I recently blogged about the event I participated in on behalf of October being Learning Disabilities Awareness month. As a follow up to that event, I blogged about my self-reflections of a case I had seen recently where a child with known ADHD and anxiety had continued to struggle in school. His parents were stressed …
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Showing: 11 - 20 of 23 RESULTS ADHD
ADHD Medication Handout: Atomoxetine
After careful discussion with the child’s pediatrician about whether medication should be a part of the ADHD treatment plan, families and the pediatrician will need to decide what medication is best. The discussion should include a few key elements to help guide the decision: The age of the child Whether the child has tried any …
New research alert: ADHD Group visits are acceptable to families, providers
Our latest paper on the use of group visits for ADHD follow-up visits is now in print in the October 2017 issue of the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics! Since 2010, we have been developing and refining a new way to improve ADHD care in busy pediatric clinics, using a group visit model where …
#JustANormalKid: Don’t forget kids are kids first!
“He is ready to go and won’t stop until he goes to bed!” “She is so forgetful and I get frustrated because I have to keep nagging her. When will she learn to take care of her own things?” “I am constantly getting calls from the school and quite frankly it is stressing me out! …
Questions, questions and more questions about ADHD
Parents, teachers and kids themselves with ADHD all have questions. Many parents have questions about their child’s behavior and health. Teachers might have questions about how to best support a child or what strategies or treatments are available. Kids may want to understand more about ADHD so they don’t feel “weird” or “different”. With so …
The Angst around Medications for ADHD
Parents often worry about the need to start medications if their child is diagnosed with ADHD. It can be a stressful time, weighing the pros and cons. Caregivers can experience a host of emotions and thoughts. When is the right time to start medications? Is there a “right time”? Does this mean my child will be on …
Helping parents find their voice: The Let’s Chat ADHD Project
I had the pleasure of working with a WONDERFUL group of parent and child volunteers for the past two years that has finally resulted in this awesome project. I cannot wait to share…but first, let me back up. THE PROBLEM Attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder or ADHD is a common neurobehavioral condition that starts in childhood. About …
Battling the myths of ADHD & Taking One Day At a Time
Today’s column by Valerie Strauss “If you can pay attention, you do not have ADHD”–and 9 other misconceptions about the disorder” was a great read. Ms. Strauss highlights the Top 10 Myths of ADHD by Dr. Ned Hallowell, a child and adult psychiatrist. This list is a good for families of newly diagnosed children or in situations where …
Why engaging families in research is important…
I have been working closely with my ADHD patient advisory board (PAB) for the past several years to improve upon ongoing work examining primary care-based interventions for ADHD. It is hard to believe we are nearing the end of a 2 year process. I have witnessed the change within parents who participated in the research as a ‘subject’, then agreed to serve as a ‘consultant’ to me and my team to help us think through important study issues and brainstorm solutions as challenges arose…and finally to ‘collaborators’ in the final stages of the current study.
However, they are not the only ones who have changed. I have changed too.
As a behavioral pediatrician, I see patients in clinic to provide recommendations to families who are struggling with child behavior problems. As a researcher, I take those clinical experiences and think of new and different ways to solve the bigger problems of earlier identification and management of behavior problems in busy clinics, how to improve communication at the point of care and finding solutions to support pediatricians and families in the process.
It was not until I worked closely with the parents & children who were members of my PAB that I truly began to appreciate just how meaningful their “voices” were to the work I do.
Don’t get me wrong. I have always been a collaborative person. I think that is partly why I love developmental-behavioral pediatrics as a field. It is, by nature, an interdisciplinary field. It is also why my research has always involved working within the clinics and the healthcare team and not simply analyzing data. Add to the mix a wonderful team of health communication designers and I was hooked.
Below is a video filmed by a co-investigator/filmmaker, Mr. C. Thomas Lewis, from IUPUI School of Informatics and Computing a few weeks ago to tell my story about working with a PAB and how it has changed my approach to conducting health services research.
Watch my story by clicking here.
If you are interested in learning more about health services research, check out the Indiana Children’s Health Services Research website at: www.ichsr.org
ADHD Group Visits: ‘Top 10’ pre-implementation checklist
The idea of group visits is not new. This model has been used successfully by psychologists and therapists for a variety of issues for group therapy and patient education. The first paper using the group model in pediatrics was published in 1977 by my mentor, Dr. Martin Stein, who used groups for mother-infant care. Another set of papers …