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Going to college when you have ADHD is challenging.  It’s nice to see that people are starting to talk about it. Two recent articles, 18 Critical Factors For Successful Post-Secondary Transition by Joan Azarava, and Learning Disabilities: Stepping Up to the Challenge in the New York Times, both give good advice about how to make the move to living away from home and adapting to the rigors of a more challenging academic environment.

ADHD students don’t need tutors as much as they need coaches

What struck us at the Edge Foundation, however, is that neither article mentioned personal coaching.  High school students have built-in structure and accountability living under their parent’s watchful eye.  In the free-wheeling life of college, however, students face a set of very predictable challenges.  Challenges that going to the tutoring center or getting extended time on their tests will not address.

As Edge Foundation founding board member, Dr. Patricia Quinn points out,  ”While most colleges provide services for students with disabilities, these programs often are not a good match for students with ADHD. While some students with ADHD may need tutoring because they have gaps in their academic skills, or note takers because they have trouble listening in a large lecture, these services do not address the basic problems students with ADHD experience in forming routines and developing a schedule to keep up with their work.” Coaching Students with ADHD: Issues and Answers (Quinn, Ratey, and Maitland, 2000)

For most college students with ADHD the problems are not so much in knowing what to do, but in getting it done. As one student said, “I know how to plan. My problem is very simple; I just don’t follow my plans. I need help making sure that I do what I say I am going to do instead of procrastinating and getting sidetracked by other things.”

ADHD college survival skills are not taught in the learning center

Ms. Azarva rightfully points out the need for students to learn how to persevere, delay gratification, and set up organizational systems that work for them. “The sooner you work on these three things, the easier college will be.”

However, these are exactly the things students with ADHD are weakest in. These skills are not taught at the learning center. These skills are best taught by a personal coach who thoroughly understands ADHD.

Most colleges don’t offer personal coaches

There are over 4000 colleges and universities in the U.S. Of these, only a few dozen offer personal coaching to their students. Yet more and more are finding that personal coaching is the critical piece that’s been missing for their ADHD students. One Director of Student Services found that he and his staff were spending most of their time helping students with ADHD manage themselves and their academics. When he learned about the effectiveness of ADHD coaching techniques, he did his research, got a grant, and put his entire staff through training. That community college is one of the very few colleges or universities nationwide that provide personal coaching for their students with ADHD. If you work with an Edge Coach, your options of where to go to college and have access to coaching open up considerably.

Find a ADHD coach now, so you are ready to go in the fall

One of the nice things about Edge Coaches is they all work on the phone. This takes transportation right out of the equation. You can start working with your coach over the summer and, because you don’t meet in an office, you can “take your coach with you” when you go off to school. You get to your appointments just by picking up the phone, so there’s no commute and you can easily fit your appointments into your schedule. And, by virtue of a phone/email relationship, you stay in much closer touch with your coach than you would if you had to go to an office. This extra contact can make all the difference in being able to stay on top of things.

Think about getting started even before you leave for college. Those first few weeks are guaranteed to be overwhelming, and your coach can help you stay on track. The numbers show that in college it’s surprisingly easy for students with ADHD to fall behind. Getting your first term grades and finding you’ve tanked is a Christmas present no one wants to get. So, start thinking now about getting ready for the fall.  Look into getting an Edge Coach to help you keep it all together.

Edge Foundation is joining other leading experts during the months of May and June for the 2009 ADHD Family Summit. This free event is being organized by Rory Stern, a passionate advocate in the ADHD community. The tele-seminars will be held Monday and Wednesday evenings at 9:00 pm Eastern (8:00 Central, 7:00 Mountain, and 6:00 Pacific), and includes access to a 24-hour replay line for people who aren’t able to listen in live.

Topics include understanding the ADHD brain, giftedness and ADHD, supporting family members when they need it, working memory, attention master and more. Edge Foundation’s Neil Peterson and Sarah Wright will be presenting Coaching for Teens - The Power to Succeed Academically, Socially, and in Life. Neil’s personal story and Sarah’s experience will be simply one call NOT to miss!  The date of the Edge Foundation presentations are still being finalized, but if you sign up for the series, you’ll be sure to get the news!

While this series officially kicks off on Monday night, May 4th at 9 PM EDT,  a special pre-series call has been scheduled for this coming tomorrow night, Wednesday, April 29th.

One of the biggest for people with ADHD is time management strategies.  Tomorrow night we’ll be talking time management strategies with a very special guest on the topic.  Sign up today to get the details on how to listen in on this exciting pre-Summit interview.

Ever tried to do two or more things at once?  Like doing homeworkand listening to your music?  Or listening to a talk and doodling your notes?  Did it work for you?

Those secondary “mindless” tasks (the doodling and the listening to the music) are what the Edge Foundation’s Executive Director, Sarah Wright, calls fidgeting.

A bored ADHD brain is a sluggish brain

“Everyone thinks of fidgeting as those restless movements we do when we’re bored, but really it’s more than that,” she explains.  “One of the things we know about an ADHD brain is that when it gets bored, it gets sluggish.  Literally.  In brain scans of people with ADHD doing boring repetitive tasks, we can see that pretty quickly the pre frontal cortex slows down.  One of the reasons stimulant medications are thought to work for ADHD is that they correct for this.  When compared to the general population, it is pretty clear people with ADHD just require a higher base level of stimulation to stay comfortably alert and focused.”

Fidgeting helps people with ADHD stay focused

Fidget to Focus is the book Sarah co-authored with Dr. Roland Rotz.  They make the case that instead of being a distraction, certain mindless tasks-like listening to music or doodling on paper or chewing gum or standing up at your desk-are really ways to help self-regulate and stay focused. Fidget to Focus was just featured in ADDitude magazine online.

She explains, “All adults self-regulate with sensory-motor activities.  When we get tired of sitting at our desks, we get up for a cup of coffee.  We switch on the radio in the car to keep us interested while driving.  We maybe splash some cold water on our faces to perk up.  Even as adults we need the right balance of sensory-motor stimulation to keep us in our comfort zone.

“Kids need more.  They need more frequent, more intense, and more variety of sensory-motor stimulation than adults does to stay in their comfort zone.  If you try to take those stimulating things away, they’ll just find something else.  And this is true for all kids, not just those with ADHD.  But because of the way the ADHD brain works, people with ADHD will essentially always need more stimulation than those without ADHD. It’s just a matter of degree.”

Three tips for self-regulating with fidgeting:

Sarah and her co-author emphasize three important points in Fidgeting to Focus that you can start using today.

1.       The great thing about fidgeting is that it’s perfectly natural.  Everyone does it.  The trick is to do it intentionally.  If you do it right, you can manage your ADHD symptoms in a way that’s totally unnoticeable to everyone else.

2.       It’s important to fidget respectfully: doing it in a way that works for you but that doesn’t bother the people around you.  For example, clicking your pen repeatedly during a meeting might not be so cool, but fiddling with a paperclip under the table would be soundless and invisible.

3.       It’s important to realize that a good fidget shouldn’t compete with the primary tasks.  For instance, if you need your eyes for reading, listening to music will be a better fidget than watching the TV.  If you need to listen, doodling or pacing will be a better fidget than being plugged into your iPod.

And ADHD coach can help you figure out which fidget help you focus, and which ones are getting in  your way.  We’d love to hear from you.  What fidget works for you?

Editor’s Note:

University of Central Florida study confirms fidgeting helps kids with ADHD concentrate as reported in the Orlando Sentinal, May 25, 2009.

Continuing our series on safe teen driving (see teen driving risk and safe driving book review), we offer some high tech (and low tech) tools to help your teen become a safer driver.

Low Tech Resource to support safe teen driving

Have you driver complete the Safe Driving Pledge.  It’s a great way to open up discussion about what skills make for a safe driver and to clarify your expectations for your teen’s driving behavior.  Cost:  Free

High Tech Teen Driver Safety Hardware

DriverZed

DriverZed program from AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety is an interactive computer program that trains young drivers to identify and deal with both common and unusual traffic situations before they get on the road.  Cost $24.95.

We know one youth who tried it really liked it.  His family reports he did it once all the way through and made all sorts of mistakes.  Then he did it again and did it perfectly.  He was proud to have mastered it and talked about all the things he’d learned (and then had fun correcting his parents on their driving mistakes on one or two occasions!)

Drivecam

The Drivecam is a tool you install on the review mirror of your car.  It records a video of your teen while they are behind the wheel.  The Drivecam gives your teen a sense of accountability - even when you aren’t in the car with them.  And when a driving error serious enough to trigger the recording (a sharp change in speed or direction) happens, the data are there for later evaluation and learning.

This program isn’t cheap.  But it’s been proven to be so effective that customers of American Family insurance can get the service for free at www.teensafedriver.com.  Cost: $899 for first year, $30/month after that.  See website for complete package details.

GPS Tracker

You may also want to consider a GPS Tracker that tells you where the car is at any given time.  http://www.rmtracking.com/teentracking.html

CarChip

A CarChip a small unit that plugs into your car’s on-board diagnostics and reads and stores driving and engine performance (available at many locations.  You can read a review this product in the Washington Post.

What have you done to help your teen become a safer driver?  We’d love to hear from you.

Dear Coach,
“Help!  I just got back from Spring Break and my project is due - I forgot all about it!”
Signed,  Cringing

Dear Cringing,

Well, hope you were having fun on Spring Break at least, because the time between now and when that project is due isn’t going to be any fun at all. You are just going to have to buckle down, put aside every extraneous activity, and just do it.

How an ADHD Coach can help

The issue here is not how can a coach help you deal with an emergency - like forgetting all about a major project until just before it’s due.  It is how a coach can help you avoid ending up in emergency situations in the first place. Wouldn’t that be nice!

One of the characteristics of ADHD is a tendency to shoot from the hip, or the “ready, fire, aim” syndrome. A coach works with you over time to develop better planning and self-management skills; skills that will help you manage your time and your things so you’re on top of your work and the rest of your life and not overwhelmed and behind all the time.

Getting back on track:

That being said, if you find yourself in a time pinch and are feeling overwhelmed, try this:

Assess your time:

• Get two 8.5×11 pieces of paper.
• Use the first page to sketch out a calendar for the upcoming days: columns for the days and rows for the hours. Mark them appropriately.
• Block out on your calendar plan all your classes and other necessary time commitments.
• Block out when you’ll be sleeping and eating.
• On the second page, list all the other things you have to get done.

Prioritize:

• Give the things that have big consequences for not getting them done the higher priority. Give the other things lower priority. You can even let them fall off the list for now.
• Break your project into smaller bits:
• Divide up the time that’s left on your calendar for the high priority things on your list. For a paper, for instance, block off a portion of the time to do/finish the research, a portion of the time to brainstorm and/or write a draft, and a portion of the time to produce the final draft and hand it in.
• If it looks like you have extra hours left on your calendar plan, look to the next higher priority tasks and start scheduling them until you run out of hours in the day.

Stick to your plan!

• Keep the plan with you 24/7. Put it in your agenda, or your flip phone.
• Keep checking your plan.  Stick to it to the best of your ability. If it’s 1:00 pm and your plan says you should be done with lunch and working on the draft, go work on the draft. Remember, it is an emergency plan to get you through a tough spot. One way or another, it will be over soon.

Then sign up for an Edge Coach

Once you’ve met your deadline, get yourself a coach. Your coach will help you plan better so that next time you won’t get into this pickle. By working with a coach, you can stay on top of your work and have fun too!

There’s been so much attention the past few  days about whether Ritalin is effective for treating ADHD, you may have missed the news that fidgeting can help manage ADHD.  That’s right, fidgeting actually helps kids with ADHD stay alert.  Time Magazine reported last week that a new University of Central Florida study shows that ADHD kids move around in order to help them stay focused.  In fact kids with ADHD may actually learn better when they are fidgeting!

Teachers in Minnesota and Wisconsin have been experimenting with flexible desks that allow children the option to either stand or sit at them.  The New York Times reported that researchers from the University of Minnesota have been studying the impact of these flexible desks on the academic outcomes of children using them.

Finally, a study published in the journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology shows that doodling actually improves your ability to remember details, rather than indicating your mind is wandering.

Here at Edge, we know that fidgeting can be used successfully to help manage ADHD symptoms.  In 2005 our Executive Director, Sarah Wright, co-authored, Fidget to Focus:  Outwit Your Boredom: Sensory Strategies for Living with ADD.  Next month we’ll tell you more about this book that started it all! In the meantime, take a look at these reports - perhaps they’ll give you ideas of things to do at school or work to improve your focus.  An ADHD coach can also help you discover which strategies work best for you.

Did you already know that fidgeting was a way that helped you focus?  Tell us about it.  We’d love hearing from you about how you keep your edge!

The statistics on ADHD teens and driving are scary. How do allow our teens to drive, but make it safer for our kids behind the wheel?

AD/HD & Driving - A Guild for parents of Teens with AD/HD, by J. Marlene Snyder  is the first and only book on ADHD, teens, and driving.  It is a must-read for all families who have or are contemplating having a teen with ADHD as a driver in the household.  (Note:  The book is out of print, but you can still find plenty of new and used copies on Amazon.com and other ADHD book selling sites.)

ADHD teens are neurologically more prone to speeding, and accidents.  And it’s critical that parents set clear expectations for ADHD teens when they get behind the wheel.

Chapter titles include:

When you have finished reading the book you will be armed with strategies to use to encourage safe driving behaviors in your teen — observation tools, topics to that require extra emphasis, work sheets and sample contracts.

An ADHD Coach can help your teen be a safer driver

Teaching your ADHD teen these new skills can be challenging.  We interviewed Marlene Snyder about the role of a coach in helping your ADHD teen be a safe driver.  Watch it here.  Next time we’ll outline some other tools that are on the market that can help you be sure your teen is driving safely - even when you aren’t in the car.

What have you done to keep your ADHD teen driver safe?  Here are a few ideas for your teen driver to consider.  Please leave us a comment and share what’s worked for you.

The statistics on ADHD teens and driving are scary. How do allow our teens to drive, but make it safer for our kids behind the wheel?

AD/HD & Driving - A Guild for parents of Teens with AD/HD, by J. Marlene Snyder  is the first and only book on ADHD, teens, and driving.  It is a must-read for all families who have or are contemplating having a teen with ADHD as a driver in the household.  (Note:  The book is out of print, but you can still find plenty of new and used copies on Amazon.com and other ADHD book selling sites.)

ADHD teens are neurologically more prone to speeding, and accidents.  And it’s critical that parents set clear expectations for ADHD teens when they get behind the wheel.

Chapter titles include:

When you have finished reading the book you will be armed with strategies to use to encourage safe driving behaviors in your teen — observation tools, topics to that require extra emphasis, work sheets and sample contracts.

An ADHD Coach can help your teen be a safer driver

Teaching your ADHD teen these new skills can be challenging.  We interviewed Marlene Snyder about the role of a coach in helping your ADHD teen be a safe driver.  Watch it here.  Next time we’ll outline some other tools that are on the market that can help you be sure your teen is driving safely - even when you aren’t in the car.

What have you done to keep your ADHD teen driver safe?  Here are a few ideas for your teen driver to consider.  Please leave us a comment and share what’s worked for you.

Did you know that you’re not fully grown up until you’re 25?

That’s right!  Your brain keeps growing well past the time you reach your full height.  Studies by the National Institute of Health and UCLA show that the risk assessment area of the brain isn’t fully developed until age 25.

Teen drivers at risk

So it shouldn’t be a surprise then, teen drivers are at risk when driving.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, teens are only 7% of licensed drivers, yet they account for 14% of fatal collisions.  In 2003, 3,657 teen drivers were killed, and an additional 308,000 were injured in crashes (Source:  AAA Foundation of Traffic Safety).  Put another way,  that means a 16 year old is twice as likely to have an accident as someone in their 80s!

The property damage costs of teen driver accidents is staggering - over $31 billion each year.

ADHD teens - an even greater driving risk

A few sobering facts about ADHD teens and driving. When compared to other teens…

1. ADHD teen drivers are seven times as likely to have been in 2 or more accidents.
2. ADHD teen drivers are two times as likely to have a speeding ticket.
3. ADHD teen drivers are five times as likely to have a traffic citation.
4. ADHD teen drivers are four times as likely to have been in an injury accident.
5. ADHD teen drivers are four times as likely to have been at fault for the accident they were in.

Families of ADHD teen drivers have a higher risk of:

1. Serious injury or death of their child,
2. Property damage,
3. Higher health care costs,
4. More involvement with legal and liability issues, and
5. Higher motor vehicle insurance rates.

Do we keep ADHD teens from driving?

Of course not! Driving is an important rite of passage in this country. It gives freedom and responsibility to our young adults and helps families manage complicated schedules.  BUT…

There are things you can do to keep yourself (or your teen) safe in the early years of becoming a skilled driver.  Next time we’ll show you how.

Have questions about ADHD teens and driving?  Ask them here, and we’ll do our best to answer them in a future post.

If you’ve recently received an ADHD diagnosis, you’ve probably spent a lot of time looking at web sites, books and videos to learn more about ADHD.   There is a lot of information, and misinformation, about ADHD on the web.  We’d like to help simplify that step in your journey by providing a list of top recommended books and videos in the field.

You may not be aware that the Edge Foundation board and advisory boad has consisted of some of the leading experts on ADHD (ex Nancy Ratey, Dr. Patricia Quinn and Dr. Ned Hallowell).  So you can trust that the resources we list are accurate and based on sound scientific evidence.

ADHD Coach can help sift through it all

One of the things an ADHD coach can help you with is sifting through all of the resources out there.  A good coach has read most of the books, received substantial training and keeps up with the latest therapeutic and scientific studies.    Sign-up today and a coach will contact you within the next business day to get started with your personal action plan.

ADHD Management by Russell Barkley

If you are interested viewing a long, but comprehensive, video about ADHD Management, check out this one.  Dr. Russell Barkley is one of the leading scientists studying ADHD today.  He is Professor of Psychiatry at Medical University of South Carolina and Suny Upstate Medical University and has written numerous books on the topic.