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...

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...

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 "...

At the beginning of the year, many of us set goals for ourselves. Perhaps you set a goal to be healthier, travel more, or apply for that promotion at work. Lori talked last week about setting 2020 parenting goals and gave several concrete strategies to help you meet those goals. I’m sure you have a lot on your plate already, but I’m going to add one suggestion for the new year: make it a goal to read often with your child (no matter how old they are!). There are many wonderful reasons to read with your children, and this becomes especially important if they have a diagnosis of ADHD, autism, learning disorder or language challenges. In fact, research shows that reading with your child can help improve your child’s executive functions, as well as social skills, comprehension, vocabulary, and the list goes on.

In the interest of transparency, I need to share that for me personally, reading to my children (ages 3 and 5) sometimes feels like a chore at the end of a long day. My kids have a...

When I was still in practice as a child psychologist, it was a disheartening reality that, by the time most children were walking through my door for a diagnostic evaluation, their struggles were longstanding. Often, it had gotten to the point of failing grades (or having to repeat a grade!), ineffective school interventions, or a tumultuous home situation with parents at their wits’ end (we have more free resources if school or homework is a struggle). In any of these situations, as you can imagine, the child themselves is just as frustrated as the adults who are trying to help them.

During diagnostic testing, there is a lot of one-on-one time with the child, engaging them in conversation and tasks. These tasks, by design, push children to their limits. It is in these moments that I really got a glimpse into their (usually) internal dialogue... and it was, more often than not, not very kind.

“I’m stupid.”

“I’m not good at math so I can’t do this problem.”

“This is too hard.”

“I’l...