ADHD Spotlight

I came across this one a a result from one of my Google web alerts. Lots of depth to the ADHD content….

ADHD Spotlight

Dr. Brian B. Doyle is a psychiatrist, a clinician and teacher who graduated from Harvard College and McGill University, Faculty of Medicine. He has written numerous articles and monographs, especially on the affective and anxiety disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Coeditor of The Impaired Physician, his new book, Understanding and Treating Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, was published in June 2006. He is in his tenth year as the host of “Medical Answers,” a nationwide television program on the Public Broadcasting System. He has received awards for excellence in teaching from Georgetown University School of Medicine, the International Society of Business Communicators and the American Psychiatric Association. Military honors include the Meritorious Service Medal and the General Staff Insignia. Formerly on the faculty of Harvard and George Washington University medical schools, he is now Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and of Family and Community Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine. Dr. Doyle maintains an active private practice in Washington, DC, specializing in mood and anxiety disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He currently serves as President of the National Association of Medical Communicators.

Neurological Basis for ADHD?

Regarding a new National Institute for Mental Health Report:

Technology Review: A Neurological Basis for ADHD
A genetic variation that boosts risk for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) paradoxically appears to predict who will grow out of the learning disability. Scientists found that brain development in ADHD-afflicted children with this variation was out of whack at age 8 but normalized by 16. ADHD symptoms in this group were also more likely to disappear with age. The study is the first to identify a genetically determined pattern of brain development linked to ADHD and indicates a real neurological basis for the disorder, which has been viewed by some as a contrivance of pharmaceutical marketers or the product of bad parenting.

…. and a related post at another blog ….

Outgrowing ADHD?
Isn’t that interesting? But also don’t forget that finding that young gifted kids were more likely to have a late blooming pattern in terms of their frontal cortical development (executive function). So how should this impact our expectations? our educational process? or medical treatments?

Latebloomers.com

…. and also….

The Biology of Late Bloomers – Gifted, but Immature?
This may not come as a complete surprise to some parents of gifted children. In a press release that is now racing around the Internet, NIMH researchers show us that the higher one’s I.Q., the more immature prefrontal cortex development…at least age 7. Aha.

50 Conditions that mimic ADHD

I’m not sure of the source on this one, but it is thought-provoking….

50 Conditions that mimic ADHD

ADHD is diagnosed by health professionals who form their opinion by observing a child’s behavior. There are no brain scans, blood tests, or anything else definite that is used during diagnosis. The problem with this is there are many other problems that have the same symptoms of ADHD. Many parents, because of not knowing, settle for ADHD as a diagnosis before looking at everything. For example, any problem dealing with the fuels of the body: water, food, blood and air can cause behavior problems. Water, food, blood and air to the body are just like gas and oil to a car. If you put bad gas or have old or the wrong oil in your car, it will act up just like a child acts up when eating foods they are allergic to, drinking or breathing contaminated water or air or having blood disorders.

There are also many medical, biological, emotional and mental conditions that mimic ADHD also. For those who are searching for reasons behind their child’s behavior, here are some possibilities. Only settle for the diagnosis of ADHD after checking out all of these problems and many more.

Read the full list after the jump… Continue reading

Wrightslaw Education Law and Advocacy

Wrightslaw Special Education Law and Advocacy

Parents, educators, advocates, and attorneys come to Wrightslaw for accurate, reliable information about special education law, education law, and advocacy for children with disabilities. Begin your search for information in the Advocacy Libraries and Law Libraries. You will find thousands of articles, cases, and free resources about dozens of topics:

Asynchrony Squared

If Gifted = Asynchronous Development, then Gifted/Special Needs = Asynchrony Squared

The truth is out there…

Hoagies’ Gifted: If Gifted = Asynchronous Development, then Gifted/Special Needs = Asynchrony Squared

Martha Morelock and the Columbus Group have suggested that “asynchronous development” is the defining characteristic of gifted children. Most of the literature on gifted children describes children whose asynchrony is mainly in the differences between their intellectual (mental) ages versus their chronological or emotional ages. I do not want to minimize the problems of meeting the needs of children who have mental ages more than 50 percent higher than their chronological ages. As Linda Kreger Silverman so aptly describes it “…gifted children develop in an uneven manner, … they are more complex and intense than their agemates, … they feel out-of-sync with age peers and ‘age appropriate curriculum,’ … the internal and external discrepancies increase with IQ, and … these differences make them extremely vulnerable.”

….

For my son, who is gifted and has ADHD, being gifted/special needs means getting assignments wrong because he missed some of the instructions and therefore did the wrong thing correctly. It means getting into trouble for not paying attention because he is incapable of focusing on multi-step oral instructions, but seems too smart to not understand what he is supposed to do. It means getting in trouble for losing control at the end of the day, when he is tired and his medication has worn off because “you’re too smart to forget the rules”.