The Breakthrough Blog

Adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) don’t dwell on why things go wrong in our lives. We are too busy moving on to the next shiny thing. ADD/ADHD medication helps us slow down our racing thoughts, so we can ask, “Is this the best thing for me to be doing?” or “Is this the [...]

Train The Brain: Using Neurofeedback To Treat ADHD : NPR. The link above references an interesting piece on NPR about how neurofeedback can be used to treat ADD/ADHD: Even though there are studies now showing that neurofeedback works for ADHD, all of these studies have serious limitations, researchers say. So the approach remains promising but [...]

When the cognitive paradigm became dominant, inattention became the focus of ADHD, and disorder was renamed attention deficit disorder (ADD). Two subtypes would later appear in the literature, which correspond to ADD with or without hyperactivity. The diagnostic nomenclature reflects the notion that the primary problem was an attentional (and thus, cognitive) one and not primarily behavioral. The attentional problems had to do with the ability to shift attention from one stimulus to another (something that Jonah Lehrer has called an attention-allocation disorder, since it isn’t really a deficit of attention). The hyperactivity symptoms were also reformulated as cognitive: connected with an executive processing deficit termed “freedom from distractibility.”

Preliminary findings from a study of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show that sensory intervention — for example, deep pressure and strenuous exercise — can significantly improve problem behaviors such as restlessness, impulsivity and hyperactivity. Of the children receiving occupational therapy, 95 percent improved. This is the first study of this size on [...]

So much of my reading lately and connections to new users have to do with the misdiagnosis of ADHD. There seems to be no other “disability” that generates more difficulty in accurate diagnosis and more ways to address the symptoms than ADHD. For a rather good look at the topic, a doctor friend sent me the link attached here. The language may be a little loose but the point is that there are many paths to a misdiagnosis and it is something for all of us, therapists, teachers and parents to be aware of that I thought it would be a good share.

via The Role of Brain Fitness in Self Help Programs: All of those programs involve regular practice of certain behaviors, and there are three behaviors we humans can hope to manage or control, our thinking, our feelings, and our behaviors, or how our body moves. If you have read Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi’s book FLOW, which is treatise [...]

The blog post linked to below talks about Dr. Charles Parker, psychiatrist and ADHD expert. I have spoken with Dr. Parker on a couple of occasions and he was quite gracious in looking at our program. He was helpful, open minded and great to listen to as I was getting more involved in the science [...]

Dr. Edward (Ned) Hallowell, ADHD expert and best-selling author, announces making the Learning Breakthrough Program available at the prestigious Hallowell Centers in both Massachusetts and New York. Dr. Hallowell’s inclusion of Learning Breakthrough’s proven balance and sensory remediation program is a welcome addition to the therapy options offered at his US centers. Learning Breakthrough will [...]

School mornings are hard on every family, especially those with a child with ADHD. To make mornings easier, as parents we need to organize ourselves before we organize our children.

via Book Review – A Life in Balance by Frank Belgau as told to Eric Belgau; 200 pages. Subtitle: Discovery of a Learning Breakthrough. “Learning Breakthrough” is a program that uses a balance board, pendulum, bean bags, and other therapy items to train kids’ brains and make learning easier. Frank Belgau, who developed the program, [...]