I was diagnosed with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) as a boy and have since learned that I also have ADHD-I (the “zoning out” form of ADHD). On top of it – or likely the cause of it – I was born extremely premature (6 months) which has a whole set of common issues from coming out not fully baked. In my case, it left me deaf in my right ear and blind in my right eye. (the “good ones” with poor vision/hearing too)
So with flawed inputs and a working memory space of the head of a pin, plus constant novelty need from ADHD (dopamine), holding attention for more than a few moments at a time is difficult. So I never know quite WHY I’m constantly switching around. When I’m reading a textbook, I go from using TTS (Microsoft Emma is my new favorite). Or I’ll make the words huge on the screen, reading only one paragraph at a time. Or I’ll read the textbook from bottom to top, or jump around to the headlines, or I’ll make a little video of the material with background music.
If I’m lucky, I can stay with a modality for a while; a few pages using only text to speech or a few pages with zoomed in text. Yesterday I was standing behind my computer chair, marching with absurdly high knee raises, while listening to a chapter and that worked well.
Yet in the end, what sinks in better? I think I have to do everything; I have to “play”, actively manipulate the information. Use my hands. Cut out words with scissors. Do something different than I did recently.