Edge Foundation Blog

The first significant study to look at the efficacy of coaching in any ADHD population. 

Edge Foundation has begun the second phase of a 27-month study of the nation’s first sizable study to document the effectiveness of coaching for college students with ADHD.

Study highlights:

• A 9 month pilot study underway at Washington University in St. Louis will conclude in August 2009. 
• The controlled field test of 250 students with ADHD at five universities across the country will conclude in June 2010, with the results completed two months later.
• Research outcomes will examine the impact of coaching on college-retention rates; the number of withdrawals from class; grade-point average; student discipline problems; social adjustment and behavior outside class; and adjustment  to college life. 
• Research team is led by a faculty team from Wayne State University, Michigan. 
• Funding for the ground breaking research comes from a $805,000 grant awarded by Deerbrook Charitable Trust and a $40,000 grant from The Foundation of Coaching , both located in New York.

Follow this link for more information about the study.

Are you often worried? Nervous? Jumpy? Self-counscious or insecure?  Did you know these are all symptoms of anxiety?  And axiety disorders are much more common in people with ADHD than you might realize. 

Everyone gets the common cold, right?  Healthy adults have on average 2 colds per year and each cold lasts on average one week. That means that at any one time about 4% of adults will have a cold. 

According to the Surgeon General, at any one time, 16% of our population will have an anxiety disorder. That means Anxiety Disorders are FOUR TIMES as common as the common cold.  And some studies have indicated that as many as 25% of children with ADHD also have anxiety disorder. 

When should you worry about anxiety?

Normal anxiety comes and goes in response to real challenges involving potential loss or failure. Normal anxiety helps sharpen your attention so you can meet those challenges. 

Anxiety disorders involved anxiety that is more intense or lasts longer than normal anxiety, or that leads to phobias. Basically, if you worry when there’s no real threat, to the point where you can’t function normally, that’s an anxiety disorder.

Why haven’t I heard about anxiety disorders and ADHD before?

People know when they have a cold. If it’s so common, why don’t they know when they have an anxiety disorder?

• People may think the anxiety they live with is normal – it’s normal for them after all.
• People may deny their anxiety because it’s not acceptable to be “afraid”.
• People may be so good at avoiding what makes them anxious that they almost never experience the symptoms.
• People may have symptoms they don’t recognize as anxiety-stomach upset, muscle aches, fatigue, insomnia, irritability, twitches, heart palpitations, hot flashes, clammy hands-these can all be symptoms of anxiety.

The primary symptoms of anxiety disorders are fear and worry. But when people have physical symptoms that may mask the real issue, they will seek treatment for those instead. In fact, people with anxiety disorders are 3-5 times more likely to go to the doctor than non-sufferers.

Do you have any of these common symptoms of anxiety? 

Emotional and Psychological Symptoms of Anxiety:

• Apprehension, uneasiness, and dread
• Impaired concentration or selective attention
• Feeling restless or on edge
• Avoidance
• Hypervigilance
• Irritability
• Confusion
• Behavioral problems (especially in children and adolescents)
• Nervousness and jumpiness
• Self-consciousness and insecurity
• Fear that you are dying or going crazy
• Strong desire to escape

 Physical Symptoms of Anxiety:

• Heart palpitations or racing heartbeat
• Chest pain
• Hot flashes or chills
• Cold and clammy hands
• Stomach upset or queasiness
• Frequent urination or diarrhea
• Shortness of breath
• Sweating
• Dizziness
• Tremors, twitches, and jitters
• Muscle tension or aches
• Headaches
• Fatigue
• Insomnia

(Source:  http://www.helpguide.org/mental/anxiety_types_symptoms_treatment.htm)

 An ADHD Coach can help you manage your anxiety

If you’ve been going to the doctor with any of these and not getting relief, you might want to consider consulting an anxiety specialist.   And an ADHD coach can also help you learn to identify your anxiety triggers and things you can do to keep your anxiety under control.  For example, exercise is an important way to minimize ADHD symptoms.  It is also a powerful antidote to many symptoms of anxiety.

You don’t have to live with anxiety, sign up for an Edge Coach and start taking charge of your life today.

ADHD and anxiety resources

For more information about ADHD and anxiety visit:

• http://www.healthcentral.com/adhd/related-conditions-196320-5.html
• http://www.anxiety-and-depression-solutions.com/wellness_concerns/adhd/010305_adhd_disorder.php
• And be sure to check out John Ratey’s book, Spark:  The revolutionary science of excercise and the brain

Do you have ADHD and anxiety?  What have you done to keep it under control.  We invite you to share your story here and help others learn what you have to keep your edge!

Edge ADHD coaches are trained, experienced, dedicated professionals who have a passion for helping young people with ADHD succeed. All our coaches either have ADHD themselves, or love someone who does, so they understand the challenges of ADHD (ADD) from both a professional and personal point of view.

ADHD coaching is a rapidly growing field.  At the Edge Foundation, we have been on the leading edge of developing ADHD coaching standards and curriculum designed to produce ADHD coaches that are ready to work with the unique needs of high school and college students with ADHD.  Some of the field’s top experts have been involved in developing our program including Nancy Ratey, Patricia Quinn and Jodi Sleeper-Triplett.

ADHD Coach Enrollment Qualifications

If you are an experienced life coach with a passion for helping the next generation excel, then we want you to sign up to be an Edge ADHD Coach!  To participate in this Edge Foundation ADHD coach training candidates must have:

• Documentation you have completed at least one of the following:

                  IAAC certification (SCAC or CAC)

                  ICF certification (ACC, PCC, or MCC)

                  Graduation from an ICF-certified school with at least 60 hours of training, or

                  Taken and passed at least 60 hours of ICF-approved training

• a minimum of 2 years of experience as a coach and
• coached a minimum of 10 clients.

If you don’t yet have at least two years and ten clients worth of experience, you may still be eligible for our Associate Coach Program.. Please contact us to find out more.

ADHD coach training begins January 28, 2009

The next Edge Coach Training is filling up fast. It will be taught by Jodi Sleeper-Triplett, the world’s renowned expert on coaching ADHD high school and college students.

In this class there will be a maximum of 20 participants. It will meet weekly for ten weeks starting on Wednesday January 28, 2009 and running through Wednesday April 1, 2009. Classes will meet for two hours on the phone from 12:00 noon to 2:00 pm Eastern Standard Time. There will also be a six month follow up period where you will meet once a month for an hour with your trainer and a handful of other new coaches to ensure you are all getting off to a good start. The course includes a complete coarse manual, an extended reading list, and over 60 pages of copyright-free material and templates for use with your clients.

The fee for all of this is $800.

20 hours of ICF-certified training

Additionally, for those who are applying for or interested in renewing their ICF credentials, the Edge Coach Training and mentoring is ICF-certified. You get 20 hours of ICF-certified training plus 6 hours of ICF-approved mentoring. If you’ve looked into other ICF trainings, this is a tremendous bargain.

Here’s everything you need to know about Edge ADHD Coach Training:  http://www.edgefoundation.org/coaches/certification-training.php

Prices will be going up for the next training offered in the 2^nd quarter of 2009, so if you’re thinking about getting ADHD coach training, now’s the time to join the Edge team!�

Join Edge Foundation Board Member, Dr. Patricia Quinn, at the National Resource Center on ADHD’s Ask the Experts! chat. This month’s topic: Treatment for Women and Girls with AD/HD.

When: Wed., Jan. 14, 2009 – 1:00 pm (Eastern Time)
What: Treatment for Women and Girls with AD/HD.
Who: Patricia Quinn, M.D., Co-Author of Understanding Girls with AD/HD

From the National Resource Center on ADHD’s announcement:

ADHD is a neurobiological disorder affecting 5 – 8 percent of school age children with symptoms persisting into adulthood nearly two-thirds of the time. According to TheCenter: A Resource for Womena and Girls with ADHD current diagnostic criteria continue to emphasize traits common to boys, leaving the majority of girls with ADHD to remain undiagnosed and misunderstood.

Last month, December 2008, Dr. Kathleen Nadeau, one of the founders of TheCenter, discussed “Raising a Girl with ADHD,” and tackled questions mainly geared towards younger females living with ADHD. Due to the overwhelming response, and a number of questions regarding women as well as girls with the disorder, Dr. Patricia Quinn, another founding member of TheCenter, will pick up the topic and expand on it.

Dr. Patricia Quinn will address questions regarding women with ADHD, girls with ADHD and will discuss treatment options, including medication.

Dr. Patricia Quinn is a developmental pediatrician in the Washington, D.C. area. A graduate of the Georgetown University Medical School, she specializes in child development and psychopharmacology.

Dr. Quinn has worked for over 28 years in the areas of ADHD and learning disabilities. She gives workshops nationwide and has appeared on Lifetime TV’s New Attitudes and the PBS show, To the Contrary, discussing the issue of girls and women with AD/HD.

Dr. Quinn is the author of several books on ADHD and is also co-editor of ADDvance: A Magazine for Women with ADD.

Her books, ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER: Diagnosis and Treatment from Infancy to Adulthood and Voices from Fatherhood: Fathers, Sons, and ADHD have been well received. Her latest book, Understanding Girls with ADHD, was coauthored with Drs. Nadeau and Ellen Littman, a licensed clinical psychologist who has worked with attentional issues for more than 18 years, and is groundbreaking in its presentation of this population.

Dr. Quinn lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and four children, two of whom have ADHD. All of her books may be ordered through Advantage Books or by calling (toll free) 1-888-238-8588.

Did you make New Year’s resolutions this year?  It’s not too late to make ones that have a lasting impact on your life, instead of being good intentions that are forgotten by Valentine’s Day.  Here’s how.

New Year’s Resolutions That Stick

How many of your New Year’s resolutions can you remember from last year? Better yet, what are your top three priorities? We all make goals for ourselves, but it’s easy to get swept away with deadlines and distractions lose our focus.

Keeping focused is the key to making New Year’s resolutions that stick.  You can do that with three simple steps:  Keep it simple, direct, and repeat often.

Simple: Identify the top 3 goals
Creating goals for ourselves isn’t rocket science. There are tons of books and blog posts on how to write good ones (see the link to About.com posted below).  What’s harder to do is to make them stick. When we have too many goals to remember, it’s impossible to remember any of them. So just pick three important ones to focus on.

Direct: Shorten your goals into a code word
When you are teaching a child a new behavior, a simple code word communicates a lot more clearly than a lecture does. For example,  ”case closed” means the argument is over, period. Code words, like text messages, focus our thoughts on the bare essentials. Instead of writing “exercising three to five days a week,” you’ll do better with “exercise!” Code words also come across more like imperatives rather than options, making it more likely that you’ll listen to yourself and do them!

Repeat Often: Post your goals in an obvious place
If your goal is out of sight, it won’t be top of mind; and you’re less likely to keep it. If I want my daughter to get dressed in the morning, I’d better not go to the other room to check my email. If I do, I’ll return to find her playing with her Barbies. We all need constant reminders to refocus on our top priority for the moment. So add your goal to your calendar software as a pop-up weekly reminder, or post it on your computer screen. You’re more likely to work on your goals when you are reminded of them often.

Goal Basics

Over at About.com’s Living with ADHD blog, Keath Low suggests seven steps to making realistic New Year’s goals:

• Write down your goals
• Establish a Plan
• Visualize Success
• Buddy Up With a Friend or Family Member
• Review Progress
• Reward Small Steps Toward Your Goals
• Don’t Be Too Hard on Yourself

Edge Coach, Marla Cummins, also published a great post on New Year’s resolutions.  She defines a goal having the following qualities:

• It is your own.
• It is something you can do.
• It is under your control.
• It is very clear and specific, using numbers and measurements.
• It is something in the future.
• Goals are dreams with a foundation..

Yes, New Year’s has come and gone, but it’s not too late to resolve to make 2009 the best year yet! If you have trouble keeping goals you set, you might consider getting an Edge Coach to help you stay on track.

What goals have you set for yourself this year and how do you plan on keeping them.  We’d love to hear from you!

Edge Foundation is pleased to have Jodi Sleeper-Triplett leading our coach training sessions.  Jodi was the first person to offer training courses specifically designed for coaching youth with ADHD.  With the Edge Foundation, Jodi has provided the field invaluable leadership by designing training that ensures consistent use of protocols to provide coaches with the necessary skills and tools to coach students and young adults who have ADHD. 

Jodi Sleeper-Triplett brings over 20 years of experience working with youth and 12 years focused on coaching youth with ADHD. She is in a unique position to know the intricacies of the coaching process that create success with younger clients.  

Sleeper-Triplett was recently published in Pediatric Nursing Journal.  The article,”The Effectiveness of Coaching for Children and Teens with ADHD” focuses on the value of coaching for youth with ADHD and provides specific strategies for professionals and parents working with this population. 

Jodi has acquired coaching expertise from both the life coaching and ADHD coaching arenas. She believes that life coach training is an essential component of her work in ADHD coaching and training.  The Edge Foundation training certification is designed to provide a full complement of skills to life coaches passionate about creating success with young clients, one step at a time. 

The next coaching session led by Sleeper-Triplett will be held on Wednesdays, 12 – 2 PM ET, running from January 28 – April 1, 2009.  

Click here to sign up for ADHD Coach Training.  

The training will focus on:

• special coaching techniques for working with students and young adults;
• the unique needs of students and young adults;
• the special challenges presented by ADHD; and
• the unique needs of students and young adults in academic settings.

Jodi was featured in the winter issue of ADDitude Magazine with her client, David W.  In this issue David W. and Jodi discuss how coaching helped David improve his study and organizational skills, stay motivated and boost his self confidence.

 For more information about how a coach can help you or your child get on track in school, sign up here and we’ll send you more information about working with an Edge coach.