Edge Foundation Blog

Editor’s Note:  Stories from the Edge are real life accounts about how an ADHD coach works - as told by the student receiving the coaching.  This is the second installment from Kelsey Peterson who is a junior at Parson’s School of Design.  You can read her first post here.  We asked Kelsey to tell us what she’s working on this month with her coach.

One thing I’m struggling with this month that my coach is helping me with is balance with my homework.

Handling the reading load for my classes is challenging

I am taking one design class and three lecture style classes. Even though the lecture classes are very interesting and I love going to them getting the reading done for them is hard. They all assign a lot of reading and I’m trying to schedule my weeks to block out time to do them. It’s easy for me to do my design homework and forget about the reading until the morning of that class or the night before.

Using a day planner to make time in my schedule for reading

My coach has been helping me look at my planner and assign blocks of time throughout the week to go to Starbucks or the library and read. It’s been going better but still hard to stick to my schedule at times. During the day my friends and I are all out going to class or hanging out in a similar neighborhood in Manhattan so it’s hard not to meet up and get a coffee with my friends in between classes instead of doing the reading. So I have been trying to balance time with my friends with homework.

Basically I came up with a game plan for one of my classes that meets on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays we have a lecture and on Wednesdays a discussion class about the readings. So my new schedule is that I go to the lecture on Tuesday and do the reading right after so that the reading makes more sense to me and I’m still thinking about and digesting the lecture. This has been working really good and I’m still experimenting with the other classes and when the best time to get the reading for them is done.

When I look at my day planner with my coach I make sure to schedule things appropriately, for example I try hard to plan on doing my homework in the morning because I have mostly afternoon class and I like to hangout with my friends and my boyfriend after six. I don’t have time to hangout with my friends every evening but for the most part I’ve discovered what works best for me is to get up early and do as much as I can - and then after six have fun and relax.

Editor’s note:  This week we are introducing a new column, Stories from the Edge:  Real stories about how an ADHD coach helps.  Today’s post is written by Kelsey Peterson, a junior at Parson’s School of Design.

I knew from a young age that I had a learning disability.  Growing up with a dad who also had a learning disability was the best wish I could have asked for.  Ever since I was diagnosed, my dad stepped in and took control of getting me the best help he could to help me overcome my disability and stay on track with my classmates. 

My friends have always been very important to me.

Staying in my class with my friends was a huge motivation.  In order to not be held back in grade school, my dad helped me get outside tutoring and inside school assistance.  I knew I had to work twice as hard as my friends in school, but it was worth it to be able to sit in class with them. 

It was hard getting constantly tested and going to tutoring every day after school.  When I graduated from grade school I had to go to a special school for children with dyslexia.  I wasn’t happy about it because all my friends went to another school which I didn’t get accepted to. 

For a year at the dyslexia school I worked hard to be the best in my class and I met with my tutor every day.  At the end of that year I applied to Explorer West Middle School (where my friends were) and got accepted!  My hard work paid off, but it wasn’t over…

I still had to work extra hard to stay in 7th grade with my friends.  High school was the same but I got through with my friends.  When I got accepted to Parsons the New School of Design in New York City for college, I knew the hard work wouldn’t stop. 

My dad set me up with an ADHD coach to help me stay on track.

My coach helped me from getting  overwhelmed by the new school, the new city and the struggles that I was about to encounter.  With my ADHD coach I learned time management -  so I could get all my homework done and have fun with my friends.  My coach helped me plan my days and long term projects so they weren’t so daunting.  My freshman year of college I got all A’s and made friends for life.

Why I love the Edge Foundation.

When my dad was thinking about starting a new project and asked me for some suggestions, I thought back on all he had done for me.  From day one of my diagnoses he knew what to do -  he found the best help for me and helped me every step of the way without question.  I told him that I didn’t think all parents were as good as he was with dealing with children with disabilities and he should help other kids fulfill their full potentials.  He went on to found the Edge Foundation.

Looking ahead… Dyslexia and ADHD are not obstacles!

Now I’m a junior at Parsons and I’m majoring in architecture.  I love school and work with my coach to manage and overcome the struggles I still deal with as a person with dyslexia and ADD.  I plan to share some of what I’ve learned with you, so that you can see you aren’t working hard alone, and it does pay off!

Editor’s Note:  Our last blog talked about how ADHD has impacted Nolan Wesselink in school.  This one explores how coaching has made a difference in his life.  For more information about how an Edge ADHD Coach can help you visit Edge Foundation’s Coaching Page.]

Written by guest blogger: Shaina Humphries, University of Illinios- Urbana/Champaign

Aside from his medication and special accommodations, Wesselink makes use of an academic “coach”. Coaches are commonly used in ADHD treatment, and are the main focus of Neil Peterson’s EDGE Foundation.

Peterson founded the EDGE Foundation, so he could help other kids suffering from ADHD, in the same way he was able to help his own two children, who have ADHD and Dyslexia.

“Medications do not work for everybody. They are not ‘the’ answer,” said Peterson. “Medications do not teach skills, but coaches do.”

Coaches like Wesselink’s and those from EDGE work by helping a person with ADHD to organize their life on their own, rather than telling them what to do. The coach meets with a student once or twice per week, and helps him or her with prioritizing, focusing, confidence, etc.

For example, Peterson’s daughter calls her coach for 30 minutes every Monday. She and her coach talk about how everything in her life is going.

“Then she’ll tell him she’s got a big paper due next week, and later she’ll tell him how her friends are coming to visit her that weekend,” Peterson said. “He’ll ask if that will affect her paper. Then she’ll say ‘I should probably write the first part of that paper this week before they visit.’”

What’s important about coaching, Peterson stresses, is that the person with ADHD is doing the thinking, coming to the conclusions on their own, and that’s how they learn the skills needed in life.

Treatment plans for ADHD that include medication, special accommodations and coaching, can be very beneficial to a student with ADHD, and can help the student function normally in and out of college.

Regardless, ADHD is a difficult disorder to deal with, especially in college, and certainly when a student with ADHD has not been diagnosed with the disorder. But, according to Wesselink, with the right treatment, being a college student with ADHD is manageable.

“Since I was diagnosed, I’m always learning more ways to deal with it,” said Wesselink. “I have no doubt that I’ll graduate and have a “normal” job afterwards as an engineer.”

Read more testimonials on how Edge ADHD Coaching changes lives.

[Note: This is part one of a two part story written by guest blogger, Shaina Humphries, University of Illinios- Urbana/Champaign -- Editor]

Nolan Wesselink is an average college student. He’s an engineering major at the University of Illinois, lives in a dorm room, goes to class during the week and goes to parties on the weekend. But there’s one thing about Nolan’s college experience that sets it apart from most others. He has ADHD.

                Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, or ADHD, is a neurobehavioral developmental disorder that can be especially debilitating to college students. College students who suffer from ADHD are more likely to drop out of college than students without the disorder.

According to Neil Peterson, the founder of the EDGE Foundation, and father of two kids with ADHD, “Students with ADHD are 33 percent less likely to graduate from college.”

ADHD is characterized by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity or impulsivity. The disorder, also commonly called ADD, can be present in three different ways. According to the USA Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, someone can either have the predominantly inattentive type of ADHD, the predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type, or the combined type.

People with the predominantly inattentive type of ADHD often do not pay close attention to details, are very forgetful and have a noticeably short attention span. While many people can attest to exhibiting at least one if not all of these symptoms from time to time, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have ADHD.

Peterson has a favorite analogy that he uses to distinguish people with ADHD and those without.

“Sometimes people will walk up the stairs, and when they finally get there, they can’t remember why they walked up in the first place,” Peterson said. “Plenty of people have had this experience before, but the difference is this: people who have ADHD experience this in a chronic fashion, rather than every once in a while.”

The case of the stairs is a perfect example of predominantly inattentive ADHD, but not necessarily the other types. A person with predominantly hyperactive-impulsive ADHD is usually very fidgety, has trouble waiting for his or her turn, blurts out answers to questions that have not been finished, and finally, talks excessively.

“Sometimes I’ll just talk, and not shut up, for like 10 minutes straight, and I don’t even really notice it,” said Wesselink. “I just keep talking, and whoever I’m talking to obviously notices it, and probably gets offended, but I won’t even notice that I’ve been talking that long until after the fact.”

Wesselink has the combined type of ADHD. This means he experiences various symptoms from both categories, inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive. However, like many people with ADHD, Wesselink was diagnosed late in life. He was diagnosed just a year ago, during his freshman year of college.

Since many of the symptoms are thought to be simply bad behavior, extra energy, or just a part of a personality, many of the people in the U.S. with ADHD do not even know that they have it. According to Peterson, 50 percent of people with ADHD have never been diagnosed.

“I had a friend who had it [ADHD], and he was telling me about the things he was going through, and I thought ‘Hey, that sounds exactly like me,’” said Wesselink. “So I went to McKinley to get screened. After what ended up being a three-month-long process of tests and doctor visits, I was diagnosed.”

Wesselink also said the biggest problem for college students probably isn’t the disorder itself, but the fact that so many people are unaware they have it. With all the academic demands, increased independence, and distracting environment, untreated ADHD students are likely to fail.

“If I wasn’t getting treatment , I can basically guarantee that I would have failed out by now,” Wesselink said.

In fact, Wesselink almost dropped out of school as recently as last semester. After being diagnosed, different medications were tested on him, but many of them had unbearable side effects.

Aside from depression and a strong urge to give up on school, Wesselink said, “I had severe mood swings, one made me lose my appetite entirely, and one made me very angry and short-tempered. One even made me sweat.”

Even dorm life is greatly affected by Wesselink’s ADHD. Anthony Perez, his roommate and close friend, said Wesselink’s ADHD affects his life, too.

“A lot of times there will be tension in the room. He’ll have mood swings,” said Perez. “If he’s studying and I do something that distracts him, he’s completely screwed. He can’t just go right back to studying like most people. That leads to problems.”

Perez also said that the side effects from Wesselink’s medications would cause fights and uncomfortable living conditions, so he was glad when Wesselink eventually found the best one and stopped switching medications.

However, medicine is definitely not the only method Wesselink uses to treat his ADHD. He receives treatment and special accommodations from U of I’s Disability Resources and Educational Services, or DRES.

With DRES, he is able to take his class exams in an environment conducive to people with ADHD. He takes his exams in a plain cubical with minimal noise and distractions. In this space, Wesselink is able to concentrate, or “hyperfocus” as he calls it, on his exam, so he doesn’t make nervous mistakes that he would make in a normal classroom environment, filled with distractions and a time limit.

Next week:  How an ADHD Coach changed everything