One question on so many parents' minds is, "When and how do I talk to my child about their diagnosis?" Today, Jessica Snider is sharing her journey over the summer diving into ADHD resources for tweens. After doing endless searches to find tools for her daughter to learn more about her ADHD, she came up empty handed. So she set out to create a presentation to educate her daughter about ADHD and empower her with the unique strengths that she has resulting from her ADHD. Thank you, Jessica and Bailey, for sharing your story on the blog today!

ADHD Resources for Tweens are in Small Supply

If you are like me, a mom of a “tween” struggling to balance maturing hormones along with her ADHD, all the while being stuck, um, I mean safe at home, you may be finding yourself at a loss on how to help! My daughter Bailey is 12 going on 20!  She is full of spunk and happiest when she is busy. 

Thankfully she understands the safety reasons for quarantine, but understanding doesn’t decrease ...

"There are no right answers to wrong questions.” – Urusla K. Le Guin

Hi there! Katie here. Today, I am making the case for why I have the best job. OK, I'm kidding. Sort of. What I should actually say is, I'm a speech language pathologist who gets to work directly with a team of psychologists. On most of our diagnostic evaluations, we are able to collaborate and do both psych and speech/language testing, and I love having both disciplines work together. 

One of the first things we tell families who come to our practice is: If your child has a diagnosis of ADHD (or autism, developmental delay, or a learning disorder), a speech language evaluation is an important part of understanding the whole picture of your child's strengths and needs. In this blog, I will address the primary questions that parents have about speech language evaluations for children with ADHD. 

Why does my child with ADHD need a speech language evaluation? 

Most people understand how important language testing is for  autistic children. Since social communication is part of autism, ...

After receiving your child’s diagnosis of ADHD, it can be an overwhelming task trying to find the best treatment option to help both your child and family. Many of you do a quick google search or join a Facebook group and attempt to sift through the never-ending recommendations. Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to more confusion and overwhelm. There are so many factors involved in getting help for your child, including options for in-person therapies where you live, cost, time involvement, and effectiveness of the treatments.

Today, we are discussing one of the most effective, non-medical treatment interventions for ADHD—behavior therapy!

Behavior therapy is the only non-medical treatment for ADHD with a large base of scientific evidence. Because of this, it is recommended that behavior therapies begin as soon as a child receives an ADHD diagnosis. Behavioral therapies also do not produce the unwanted side effects that occur with medication that are a concern for most parent...

“I tucked my kids in last night and said, ‘See you in the morning!’ and then we laughed and laughed. Saw them 16 more times before sunrise.” - Unknown

A question I was sure to never miss when first meeting a family, whether for an evaluation or therapy, was, “How’s sleep for your child?” The most common reaction from parents? An eye roll.

I get it. As a mom to two little ones, it seems unfair the discrepancy between how much I love sleep and how much they, well, don’t.

But, before I could really help any family better understand their child’s development, increase their connection, respond to challenging behaviors, or manage worries… we had to make sure that sleep wasn’t a contributing factor. We’d be fighting an uphill battle to address these issues with an overtired child.

Often times, we are able to “clean-up” sleep with some quality sleep hygiene practices. And no, sleep hygiene is not about going to bed clean (though that doesn’t hurt!). Sleep hygiene, or positive sleep...

I (Lori) once had a father come in for testing for his 5-year-old son. The father noticed sensory differences with his son (e.g., overreaction to noises, sensitivity to touch, clothing), so he had taken him to an occupational therapist for testing and treatment. After a few months, he was making some progress, but his kindergarten teacher was still very concerned about his behavior. His father was then referred to me, a psychologist, for more testing to look into ADHD. When I first met with the father, he expressed the typical ADHD concerns: his son had difficulty paying attention, was very distractible, disrupted the learning of other children, and was constantly moving and talking. He was completing little work at school due to his lack of focus.

However, there were also other concerns which were characteristics of autism. For instance, he had never really made friends with anyone and was often fighting with other children at recess. He liked to spend a lot of time at home lining up...

You know when you first have a baby, and everyone says things like, "The days are long but the years go by fast!" and other irritating, um, insightful comments like that? In some ways, parenting during this pandemic feels very similar. On one hand, my (Katie's) kids have already eaten all of the snacks and done every single thing on the to-do list by 8:47 a.m., leaving me to wonder how we are ever going to make it through the day! On the other hand, it's already well into April... excuse me, what? How is time able to go so fast and yet so slow at the same time? For all of us, things are just crazy right now.

Check in time 

So... we want to check in with you! Tell us, how are you doing? Let me just say that you are all on our minds these days. Truly, we just want to know how we can serve you best. As we Skyped for our team meeting last week, our originally planned blog post topics seemed a little bit trivial when we started thinking about everything going on in the world. So we shifte...

Weekly check in time! How is everyone doing? This week has brought countless changes, and for most of us, a little (or a lot!) of added stress as we adjust to this new “normal.” We are right there with you, and we are figuring it out with our own families too! As schools move forward with plans to implement remote learning, we are getting daily questions from parents, such as:

• How do I support my child with ADHD when they are not motivated to work at home?
• What is the best way to balance my adult responsibilities (working from home, taking care of other children, managing all of this stress) along with making sure my child doesn’t fall behind academically?
• How will my child’s needs be met if they are on a 504 plan or an IEP?

 While we have no expertise in pandemic management, we do know a lot about child development, the parent-child relationship, and special education needs and resources. In trying to think about how we can support you during this time, we decided to bring tog...

Navigating the school system with an exceptional child can be stressful. As a parent, you’re looking to get your child the help they need, while being thrust into a new world of acronyms, policies, and procedures that can feel downright mysterious.

Back when I was still a practicing child psychologist, I lost count of the number of families who, in complete sincerity, asked me where to move in the entire Phoenix-metro area in order to go to the school that would best support their exceptional child. Countless families were prepared to go to the lengths of a significant life event (moving!) in order to make the school process even just a little bit easier!

Understanding Individualized Education Programs (IEP) and 504 Plans, their similarities, and their differences is a great place to start in your advocacy journey. While there is a lot to know about these two documents (seriously, I took a semester-long course in graduate school focused almost solely IEPs and 504 Plans), I’ve narrowe...