changes:

Auditory task has you listening and coming up with funny/emotional stories/scenarios to remember things. You can pretend you are the teacher/preacher and talk it out loud.

You can make up a song or a cheerleading cheer with the information.

Visual task has you drawing pictures, writing keywords, or designing graphs or charts.

Using colored pencils to highlight items that are related helps you visualize correlations.

Kinesthetic task has you 'doing' and creating an event and an emotion to recall the information. Use all types of craft mediums (make things out of sticks, rock formations, paints, fabrics) to manipulate and create. Pacing or bouncing on a pilates ball while you sing or rhyme the information may help some folk.

Break down the information and talk out loud while someone else plays 'secretary' and writes/types your thoughts. Use "who, what, where, why, how" categories to jot down the details for a story line and then look at each item and write a sentence/paragraph.

Draw a picture of the story plot details while you are listening to someone read the story to increase your recall. Then retell the story using the picture.

The "I don't know but I know where to go to find it" notebook helps all ages.

For the school-aged child I actually have it written into the IEP format that a child is allowed to draw/write anything into a 3-ring notebook and refer to the information during tests without penalty. The information must be in the child's handwriting and not an adult's or a page zeroxed from a book.

For the adult with memory challenges, I create a daily form that includes boxes to check when the mail has been received and if anything important came that a person wants to relate to the person that takes care of their finances, or has a box to check for reference that they have taken their medications in the morning, noon, supper and nighttime intervals, or has a place to note doctor's appointments for each day or be sure to watch television shows. The size of the form depends on the amount of recall items.