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 …
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Showing: 11 - 20 of 21 RESULTS ADHD
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 …
Helping kids with ADHD talk about “My Today”
When families face chronic diseases, it is especially important to encourage their active participation with the medical team. This is the hallmark of the “chronic care model,” which encourages medical providers and the patient/family to work together. Chronic diseases often require lifestyle and behavior change to maximize outcomes. This is especially true in pediatrics and behavioral conditions. Published clinical …
Helping families understand the educational system alphabet soup
It is important to help families become advocates for their children. For children with behavioral conditions, this is even more important because children’s behaviors often can lead to stress and strain on peer relationships and functioning in school. However, there are terms or abbreviations that need to be explained in clear language so families can …
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 …
On improving ADHD care
A colleague of mine published an op-ed in the New York Times on February 1, 2016 “Diagnosis is Key to Helping Kids with ADHD.” As Dr. Froelich states, even though there is strong scientific evidence that ADHD has a biologic basis, there is always concern whether a child truly has ADHD and if it is …
A new handout for ADHD
My passion & ongoing research examines innovative ways (e.g. group visit models, health information technology) to engage pediatric providers and families around common developmental-behavioral and psychosocial topics in primary care. I am a firm believer in improving communication at the point of care. Carefully designed handouts can be used for clear information exchange, can be shared with other …
