Children with ADHD are amazing at living in the moment, which makes them a lot of fun! It also means that they can struggle to plan for the future, even if the future is a few minutes away. The result? Forgotten lunchboxes, messy bedrooms, last-minute panic over a late assignment, and chaotic mornings!

Children with ADHD can struggle with time blindness, staying on task, and avoiding distractions. To help them be more successful, our goal as parents is to externalize these concepts, making them clear and predictable, creating structure in your child’s world.  

One of the easiest (and hardest) ways to do this is to set up routines. While routines can be incredibly overwhelming at the beginning, they ultimately help children with ADHD be more successful because they know what to expect. To help YOU start off on the right foot, here are some of our favorite tools for building routines: 

1. Consider what your child is (and isn’t) capable of right now – and then grow from there.

Think a...

Does your child struggle with writing? If so, you are not alone! When kids come to my (Katie's) office for testing, they are usually happy to play with toys and look at pictures... until I get out a pencil and tell them we are going to write! Writing can be challenging for so many reasons.

I constantly talk with parents who are stressed and overwhelmed every time their child brings home a writing assignment. Don’t worry, we are here to help you understand why this is happening and how you can support your child! 

Writing and language are connected

There is a strong link between writing and language. In many ways, writing is the academic form of speaking, so children who have a language disorder are much more likely to struggle with writing. One longitudinal research study revealed that “among children with speech and language impairment, the cumulative incidence of a writing disorder was 61.4% for boys and 55.1% for girls at age 19 years” (Katusic et al., 2009).

If you are worrie...

Hard to believe we are almost to the end of 2020... and what a year it has been! I (Katie) am really excited for the next few weeks to unplug from everything (literally... thanks a lot 2020!) so I can relax and spend time with my family.

Before I can really be "on break" this season, I have a few things left on my to-do list. It's hard to finish out the year strong! This is true for all of us, but ESPECIALLY our kids with ADHD, learning and language differences, autism, or anxiety. Some days, the hardest part is just getting started! 

A few weeks ago, we shared some of our favorite tools and strategies for getting started. Today, I'm going to be talking about a few more tricks you can use to help your child (or yourself, no judgement here!) get started on a task. 

1. Externalize Time 

Many children (especially those with ADHD) have difficulty conceptualizing time and understanding how long a task will actually take to complete. They may also have difficulty with the passage of time...

How's your week going? Is everybody in your family getting back into the swing of things after the Thanksgiving holiday?! I know that in my (Katie's) family, it has been hard to find motivation for these last few weeks leading up to the end of 2020! 

If you have been following us for any amount of time, you know that we love to talk with families of children with ADHD, learning differences, language disorders, anxiety... but the truth is, this is actually the topic that almost all of us struggle with from time to time. Some days, the hardest part is just getting started! 

If this is you (or your child), we are here to help. In our coming blog posts, we are going to share a few of our favorite tools and strategies for getting started. Our goal is to break down the science behind ditching procrastination and getting things done. 

1. Lead with movement

It has definitely been said before, but it's worth repeating: Exercise is an incredibly powerful tool that helps increase mental clari...

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 (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...

Raise your hand if you have ever asked your child to do something (e.g., finish their math homework, put away their laundry, or pick up toys in the backyard), only to be frustrated when the final result isn’t what you expected? As a momma to two little ones, this can be so irritating to me! It can be discouraging when we have an expectation and it isn’t met. The truth is, we often develop our expectations from a “future picture” in our mind. And when it doesn’t work out the way we planned, we are disappointed. Have you ever…

• Been on a tropical vacation, expecting it to be sunny, and then had stormy weather instead?
• Started on a loop-trail hike, and realized that the trail was much longer than you expected, but you have to keep going in order to get to the end?
• Baked two dozen cookie monster cupcakes, only to have them turn out like this?!?!

If you have ever been disappointed because the outcome didn’t match your expectation, or thrilled because it was even better than you i...

Helping others improve their quality of life and discover the best version of themselves is what I (Ty) live for. I'm not 100% sure when this passion started for me, but my mom often tells a story of me as a first grader that may explain it…

Growing up, my mom was a special education teacher in the Milwaukee Public School District, so it made the most sense for me to attend the school that she worked at. For those of you not familiar with Milwaukee, the majority of the public schools in the district were pretty rough and the kids, even rougher. As a 7-year-old though, I didn't think anything of it and I was stoked to make some new friends at my new school. Being the social and friendly little dude that I was, I quickly made friends with the coolest kids in the class. At first quarter conferences, my teacher breezed through my academic progress stating how proud she was of the progress I was making in reading and math and then came a “BUT”. She went on to express her concern with the "...

Let’s take a trip down memory lane…

I (Katie) have been a speech language pathologist for almost nine years, but I remember my first few months like they happened yesterday. Fresh out of graduate school, working in a large private practice, I was closer in age to some of my clients than I was to their parents… and it definitely showed! Being in my mid-20’s without any children of my own, it was incredibly intimidating to do parent training. Unfortunately for my 26-year-old self, working in private practice means that parents are generally highly involved in the therapy process, so hiding in my office wasn’t an option!

It honestly took me a long time to truly feel comfortable giving parents feedback. Thankfully, I had joined a practice that had several experienced clinicians, and they shared their best strategies for getting parents on board with the therapy process. Over the years, I began to actually enjoy having parents in my office (no hiding needed!), and I learned how much fast...