Introduction to ADHD

Introduction to ADHD

With Dr. Emily Kerner

Hi, everyone. My name is Emily Kerner, I’m a psychologist and a consultant with the

Disability Programs Specialized Services team at the Cree Health Board, the DPSS team. And today, I will be talking with you about ADHD. So today’s presentation is an introduction to what ADHD is. We’ll talk about what it is, what it looks like, and how we, whether you’re a parent, a community worker, a teacher, a clinician, any professional working with someone with ADHD can best support the people that you live with or you work with who have ADHD.

So this is really an overview of ADHD. We will go into a little bit of detail, but not a ton of detail today. There will be some additional presentations in the future that go into more detail about some of the topics that we’ll be reviewing and discussing today. But today’s presentation is really meant to be a general overview of what ADHD is.

 

To tell you a little bit, more about myself and, how I come to this topic and presentation that I’m giving to you today. So, as I mentioned on The psychologist, I work in private practice. A lot of the work that I do in my practice is with, ADHD, specifically adults with ADHD. So I have a lot of clinical experience working with ADHD.

 

On the more personal side, I myself have ADHD. So as we go through the presentation today, I will be sharing some examples, both from, my clinical work, with people with ADHD as well as some personal examples that help give you a bit more of an understanding of what ADHD looks like in real life.

 

So we have three key objectives for the presentation today. So my hope is that by the end of the presentation, you’ll have learned three, three things. Three of the following things. So firstly what makes the ADHD brain different.

By the end of the presentation, I hope you’ll also have learned the difference between ADHD and other mental health conditions. And thirdly,variety of different strategies to support someone who has ADHD.

So at the end of today’s presentation, you’ll have a chance to reflect or I hope that you have a take a chance to reflect more on what you learned.

And so I just have a couple of questions to kind of help guide you as you listen today and as you learn about the information. So you can ask yourself these questions at the throughout the presentation as well as at the end.

 

as you’re listening today, maybe think about what’s one important thing that you’re learning. And as you finish the presentation, hopefully you can reflect on and at least think about one important thing that you learned today. And then also, hopefully at the end of the presentation, you can think about one thing that you will do to make your home, your work, your school, your clinical practice, whatever capacity you work in, more ADHD friendly.

So obviously you don’t have the information yet. You don’t have to reflect on these questions just now. But this is I’m presenting these to you now so that you can, use these to guide as you listen today.

So let’s get into the topics that we’ll cover for today’s presentation. So first we’re going to review what is ADHD.

Next. We’re going to talk about how the ADHD brain works. After that we’re going to talk about how do I know if it’s ADHD. So how do I tell other mental health conditions apart from ADHD. And how do I know if it’s ADHD or something else? And then finally, we’re going to talk about what you can do to support someone who has ADHD.

So we’ll start with the first question what is ADHD? So you can take a moment if you have a piece of paper in front of you, you have a phone that you like to write things in or computer, you can take a moment and maybe jot down some ideas. If you don’t have anything in front of you, you can still just take a moment and reflect and ask yourself this question.

What is ADHD? If you’ve never heard of ADHD, that’s fine. If you think you’ve heard of it, but you’re not really sure, that’s also fine. There’s no, no one’s expecting you to have all the information in the knowledge right now. It’s really just to think about if you’ve heard of ADHD, what do you think it is? What might it be from what you know?

So just take a moment and sit quietly and reflect on that.

Okay. So let’s dig in a little bit further and see, what ADHD really is. So ADHD stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. So what ADHD is, is a neurodevelopmental disorder. So what neurodevelopmental means is that it’s a disorder that affects the brain and the nervous system. And it develops it’s developmental in that it starts in childhood. So people don’t develop ADHD later on in life.

They may get diagnosed later in life, but there will be signs of the ADHD symptoms early on. So there’s a childhood onset.

And then it’s something that the person lives with and grows with throughout their life. So ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects a person’s behavior as well as their social and emotional functioning. So as you’re going to learn today, ADHD affects a lot more than our ability just to sit still or pay attention, which is what most people think of when they think of ADHD.

 

It does cause those things, but it’s really a disorder that causes, this or that’s characterized by a difficulty regulating or managing attention. So people with ADHD actually have quite a bit of attention. So it’s really not a deficit of attention. They have a lot of attention, but they struggle to use it when and how they want.

So not being able to manage your attention, as you can imagine, will affect things like being able to stay on task, to focus while you’re talking to people. And it can also impact your energy levels, as well as how you feel or express emotions that you have. So having these kinds of challenges can make people feel really different from their peers.

And then it can be hard to make friends. It can, be hard to feel like you’re included. It can be hard to feel good about yourself. So actually, a lot of people with ADHD, especially those who get diagnosed later in life, actually end up feeling a lot of shame about the difficulties and symptoms that they have.

So, as you can see, ADHD does affect attention and, things like being able to sit still, but that then affects how somebody interacts with other people, how they feel about themselves. So although ADHD stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, it’s actually about so much more than lacking attention. And for this reason, actually, a lot of experts say that the name Attention deficit Hyperactivity disorder actually is really not a great name for it at all, as it doesn’t really describe all of the ways that ADHD affects someone.

So I’m going to briefly review with you now what ADHD is as a diagnosis. Before we talk in more detail about what it’s like to live with it, or how we might see it in the people that we that we know. So what ADHD is as a diagnosis or in other words, what’s the medical understanding of ADHD is that it’s a set of symptoms that are divided into hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention.

So a person can have symptoms that are mostly hyperactivity and impulsivity. They can have symptoms that are mostly inattention or they can have symptoms of both. So when we’re diagnosing ADHD there’s ADHD, hyperactivity impulsivity. There’s ADHD inattentive type. And then there’s ADHD combined type. So to give you a couple of examples of what kinds of symptoms these are hyperactivity impulsivity symptoms include things like restlessness fidgeting feeling like you’re being driven by a motor.

Like there’s some kind of engine or motor internally that’s making you move, making you, keep moving and unable to sit still. Difficulty sitting still is another hyperactivity impulsivity symptom interrupting, blurting things out. Things like having difficulty standing in line or waiting your turn. By contrast, the inattentive symptoms are the ones that include poor attention, difficulty concentrating, being easily distractible, so having a hard time staying on task and staying focused and daydreaming is another inattentive symptom.

So people with the inattentive symptoms or with the inattentive type of ADHD will not have the hyperactivity or impulsivity symptoms. We used to call this subtype of ADHD, ADHD, which stands for Attention Deficit disorder. But that’s not a term that, experts use anymore. So now all ADHD is called ADHD. It’s either with or without hyperactivity. So if you hear people say A.D.D., we’re now talking about ADHD, inattentive type and then combined type of ADHD is when a person experiences all of the different symptoms, so hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention.

So let’s hear a little bit more about ADHD from specifically from the perspective of a child who lives with it. So I’m going to play you a video now of a boy named Steven. And as you watch this video, he’ll he’ll be talking about his ADHD symptoms and what that’s like for him to live with. As you watch and listen, see if you can pay attention to and notice both what he’s saying.

So listen to what he’s saying about what it’s like for him to have ADHD, but also pay attention to his body language. You can look at how he’s moving, how he’s talking about things. Pay attention to where his eyes go while he’s talking and see if you can pick up on anything that might be some of the symptoms that I just described to you.

So you can take a moment and just notice or reflect on maybe some of the things that you picked up in watching Steven as he’s talking. I will, point out a few things that I want you to take away from this or that are really important. So one of the things that he talks about is basically that he can’t trust his brain to work the way that he needs it to.

So almost like his brain is working against him, right? He talks about it’s like somebody stole the things that he’s trying to look for. So he can’t trust that he might have put it somewhere that his brain is going to remember those things. He also talks about feeling these. It’s very stressing. He talks about feeling embarrassed by his ADHD.

It seems really obvious or evident that he feels really different because of his ADHD. And he’s aware of this. And he talks about losing track of things all the time. If you were able to pick up on it, I think usually people can that you can notice some of the fidgeting that happens for him, and his eyes sort of look around and, it’s almost like he’s losing track of his thoughts while he’s trying to, speak and while he’s trying to get his thoughts out and he’s kind of fidgeting, he’s got his hands moving and, he’s looking around and it seems actually like it’s kind of hard for him even to stay

on task while he’s talking about this. So I think this gives you a good example. Both of, you know, the descriptions of what he says about what it’s like to live with ADHD, but then we can also see it in his face and in his movements. What, having ADHD can be like, especially for kids.

So I really want to make this point, clear. And I really hope that this is something that you will remember and take away, with you when when you’re thinking about what ADHD is that ADHD symptoms, do cause distractibility and hyperactivity and inattention, but they also cause behavioral and social and emotional challenges. So people with ADHD may struggle to pay attention in school or at work.

 

They may struggle to sit still during a meal. Or focus while they’re trying to pick up their toys or clean the house. They struggle to organize their thoughts and their things. But ADHD also, like I said, affects a person socially. So because they struggle to stay organized, they might blurt things out in conversations, or they can always finish their stories in their sentences, or they get very distracted and weren’t even listening to what their friend just said, or having trouble following a story that a friend is sharing.

This can make it really difficult to make friends and to keep friends, and this can leave people with ADHD to feel isolated, to feel embarrassed, and maybe even fearful of ending up without any friends or without anyone who understands them. So, as I mentioned earlier, I have ADHD and one of the things that I used to express all the time to my, to my parents was you just don’t understand me.

And it felt very true at the time and still does actually. Sometimes. And I think this is what a lot of kids and a lot of people with ADHD experience is that people just don’t understand them. So again, ADHD affects so much more than our attention, our organization and our time management. And so we’re really going to understand our family members or people we work with with ADHD.

We do need to understand all the ways that it impacts their lives. Okay. So we just talked about what ADHD is. And now we’re going to talk about how the ADHD brain works. So although we still don’t know exactly what causes a person to have ADHD, we’re starting to understand that a little bit more. But we don’t have one specific cause that we understand.

We do know, though, that ADHD causes the brain to function differently. So what we’re going to do next is review some of the specific ways that, the ADHD brain is different from the brain of somebody who does not have ADHD. And hopefully this will help you better understand ADHD as more than just a problem with attention and focus.

So one of the things that Steven in the previous video helped us to understand is how ADHD affects what we call a person’s executive functioning. So executive functioning is our ability to plan, organize and prioritize information. So when you plan and organize a birthday party for for example, or when you’re following a recipe, this is you using your executive functioning skills.

So Steven actually gives us a lot of great examples of what happens when you’re executive functioning. Skills aren’t quite working. You lose things, you have a hard time following along. You forget where things are. So when are executive functioning? Skills are not working for us. This is what causes some of that Distractibility that difficulty organizing, having a hard time doing things in a, in in the steps that they’re supposed to be done in, in that order.

So you can think of this like trying to get a movie made without a director or with a director who’s not really directing very well. So all the necessarily necessary people, equipment and props are there, but the director can’t remember maybe what order the scenes should be filmed, in, what time everyone needs to show up, or maybe even which actors go in, what scenes.

So as you can imagine, that movie, might never get made. Or if it does, it might actually take something like three times longer than expected. Does that sound familiar? If you know someone with ADHD, it might. So if you know someone with ADHD, you likely know exactly what that looks like and exactly what that feels like. Something like party planning that takes way longer than expected.

Toys that are constantly missing, or maybe sewing or knitting projects that are started at the very last minute, or never get finished at all. So as you can imagine, it feels like chaos because it can’t be. And it is sometimes without good working executive functions, it’s very difficult to get things done on time and in the right order.

So my personal example of this is, the first time that I went shopping, grocery shopping with my husband, he was completely confused about the way that I went about doing it. So he wanted to go neatly up and down the aisles one at a time in order. And I had the grocery list and was trying to follow the list and wandering around the store and going to look for the items one by one as they were on the list, which, as you can imagine, meant that it was taking a lot longer.

I was confused, didn’t know where things were. I’ve since learned and, have adopted a different way of doing it and doing it in more of an order. But that first time that we went together, he was completely confused about how I was going about it. And this is part of that executive functioning skills. It didn’t occur to me or makes sense to me, to go neatly up and down the aisles, which obviously makes things a little bit smoother and more quick.

So let’s now go into more detail about how the ADHD brain works and why it leads to these executive functioning difficulties. So the first thing that we’re going to talk about is a process in the brain.

That’s called the default mode network or the DSM. In. So in all brains, whether the person has ADHD or not, the DMT is the process that turns on when we don’t really have anything specific to do. It’s what makes us daydream, think about ourselves or other people in our lives, or make sense of something that happened the day before.

So it’s that part of our brain or that process that happens in the brain when we’re not really doing anything specific. We’re not working on a task. We’re not focusing on anything in particular. If you think about this, your brain isn’t us, but you’re not necessarily focused on something. So you might be having thoughts about anything that’s unrelated to what you’re doing or where you are.

Just something interesting that maybe you thought of the day before. So or that happened the day before. So this is the default mode network at work. So when the default mode network or the DNN is working as it should, it will turn off when we have a task that we need to do. So for example, when we need to start cooking.

If you need to start cooking dinner, that process, the default mode network is going to turn off. So you can focus on the recipe, or you can focus on the tasks that you need to complete in order to cook dinner. And that helps so that you’re not daydreaming while you’re also cooking. So in this situation, the default mode network is going to turn off so that you’re not distracted by unrelated thoughts, and you’re able to focus on the steps required to make the meal.

So a way to think about this is that the DMN is like your smartphone on standby. So like when you put it in your pocket when you’re not using it. So you can think about it when your phone is on standby. There are some background processes that are still working right. Even when you’re not using it. Your phone is still receiving texts.

It’s still receiving or or sending notifications. It might be running apps like your email or your social media in the background so that when you open those apps, all the new posts or, emails are going to be right there when you, when you look at it. So all of this is happening in your phone, even when you’re not looking at it, but when you pick it up, it’s going to your phone’s going to wake up and turn back on, ready to be used.

So this is how the DM works in a neurotypical brain. So a which is a non ADHD brain. So it the DM will power down when you have something else to do. And it’s going to keep that background log of memories and thoughts so that you can easily come back to them when you’re finished your task. So that sounds great, right?

Well, only if you don’t have ADHD, because unfortunately, the default mode network actually is kind of faulty or doesn’t work exactly that way for people with ADHD in the ADHD brain, the DM does not turn off, the does not turn off the way it should, so it’s always on. So this is like a smartphone that won’t power down.

So the ADHD brain never goes on standby. It’s daydreaming, thinking about yesterday and tomorrow, reflecting on something maybe that was said yesterday, or that you heard yesterday. Remembering a TV show that you watched the night before, or show that you were thinking about a show that you want to watch that’s coming up soon. So for people with ADHD, this is happening.

The DM is working even when they’re trying to do a task that requires their full attention. So remember the DM and for people with ADHD is always on. So you can think of this like your smartphone with ten apps running at the same time, all trying to compete for battery power and memory, that phone is probably going to run the app slowly.

 

Some of them might even freeze or start to malfunction. This is actually a lot of what it feels like to live in an ADHD brain. If the DM is always on, you can imagine it’s really hard to focus, concentrate, and use your brain the way you want. So it actually is like your brain is working against you because there’s just too many things fighting for that same one slice of attention.

 

So I’m going to show you a video now that I think shows a really good example of that fault in ADHD. So while you watch it, I want you to pay attention to a few different things. So in particular, see if you can notice this background voice. You might actually think it’s a radio or kind of a TV or something on in the background, but it’s not.

It’s actually the woman’s inner dialog or that DM running in the background. So you’ll hear what she’s saying about the tasks that she needs to complete. But you’ll also hear this second background voice that’s the DM. And so see if you can pick up on that. There’s some singing, some humming, some other thoughts, words that are kind of on top of her regular voice or that you hear as a second voice on top of that.

So this is what it’s like inside the mind and brain of a person with ADHD. And as you’ll see, it can be quite exhausting. So pay attention to those things. See if you can pick up on them. And then, after we watch the video, I’ll comment on a few of those things to help you out.

Do the dishes first and once I put those in the dishwasher, most words will be over. Yeah. We will focus on. Those are so dirty. I never stupid. Okay, let’s close this. Start it, and we’ll just hand wash the washing and washing will be fine.

To do that, do I need to clean?

That up cabinet. Do you have this? If I want just. Let’s just do that. Really good. That changes. Well, I’m going to have to go and do that for clarity.

That’s what my mind is.

So much to do something about that that you can record. Okay. Let’s see. So I have you know that I’m looking in the dishwasher. Next up there’s a bunch of dishes in the sink. Funny, I’m trying to find a drying rack so that I can wash other dishes based on things I also can’t see. The drying rack on the counter is like, clear off the counter to clear off the counter.

See that the cabinets make room for the stuff that cabinets to that I need to store and get garbage tags so that I can see even.

The books about any book that is perfect, I just need to use them. Has to do one. Okay, so there’s a couple of different things that kind of jump out from this video. So were you able to pick up on that DM running in the background, that background voice, you might have actually thought that it sounded like a couple of other people were in the room with her.

Or like I said before, that there was some kind of, TV or radio running, playing in the background. That wasn’t that actually really was, a representation of the DM and running in, in the background in her brain. So it’s almost like there was three different people speaking at the same time. If you picked up on, associations that her brain was making, she says keys, keys, keys, keys.

 

Sounds like Chrissy. So that’s part of the DM and just kind of veering off and going on a tangent with a thought. She also actually some of the DM is self-critical and commenting on herself. You know, I think she says something like, how could you have forgotten to do this or what’s wrong with you? So there’s that.

Also that that voice that’s in there as well. But you can see it’s also this stream of, the stream of thoughts that kind of never get completed or attended to. And every thought is connected to another and then brings up another thing to attend to or to do. So doing the dishes becomes emptying, the dishwasher becomes getting, the drying rack becomes cleaning, the cabinet becomes returning a library book.

And you can quickly see how one task that she set out to do all of a sudden becomes seven. And then she never actually does the first task right? She set out to do the dishes, and then by the end, she’s got seven tasks to do. And I think you can hear the overwhelm and anxiety and exhaustion actually in her voice by the end of the video, because she likely was actually quite exhausted and felt like she had worked hard and her brain was actually working hard to try to keep track of all of these things, but then didn’t actually do the kitchen cleaning at all.

And so this is really what happens when that default mode network stays on. It makes one thought or task turn into many. And then because there’s so many different competing thoughts, it can be difficult to figure out how to prioritize them or figure out what’s what’s first, what’s most important. And then often what happens for a lot of people with ADHD is that this feels exhausting and you feel like you’ve worked really hard, but on the outside, it doesn’t look like you’ve actually accomplished anything.

And then that feels really frustrating. So this is, this added piece of what happens when the default mode network stays on all the time.

Okay. So we just reviewed how it faulty default mode network is one of the main causes of the ADHD symptoms that we see. And next we’re going to review three other causes of ADHD symptoms. And the next three are all what we call unique characteristics that are commonly shared by people with ADHD, but not shared by those by people who do not have

So the characteristic that we’ll talk about first is what’s called the interest based nervous system.

So for people with ADHD they have what we call an interest based nervous system. So in general our motivation and interest in doing things is managed by a chemical in the brain that we call dopamine. So people with ADHD actually have lower levels of dopamine in their brain, and they also have a harder time using the dopamine that is available to them.

So the ADHD brain, again, just to repeat that, has lower levels of dopamine and has a harder time using the dopamine that is available. So when compared with the non ADHD brain, as you can imagine, the ADHD brain is going to need more dopamine to get motivated or kind of activated or turned on in order to do a task.

And how do we get more dopamine? We do that by doing things that are fun, challenging, new, exciting, engaging, or by putting ourselves in what we call high stakes situations. So, for example, like leaving all the packing for a trip to the hour before you’re supposed to leave, or not starting a project or an assignment until the night before that it’s due.

And this is actually one of the reasons why we see a lot of impulsivity in people with ADHD that often they’re looking for that dopamine. They don’t necessarily realize this is what they’re doing, but they’re looking for seeking that dopamine that will actually, that their brains are lacking, that’s going to help them actually get turned on, motivated or activated to get the thing done.

So when you see people with ADHD doing this, they’re not trying to be difficult. They’re actually trying not to be bored. So a personal example is for for me, sometimes I find that I will end up interrupting people or finishing other people’s sentences. And, sometimes it’s because I’m impatient and I can’t wait to the next extra second for the person to get the word out, and that by jumping in, it keeps me engaged and interested in the conversation.

It’s not always ideal because it means the other person gets interrupted, but I’ve learned that or understood that. That’s a way that I try to stay engaged and really connected to the conversation. So I’m hoping that with understanding a little bit of dopamine and, how the ADHD brain is lacking in dopamine and then is seeking that, that if you see a child with ADHD acting in ways that seem sort of chaotic or even dangerous sometimes, what might seem mindless to you, that you’ll understand this as their interest based nervous system at work, trying to keep them focused, alert and engaged.

So really, the key piece that I want you to take away from, from this information here is that for people with ADHD, they really have a hard time getting motivated to act or follow through with the task if they’re not interested, engaged, or excited about, the task that they’re going to do.

Just going to go with this. So, again, the important piece is that for people with ADHD, they have an interest based nervous system. And so it’s really that the brain needs or needs something interesting to pay attention to, to latch onto or something new, engaging, exciting, challenging. And so if you see somebody procrastinating or not doing something that you’re asking them to do, somebody with ADHD, this isn’t necessarily a conscious choice.

They’re not choosing not to engage in it. They’re not choosing to procrastinate. It’s that their brain might actually not be. It might not have the dopamine that they need to get that thing done, or they’re just not interested or engaged in that specific activity. So a person with ADHD has that interest based nervous system, which means, again, that their brain only gets switched on or activated when the task is interesting.

 

So if you look at the image here, you can see that when the tasks are interesting and when there’s lots of different things that the ADHD brain can focus on, it’s going to be active, excited, and kind of full of color. So it’s not that people with ADHD don’t understand what you’re asking them to do. If you ask them maybe to clean their room and they’re they’re not doing it, it’s not that they don’t understand what you’re asking.

And it’s not that they don’t understand that there might be consequences to them not cleaning their room, it’s that their brain actually isn’t, able to kind of get them motivated in that moment to do the thing because it’s not interesting to them. So what’s really important is that we actually need to make those activities seem interesting or be interesting for the person, and then we’ll actually see that they’ll start to, get up and do something.

So if we make, cleaning their room, something exciting, something interesting by making it into a game, for example, you probably will see the person, actually do do the cleaning that you’re asking them to do.

So an important thing to note about the interest based nervous system is that it can cause some chaos. Sometimes in that, you know, the person is not doing the things that they’re being asked to do. And, it might be very frustrating for the people in their lives, but with one of the other things that happens with an interest based nervous system is that it also leads kids and people with ADHD to actually focus really intensely sometimes on things when they are interested in them.

So as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, it’s not that people with ADHD actually have a true deficit of attention. It’s actually that they have all kinds of attention that they need the right amount of dopamine to help them use effectively. So actually, when people with ADHD are interested, they can actually focus very well, or even what we call hyper focus at times, where they get really interested in what they’re doing, it almost can’t pull themselves away.

Sometimes they’ll actually lose track of time. They might even forget to eat. They might forget to get up and go to the bathroom if they need to, because they’re so interested in so focused on what they’re doing. And, their brains are really, really actively engaged. So like I said earlier, the best thing that to do, if we need somebody with ADHD to, for example, clean their room, is to find ways to make that activity interesting or engaging.

And this could be like, like I said, turning it into a game of, making it a video game. Or maybe for your kid, it’s that they’re a superhero kind of swooping in to save the day by cleaning that room. So you can be creative with this, but make it fun. So the more that we kind of create an activity that is fun and interesting, you’ll see that kids with ADHD can actually do the thing you’re asking them to do.

So again, when kids with ADHD or people with ADHD are interested, they can focus.

 

Okay, so just to recap, that was the common ADHD characteristic of having an interest based nervous system. The next thing that we’re going to talk about is emotion regulation difficulties, which is another characteristic that people with ADHD have in common. So emotion regulation in general is how we feel, cope with and express all of our different emotions. So this means positive emotions like excitement, joy, happiness and negative emotions like sadness, anger or fear.

Emotion regulation is basically what we do with all of those feelings. So in general, people with ADHD have a much harder time regulating or managing their emotions in when compared with people who don’t have ADHD. So people with ADHD tend to have what we call big feelings, feelings that they that they feel more intensely and actually have a much harder time managing than people without ADHD.

So when feeling positive emotions, people with ADHD can be loud, boisterous, talkative, extra excited, over-the-top, happy. So, for example, this might be the child who comes home from school and kind of throws open the door and starts talking a mile a minute and can’t wait to tell you about all the amazing, incredible things they learned that day. When that same person is feeling negative emotions, it might be the kid who comes home from school, storms through the door, throws their boot and jacket across the room, and starts screaming about how everyone in school is stupid and they never want to see them again.

If you know someone or child with ADHD, this might sound familiar. So again, ADHD causes big feelings, big emotions that make it, that make the person who’s feeling them feel like sometimes they’re going to explode if they don’t let out the feelings right now. So as you can see, kids or people with ADHD, struggle with emotion regulation, and it’s not because they don’t care or that they’re not trying hard to regulate or manage those emotions.

It’s actually because their brains are wired in a way that makes those feelings really big, intense, and hard to manage. So it’s really important that we understand that when we see the people in our lives with ADHD act in these ways that seem really sort of, out of proportion to the situation.

Okay, so now you’ve learned that the ADHD brain causes a faulty default mode network, an interest based nervous system and emotion regulation difficulties. All of these are characteristics that lead to the symptoms we see in the people we know with ADHD. The final thing that we’re going to talk about as it relates to the ADHD brain is what’s called rejection sensitivity dysphoria.

So rejection sensitivity dysphoria, or ASD for short, is an internal experience or kind of a feeling in the body that a person with ADHD has when they feel rejected by someone in their life.

RSV comes not only from actual rejection. So maybe a friend who doesn’t want to hang out with you, but also the perception of being rejected.

 

So feeling like my friend doesn’t want to hang out with me. Another way to say this is that a person with ADHD is highly sensitive to being rejected or feeling rejected by another person. When someone with ADHD feels rejected, they will feel it really deeply, sometimes to the point where it can actually take days to feel better or days to kind of get over it.

RSV can often even show up for people as almost a physical pain. So sometimes people describe it as kind of like being punched in the stomach or stabbed in the in the chest. So for me, when I experience RCD, it’s what I call kind of like this overwhelming cloak of shame, like the opposite of an invisible invisibility cloak.

So instead of being invisible to others, it’s almost like I feel totally exposed and like there’s nowhere to hide. So everything about me feels like it’s on display. And in that moment, everyone can see how weird and awkward I am. So what’s important to note is that RSV is not the same thing as anxious thoughts or anxiety. It is actually a physical feeling.

So for me, it’s kind of this feeling of like flu. I don’t like it. I want to crawl out of my skin and go hide in a dark corner somewhere, so I don’t actually feel anxious. It’s not an anxiety thought, it just feels sort of off. And actually, for myself, I’ve learned that the best way to cope with the RSV is to actually go find a quiet place.

And then remind myself that the feeling will go away in a few days and actually, what I found is that a few days later, not only are the physical feelings gone, but I can almost not remember what set off this feeling. To start with. Okay, so another quick recap. We’ve reviewed four different characteristics of the ADHD brain and how it causes the ADHD symptoms that we see or live with.

So the first was the default mode network, that phone that never goes on standby. Second is the interest based nervous system or the inability to activate or motivate unless it’s for something interesting, challenging, new, or urgent. Number three is emotion regulation difficulty. So feeling emotions intensely and not being able to manage them very well or having difficulty managing them.

And finally, rejection sensitivity dysphoria that overwhelming, often physical feeling of despair or sadness after an experience, a real or perceived rejection.

So we just reviewed many of the challenges and differences that people with ADHD experience. But many people who work with or know someone with ADHD at some point hopefully also recognize the superpower that ADHD can be sometimes. So some everyday examples of ADHD superpowers are things like humor, the ability to multitask. So doing multiple things, you know, keeping multiple things going at the same time, being spontaneous, having a sense of adventure, excitement about new things, new places, new activities, and being able to find creative solutions to problems.

And I talked about hyper focusing before or really intensely focusing on something even that can be a superpower, because that intensity can actually lead to great things, like, for example, really deep knowledge of a subject, knowing everything about something or being involved in getting think, doing some really super creative art projects. So there are a lot of benefits and a lot of strengths that come along with ADHD.

But remember, for many people, many kids, especially with ADHD, these superpowers are often in hiding or they’re not able to see them as something positive. So for a lot of kids, their ADHD actually feels like a burden or something that makes them feel like too much for other people. So to really let their superpowers out, they will need a lot of support and a lot of encouragement from the adults in their lives.

It’s incredibly important for people with ADHD, especially kids with ADHD, to hear about the ways that other people see their ADHD as a superpower. It can be hard to notice sometimes when there’s lots of chaos and lots of challenge with the ADHD, but it is important to notice and look for those superpowers in the people that you that you know with ADHD and most kids won’t believe you when you first tell them that there’s an ADHD superpower that you notice.

But if they hear it often enough, I promise you they will start to see it for themselves. I’ve seen this many, many times in my clinical work, with people with ADHD. Once you start to point out the ways that their ADHD is actually a strength or something positive for them, over time they all of a sudden start to notice it for themselves.

So if you if you like, if you need, this would be a good time to pause the video and take a bit of a break if you need to step away. And then we’ll continue after a short break.

Okay, so hopefully you had a chance to take a little bit of a break. So we’ll come back to the presentation. And up to this point, just to reorient you, we’ve discussed what ADHD is and how the ADHD brain works to cause those executive functioning and emotion regulation difficulties that are so classic and characteristic of ADHD. Next, we’ll answer the question how do I know if it’s ADHD?

So in other words, how can I distinguish ADHD from other disorders or behaviors that look a lot like it?

So you can take a look at this image and think about what else might be going on in a person’s life that could lead to things piling up, not getting completed, or to the person feeling overwhelmed or maybe buried in stuff and things to do. So ADHD can lead to a desk that looks like this. But what might be some other things happening in a person’s life?

Or what might somebody be experiencing or going through that, might lead them to have a desk that piles up and for them, feeling overwhelmed.

So we’ll talk about a couple of those things now. So firstly sleep deprivation. So you can imagine or you can think about times maybe that you have had a couple of really difficult nights of sleep, some insomnia or for other reasons. You haven’t been able to get as much sleep as you need and had a lot of difficulty, maybe with your memory or concentrating or staying on task.

 

So this is one of the things. Sleep deprivation is one of those things that can look a lot like ADHD, poor memory, distractibility, maybe some inattention and daydreaming difficulty focusing. If it is sleep deprivation, these symptoms typically will disappear after several really good nights of sleep. Maybe sometimes we need a little bit more, depending on how long we’ve been struggling with sleep deprivation.

But generally, if it’s a sleep related issue, those symptoms are going to disappear after some good nights of sleep. So what’s important is that if the symptoms only appear after a period of very poor sleep, or disappear after a few good nights of sleep, then it’s probably not ADHD. When you were looking at the image before, you might have thought that stress can cause a build up of things to do, a desk that becomes really messy, or a person who feels really overwhelmed.

So stress or burnout can actually cause a person to be or seem disorganized, overwhelmed, distracted, forgetful. Stress can also cause someone to be kind of very fast paced or kind of what we call high strung. And this can actually look a lot like the hyperactivity and impulsivity of ADHD. If it is stressful, these symptoms will typically disappear once the person has fewer stressors in their life.

So few things that are, fewer things that are stressed, that are causing that stress, or will also disappear. Often if they are able to learn some good tools and some good coping strategies to manage their stress. And if it is something stress related and not ADHD, those

typical stress management strategies will actually work for that person to manage the stress better.

We’ll talk a bit later in the in the presentation about how sometimes those strategies don’t work for ADHD, but if it really is stress related and not ADHD, the person will be able to stop experiencing those symptoms as much when there’s less stress in their life and when they’re able to manage it better. So if the symptoms appear after a period of high stress or disappear once the stress is gone, it’s probably not ADHD.

Depression is another condition that can look a lot like ADHD, specifically in terms of the inattention and the distractibility. So those inattentive symptoms of ADHD and depression also affects our working memory or short term memory. So our ability to hold, memories or information in our mind as we’re learning things or as we’re being spoken to, for example.

So people who are depressed can have trouble finding their thoughts, they can have trouble accessing their thoughts or finishing their sentence or trying to figure out exactly what they’re trying to say. If it’s depression, it’s typically going to be, what we call episodic. So it’s not going to necessarily be something that the person has experienced their entire life.

 

Sometimes that’s the case, but that’s more rare. So when we’re talking about a period of depression, it’s going to be a specific episode of that. And the symptoms will show up when they weren’t present before. So as you might remember from the beginning of the presentation, ADHD is present from early childhood and is something that doesn’t go away.

It doesn’t come and go. It’s there consistently or what we call chronic. So that’s something important to remember. If the symptoms show up, only at a certain point in a period, certain period of a person’s life, it might be more depression. So to summarize, if the symptoms appear only after a period of low mood and disappear once your mood has improved, it’s probably not ADHD.

Anxiety also can look like ADHD. Anxiety can cause distractibility forgetfulness difficulty sitting still. So if you think about a period of time, maybe that you’ve experienced some anxiety, you might remember feeling, fidgety and, like you couldn’t sit still and you have a hard time taking in information that people are giving to you or people are saying to you, so totally anxiety.

Apart from ADHD, it can be helpful to look at the types of thoughts that the person is having. So this isn’t I’m going to explain this in kind of what sounds like a very kind of black and white way. It’s not always this easy to tease these things apart, but I’m explaining this in this way so it can maybe help you sort of see some of those differences.

So if the person is distracted or if they’re the thoughts that they’re having are, start over. So if the person is distracted because they’re constantly worrying and so the thoughts are very, worried kind of thoughts, then we’re looking at something that’s most likely anxiety if the person is distracted, even when the thoughts that they’re having are not anxiety or not anxious or not worrying, then it very well could be ADHD.

So it helps to kind of look at what’s causing the distraction and what kinds of thoughts the person is having. So if the symptoms only appear when the person is anxious and disappear once the anxiety has gone down, it’s probably not ADHD.

So the last condition or the last, the last thing that we’ll talk about in, distinguishing ADHD from other conditions is trauma. So trauma actually affects very similar areas to the brain of ADHD. So many people who have experienced trauma or a series of traumas will also have difficulty with executive functions. Emotion regulation and impulsivity. And trauma can also cause people to become what we call hyper vigilant or kind of on high alert and fearful of people or situations that remind them of the traumatic event.

And actually, we do have a lot of evidence that ADHD having ADHD can make a person, at higher risk of experienced trauma, experiencing traumas. So while there is actually a lot of overlap between ADHD and trauma, we also know and we have evidence that the two conditions are not the same thing. So ADHD and trauma can, occur at the same time in a person, but they’re not the same thing.

 

We’re still working to understand all the differences between ADHD and trauma, but we do know that they’re not the same. So it does become a little bit more complicated to tell the difference between ADHD and the effects of trauma when or if the trauma occurred in childhood. But generally, if the symptoms only appear after a traumatic event and disappear when the event or the fear of the event happening again has gone down, then it’s probably not ADHD.

So if you are interested actually to learn more about or to understand more about the similarities and differences between ADHD and trauma, we do have another presentation, that I’ve done that actually looks at the differences and compares ADHD with trauma, and it’s up on our DPS website as well. So, if you want to learn more about it, you can check out that video that we have for now.

What’s more important to know is, or what’s important to know is that trauma and ADHD can look very similar. And it’s possible for a person to have both trauma and ADHD. And this is really one of the reasons why it’s very important to get an accurate diagnosis from a health or mental health professional so that we can better understand what’s causing the difficulties.

Is it trauma, is it ADHD? And actually, this is really true for any of the conditions that we just talked about. It’s really important to get an accurate diagnosis so that we really understand what’s causing the symptoms.

So how do you get a diagnosis? So in general, there are two kind of main ways that a person can receive or seek out an ADHD diagnosis. The the first is what we call a neuropsychology assessment or a neuropsychological assessment that is completed by a neuropsychology or a psychologist. And then the second type of assessment is what we call a clinical assessment, which is basically kind of an interview, or a doctor, a psychologist who kind of asks diagnostic questions, which means ask you about the symptoms that you might be experiencing and checks to see if you have those symptoms of ADHD.

But it also includes questions about medical history, social history, emotional and mental health history, and can sometimes also. That interview can also include filling out a questionnaire of ADHD symptoms. So these are the two main ways that we can look for or seek out an ADHD diagnosis. What we really do recommend for especially school aged children and so younger children and adolescent, as well as for any adults who might be doing an academic program or for any reason might need some accommodations or some, some supports, whether it’s at work or in school.

We really recommend the neuropsychology assessment for this. So if it’s a child and adolescent or an adult who’s in an academic program, we really highly recommend the neuropsychology assessment because that’s the type of assessment that’s going to give not just the diagnosis, but also much more information about strengths and challenges. And it’s going to have much more, full recommendations for accommodations and ways that the person can best be supported for their ADHD.

 

So the clinical assessment is not necessarily recommended as the only source of diagnosis for children and youth, because they typically will need those accommodations. And the recommendations that come from neuro psych assessment. But that can often be a first step to get that clinical diagnosis, especially if there’s long waitlists. And what you’re looking for is some support and maybe some medication.

That clinical assessment can be a first step. And then we would recommend still doing that neuroscience assessment. Sometimes for adults the clinical assessment is enough. And specifically maybe if the adult is really seeking some maybe therapy or some, some medication to treat the ADHD or maybe to be referred for some behavioral interventions but doesn’t need those accommodations, the clinical assessment might be enough.

So what I want to highlight here is that ADHD must be diagnosed by a health professional. And then an ADHD diagnosis is made on those very specific criteria, like the ones we discussed earlier, the hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention, and that having an accurate diagnosis is really essential, if especially you’re looking for accommodations for school or work or if you’re seeking medication, or other types of treatments that might be tailored specifically to ADHD.

So having an, accurate diagnosis is essential and very important.

Okay, so we’ve now reached our final topic for today’s presentation. And I think it’s a very important one, and hopefully one that you will, Be able to gain lots of skills from. And this is the question of what can I do to support someone with ADHD. So one of the first ways that we can support someone is to consider at least consult about medication.

So medication specifically what we call stimulant medication is considered this first line treatment for ADHD. And there is a lot of evidence that medications stimulant medications work. So in brief or just a brief overview of it to what stimulant medication stimulant medications do is they stimulate the nervous system by helping to increase the dopamine available. In the brain.

So remember from earlier that’s what’s lacking in the ADHD brain. So the medications actually stimulate the nervous system, and help to increase the dopamine that’s available. So for most people with ADHD, these medications actually work very quickly and very effectively. That may not be the case for everybody, but the majority of people who, seek medication do find that it’s very effective.

There can be some side effects. But when you find the right medication at the right dose, it can have really, really important, huge benefits. So many people with ADHD actually talk about medication as being almost life changing for them. I’ve had many clients come into my office who were reluctant or hesitant to take medication, and once they did, came back and said, I had no idea that I would be able to live like this, I had no idea other people were able to focus and live like this.

 

And I can’t believe I didn’t do this before. So that being said, we at DPS are not here to push medication on anyone. It’s always a personal choice, but we do very much advocate for people with ADHD or maybe parents of children with ADHD to at the very least consider medication and talk to a doctor about trying it out.

For the majority of people with ADHD, finding the right medication is like putting glasses on for the first time. So if you’re someone who wears glasses, you might remember, maybe you didn’t even realize that you couldn’t see all that well, or that you had blurry vision until you actually put your glasses on for the first time, and then all of a sudden, everything feels much clearer.

This is very much what it’s like for people with ADHD when they start medication, that all of a sudden everything seems sort of clearer. And actually for a lot of people, even though the medication is called a stimulant medication for people with ADHD, it can actually feel very calm, calming to to be on the medication. And that was actually my experience taking medication for the first time was that it felt, like everything just slowed down and I felt very calm, and had no idea that there was that much sort of internal restlessness and, hyperactivity that I was feeling until I tried the medication.

So again, we’re not pushing the medication on anyone, but we do know that it has huge benefits and like I said, can feel like putting glasses on for the first time. So while today’s presentation won’t go into, a lot of detail or much detail at all about the different kinds of medications and all the possible options for medications, what I do want to highlight today is that the ideal medication and dose for you or your child, is a medication that gives the maximum benefit with minimal side effects.

So the maximum benefit means the most symptom reduction. So the most benefit in terms of reducing symptoms with the least amount of side effects. So this is obviously something to be discussed with and consulted with about about with the doctor, who can properly decide what medications to try and when to start you or your child on medication for ADHD.

And actually for some people, it can take different trials of different medications and trying different doses to find the right one. For some people, the medication works right away. And this the, ideal dose is found within a couple of weeks. And but the process is very individual. So it can require some patients. But we do know from research, from clinical practice that, medications consistently kind of show us or the, the information consistently shows us that medications do work.

Okay. So while medication is extremely helpful to manage symptoms of ADHD like those distractibility symptoms, hyperactivity, it can be really helpful with staying on task and focusing on one thing at a time. It doesn’t cure ADHD, so there’s no there’s nothing that we that we have or that we know that will actually cure ADHD. So even with medication, there’s still symptoms that the person is going to experience, that they need other kinds of tools to, to learn to help manage.

 

So, we do still need to have other kinds of methods and tools. So there are lots of things that people with ADHD can can try, can practice, can learn to do that will help them stay organized and on top of daily tasks. And these are the strategies that I’m calling your own personal ADHD toolbox. So I’ll review some of those.

Now. So, I’m going to play another video of Steven, if you remember him from the from earlier in the presentation, when he was talking about what it’s like for him to live with ADHD. So in this video, he’s going to talk about some strategies that actually help for him to get organized and stay organized. I first had to learn like looking at where like so and then there like that, where like I have one homework folder and I very am like 175,000 because I am one of them.

I feel they’re like, oh, I know what this one is folder. I looked and I saw that one was like at home, like, oh, my backpack over here. So how I organize I thought, is that he writes words that like throws up. And then I think about what I did. It feels very much, now I can throw rocks or play Godfather like.

Yes, file to organize again. So firstly, hopefully if you remember the first video, you can see the difference right at the end of the first video that we saw of Steven. He’s he’s sad and stressed about his ADHD. And now after talking about his, strategies that that work for him, he feels a little bit more confident, a little bit more motivated.

And almost like he’s proud of himself. So that’s one thing to note, but just in terms of the strategies that he identifies, there’s two important ones that I want to highlight for you. So one thing he talks about is having one homework folder. So this is a really helpful strategy for people with ADHD is keeping everything in the same folder or the same notebook.

So you’re not having to search the house for all different kinds of notebooks to remember. What did I write, where and what did I keep in this one, and what’s in that one? And often what happens is that if the person has one notebook that really is for everything, they’re really much more likely to hold on to it to remember where it is, because it’s really important.

It’s got all that information. So I often suggest this to a lot of the adults, clients that I work with who have ADHD is to have one folder, one notebook, maybe with different dividers. So maybe you’ve got, a section that’s for your personal notes and a section that’s for work. But, you know, everything is in there.

So if you have a thought, something interesting comes up for you. You don’t want to forget to do something. It all goes in the same notebook, even if you don’t know exactly what page it’s on, you know that it’s there, and you can go back to that notebook anytime you need and you’ll be able to find that information.

 

You can also do this digitally or electronically. Keeping in some kind of note notebook in the in an app in your phone, but it’s all in one place instead of having it scattered in multiple different places. So that’s one helpful strategy that Steven talks about. The second is, what we call kind of brain dumping. So he talks about, drawing or writing out his thoughts before he, before he starts to organize them.

So this can be a really helpful thing for people with ADHD is to kind of dump all of the thoughts out first, and then once they’re out and maybe you can see them, whether you’ve drawn them or even written them out, it’s much easier to organize because you’re not trying to do all of that work in your head.

So sometimes what I suggest is just writing the list of all the things out, and then going back and reorganizing the list. And you can organize and reorganize as many times as you need, but it’s out in front of you and you can look at it, and it’s not all in your head.

I first have to learn like, okay, so another strategy that that’s really helpful. Another way that you can support someone with ADHD as well is doing what we call body doubling. This is basically as simple as being with somebody while they complete a task. So, for me, a personal example of this is I really don’t like to do the dishes, I don’t want to do the dishes.

And, I’m not very likely to do the dishes if it’s something that I have to go in and do by myself. But if my husband comes in and maybe has a conversation with me, or just stands in the room and chats with me, maybe we put music on. It makes doing the dishes much easier and it becomes something social.

And so it’s, it’s much more enjoyable to do. And so just the fact that I have somebody else there doing this with me makes it that much easier to do. Some other examples of body doubling might be, if you are a teacher or somebody who works in a school, an educator with a student who has ADHD, a child who has ADHD, just sitting next to them in the classroom, especially if they’re being asked to do something on their own, to work on their own, on a task.

Just having your presence in the chair next to them will help them focus. And, it will make it a little bit easier for them to do that work and be less distracted at home. This might be if it’s your child who has ADHD, it might be just sitting in their room while you ask them if they use.

Ask them to clean up the room just sitting in the room with them. Maybe bring a book you can read. You could put music on or chat with them, that kind of thing. But just your presence being in their room, and just being there. And you don’t necessarily have to do anything more than just physically being present.

And this can be very helpful. Sensory regulation tools like, fidgets. So, different kinds of objects that have different textures or different, shapes, can be very helpful as a way to manage some of that restlessness and fidgeting that happens with ADHD. So it just gives your hands something to do. There’s even some rings that that kind of have different textures that you can spin, things that are, that are sometimes a little bit quieter, especially for the classroom.

But stress, stress balls that have kind of a texture to them that can help with, kind of managing some of that restlessness. But there’s also other sensory tools like swings or, objects, like I said, that have different textures, like sand. All of this can be really helpful for sensory regulation, different kinds of lights. So again, on the DPS website, we do have another presentation that goes into a lot of detail.

It’s specifically about sensory regulation and sensory awareness by it’s with one of our occupational therapists, Cynthia miller Lachman. So you can check out her presentation that goes, into a lot more detail about sensory awareness and sensory regulation. But, just to highlight for today that these are some tools that can be very helpful for people with ADHD.

Okay. So I’m going to review a couple of strategies next that are strategies that most people use to stay organized. But that need some modification to be more ADHD friendly. So their existing organizational strategies, but in in the way that we typically ask people to use them or tell people to use them, they don’t often work for ADHD.

So I’m going to explain to you now how to modify them or change them, adapt them to be more ADHD friendly. So a lot of people with ADHD struggle to get and stay organized, or most people do, but they don’t actually lack organizational skills. So it’s not that they don’t have the skills, they just need tools that kind of work better for their brain.

And so like I said, there’s ways that we can modify the existing strategies to be more ADHD friendly. So on this slide here you can see there’s an example of, what we call a neurotypical or a neurotypical to do list or a regular to to do list is, as you might understand, to do lists. What happens when we make a list like this for people with ADHD is that they might find it really hard to figure out how what order do I do these things in?

What if there’s other pieces of this that I need to do that I don’t remember? Like how do I start? What do I do with this list? And it can be very confusing. And then you might never follow the list at all. So prioritizing is very difficult, right? Everything seems to have the same amount of importance, and I’m not sure which step to follow in which order.

So for example, calling the doctor, that might mean, well, what do I do? Don’t I need to find the phone number first? And what if I can’t make the appointment that they offer me? What do I do about that? Am I with. What if I forget to put it? Then I have to remember to put it in my calendar.

So all of a sudden you can see that, you know, calling the doctor, seeing the little bit more complicated, maybe for someone with ADHD, because it’s hard to kind of keep track of all of the things that go into that one task. So what we want to do is actually create an ADHD to do list, or an ADHD friendly to do list that breaks these items down into all of these smaller parts.

 

So when you’re creating the To-Do list for for yourself, if you have ADHD or for your child to actually take the time to break down the task as you’re writing it so the To-Do list will actually have on it. Find the doctor’s phone number, check my own schedule to see when I’m available so I know if I can say yes or no when the doctor offers me a certain appointment.

And then I need to remember to put that appointment in my, in my calendar. And so now I’ve broken it down into tasks that are easier for me to understand, easier for me to complete. And then it actually feels great to be able to check off maybe 3 or 4 things instead of one. And so we want to break down the tasks into these smaller parts and do some of that thinking before, so that the task doesn’t seem so confusing when we look at the list.

And then abandon it because we can’t figure out where to get how to get started.

So sometimes what can happen to you is that you might not get done all of the tasks in that day. So what I often suggest for people with ADHD is to then make a list of the things that I didn’t get done, but I’m going to add to tomorrow’s list. Sometimes for myself, I’ll actually put a little star or circle the ones that I haven’t completed, so it’s easier to find the next time I go look at the list.

Or I then take those things and put them into a new list. And so it’s kind of keeping a running list of those things that you need to do and making sure that you don’t leave off or forget the things that you didn’t get completed the day before. So you don’t necessarily want to keep a huge, long master list of all the things, because it might they might get lost.

But continuing to kind of rewrite the list each day is something that can be helpful, to make sure that you get those things done. So, it’s a lot of people with ADHD when they’re told to do to do to do lists, get very frustrated and overwhelmed. I’ve tried this. It doesn’t work. Or they’ll use them when they’re overwhelmed and then forget to do it when they’re feeling better.

And so what’s important to remember with ADHD is that there is going to be some inconsistency. You’re not always going to get the, get to the To-Do list or write the To-Do list, but that doesn’t mean that to do list don’t work. It just means that people with ADHD are inconsistent. So we already know that, right? So instead of getting angry with yourself or your child for not sticking with the To-Do list, just accept that this might happen and then use the ADHD friendly to do lists when you remember or when you feel inspired.

So not to think that the To-Do list don’t work, but, that sometimes we might forget to use them, but start again. Try again. Create a new list, and break those things down into smaller items so that it’s easier to figure out how to get the things done. Okay, so we just discussed how to modify the To-Do list to be more ADHD friendly.

 

But now I’m going to talk about how to do the same thing with this, with creating a schedule or a calendar or personal calendar. So the best way for someone with ADHD to get started on creating a calendar is to first identify or figure out what needs to be put on the calendar. So you can think of this like doing a puzzle where each activity that you want to put on the calendar is kind of a different puzzle piece, and you might even do it in color like I’ve done here, so it makes it more visually appealing or interesting, and easier for, for someone with ADHD to kind of get engaged with, and

get engaged in. So making it colorful is really great. People with ADHD love colorful, colorful things that kind of draw your attention. So some examples of different puzzle pieces you might identify for a calendar would be things like chores that need to get done, when you’re going to eat. So when or meal times, times that you are at work or your child is in school travel time.

So how long does it take or when do you need to schedule, traveling from work to home or work to school? School to home, those kinds of things. We always want to add some kind of physical activity or exercise that’s usually really important. We also want to make sure that we include things that are fun. So relaxation time or things fun activities.

We want to actually schedule those into the calendar. So once you’ve identified those different puzzle pieces then you can start placing them in the calendar. Kind of like putting together a puzzle piece by piece. So what I often suggest is that you start with the pieces of the puzzle that have a specific set time or specific set schedule, for example, like time that you’re at work or the time that your child is in school, or if they have after school activities or before school activities or mid-day activities.

So things that have a set time, then you can add in the travel time. So how long it takes to get to and from those activities. And I always suggest for people with ADHD because they often struggle to figure out how much time do I actually need. And they either usually underestimate how much time is needed. So I always tell people to add at least an extra 15 or 20 minutes to that travel time, and then you’re less likely to be late after you’ve scheduled those things.

I often suggest to then maybe do the meals and then chores. And then, as I mentioned before, it’s really important to add fun, exercise, relaxation time. And we really want to think about especially for someone with ADHD, when are the times that they’re going to be most alert, most able to focus? And to make sure that that’s when we schedule the things that require the most attention and the most focus.

So if you’re a morning person and you are really much more alert in the morning, you want to schedule the things that are more attention heavy during that time and not try to put them. At the end of the day, when you’re tired and exhausted. So another a couple of things to consider and remember when doing an ADHD friendly calendar, is that we want to think about, like I said, when are the best times for the for me or the person to do these things and then figure out where to put them in the schedule based on that?

 

If your child is taking medication, typically they’re most alert times are going to be within those first few hours of taking the medication, or certainly at least during the time that the medication is really working before it’s worn off. So we want to make best use of that time and again, put the tasks that maybe require more attention or a bit more urgent during those times when the person’s medication is working for them, and not to put those, those kinds of, attention heavy tasks at a time of day when their medication might be wearing off.

We also don’t want to try and force an a child, especially with ADHD, to do any attention heavy task, maybe homework or even chores right when they come home from school. Whether or not that child has been on medication, they’ve been working hard all day to focus and manage their symptoms. They’re going to need a break, as you will need a break when you come home from work.

So you want to prioritize things like taking, having a snack, maybe doing some exercise or movement, a play, maybe, just relaxing a little bit, and then maybe focusing on the thing that needs to get done, whether it’s homework or a chore. Maybe in the evening after they’ve had a bit of time to unwind. Okay. So we’ve reviewed a couple of specific strategies to help with ADHD, but there’s also some broader interventions that are important to consider as well.

And so it’s always important. And we always recommend to combine medication with other types of treatment or intervention, for example, like therapy that is offered by a trained professional. And some ways that therapy is helpful or some things that therapy does, that can be helpful are first there’s talk therapy. So this can be really helpful to address feelings of shame, low self-esteem, maybe some, experiences of, difficulties in social situations or being bullied at school.

All of these are things that can happen for people living with ADHD. And I see this a lot, with adults that I work with, with ADHD, especially those who are diagnosed later in life, that a lot of our work is on helping them undo and understand the shame and, embarrassment maybe that they’ve they’ve lived with as a result of not knowing that they had ADHD and just feeling different throughout their life.

And a lot of times it’s also about grief, and the grief of if I had known that I had ADHD as a child, there’s so much more. Maybe I could have done or understood about myself. So that’s a lot of what the talk therapy is helpful with. There’s also psychoeducation, which is basically teaching clients about ADHD so that they can understand their symptoms, and how to manage them, which is basically the a lot of the information that has been in this presentation today.

So what is ADHD? What how does the ADHD brain work and how is that different from the brain of somebody who does not have ADHD? That’s really helpful information for somebody who has a PhD. And finally, ADHD coaching can be part of therapy as well. Setting goals, accomplishing tasks, learning and trying out new behaviors, and really working together to find ADHD friendly ways of managing your time and organizing yourself.

So, I know that there are not necessarily ADHD coaches in community, but there are some, coaches who offer sessions online, and if you are interested, we can offer some resources or there will be some resources at the end of the presentation if you’re interested to learn more about that.

And finally, the last thing that I’m going to just briefly mention is, that exercise is a really, really helpful strategy to manage ADHD. Research shows that exercise has a huge positive impact on ADHD. And so this is a really important thing, to include in the daily life of a person with ADHD. So this is your ADHD toolbox.

Let’s review now what we’ve put in it. So we’ve got medication keeping one big folder or notebook to with for all of your ideas, all of your information, brain dumping, body doubling, sensory tools, sensory regulation that ADHD friendly To-Do list, ADHD friendly scheduling therapy and exercise. So these are the some of the really helpful strategies that you can implement.

Some of them actually right away to help with ADHD. So I want to end today’s presentation with a video that gives you a chance to hear a bit more from a variety of different people who live with ADHD. So this was made. This video was made by someone who herself does have ADHD. And as with any neurodevelopmental disability, neurodivergent, or mental health condition, it’s really extremely important not only to have all the facts and information, but also to hear more from people with lived an actual lived experience.

So the people in this video are from all over the world. They’re different ages. And all of them experience a lot of the things that we’ve talked about today. That goes along with having ADHD. So I will play this for you and you can hear from them. I asked people with ADHD one question, what do you want the world to know about your ADHD?

This is what I’m assuming that that my I’m going to skip the video left.

And so here are some useful resources that will, leave up here on the presentation. So if you’re interested, you can take a look at some of these resources that might help, learn more about ADHD or connect you to, some organizations and some information that can, help you understand more and have additional resources to, learn more about ADHD.