<![CDATA[Weinfeld Education Group - Blog]]>Fri, 11 May 2012 18:42:29 -0500Weebly<![CDATA[Kids with learning difficulties are capable of great things]]>Mon, 26 Dec 2011 21:33:25 -0500http://www.weinfeldeducationgroup.com/1/post/2011/12/kids-with-learning-difficulties-are-capable-of-great-things.html__ Please take a look at a blog that I wrote that was just posted on a national site where "experts" of different kinds answer questions.  http://www.task.fm/learning-difficulties-in-children

Rich Weinfeld
]]><![CDATA[Russell Barkley on ADHD, Part II]]>Mon, 26 Dec 2011 21:29:37 -0500http://www.weinfeldeducationgroup.com/1/post/2011/12/russell-barkley-on-adhd-part-ii.html_Russell Barkley, a leader in the field of ADHD, knows what parents of children with ADHD are up against. He gets it. But he wants to make sure that parents really get it, too. The Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina spoke at an event sponsored by WEG and Alvord, Baker and Associates. Barkley, whose thoughts and opinions about ADHD are sometimes considered controversial, suggested that if parents of children with ADHD understood better that their child/children have a “serious disorder of the executive part of the brain,” that their approach might change for the better.

“SHUT UP,” SAYS BARKLEY, AND THEN BREAK IT DOWN
According to Barkley, parents who have children with ADHD should adopt a specific mantra. Simply put, Barkley says, they need to, “shut up.” ADHD is not an information deficit disorder. “It’s not that if you give them one more piece of information it will finally click,” said Barkley. ADHD is not a disorder of not knowing, it is a disorder of performance, he explains. They know what other people know but they can’t apply it. “It’s not a disorder of what; it’s the using that’s the problem. There is a disconnection in the brain,” espoused Barkley.

TIME WON’T TELL
ADHD is also a disorder of time. That means, “whenever possible, get rid of time,” said Barkley. “Don’t say you have blank number of minutes to do something. They are clueless about what that means. Parents need to be a child’s proxy frontal lobe because their ADHD child’s internal clock is broken. “All future tasks need to be broken into pieces, into baby steps,” said Barkley, “because the future doesn’t exist for people with ADHD. As a parent, you must be proactive, figure out how to create a plan, break down every event, every new situation,” whether its dinner, homework or vacation:
• Create a transition plan. 
• Put the plan on a card with rules on the point of performance.
• Have the child read back the rules
• Tell the child what s/he is going to earn for following the rules in this situation. Offer a reward.
• Explain the consequences of not following the rules.
• Give them something to do. Put something in their hands, these are physical children.
• Give them frequent feedback as they go along.

FORGIVENESS
“You better get good at forgiveness. You better get rid of your expectations because ADHD looks normal but it reduces a child’s age by 30-percent,” said Barkley. “Find a couple of ways for a daily exorcism,” at the end of the day …
• Sit in your child’s dark bedroom and watch him/her sleep.
• Write down everything that went wrong then light a match and burn the paper. Start the next day new.
• Take a photo of the wildflowers s/he picked and hang it up, “because that’s your kid,” said Barkley. “That’s your wonderful kid.”
Remember this, if nothing else. “What matters most about raising a child with ADHD,” said Barkley, “is that someone believed in him, stayed with him and hung in there no matter what to help him get into adulthood.”

By Cari Shane, Writer

Please remember to “Like” us on Facebook.  WEG is committed to taking all the vibrant colors of a child and discovering his or her potential. By integrating support, advocacy, training and assessment not only with families but schools and the community, WEG promotes educational change.
]]><![CDATA[Understanding ADHD with Russell Barkley: Part I]]>Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:40:05 -0500http://www.weinfeldeducationgroup.com/1/post/2011/10/understanding-adhd-with-russell-barkley-part-i.htmlADHD is a developmental disorder that has been misnamed.  So says Russell Barkley, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina. 

“The name of the disorder, ADHD, is trivial,” explained Barkley who spoke at an event sponsored by WEG and Alvord, Baker and Associates.  “ADHD is a serious disorder of the executive part of the brain,” espoused Barkley, a leader in the field of ADHD, who further clarified that in his opinion the proper name is EFDD: Executive Functioning Development Disorder.

According to Barkley, ADHD is not a psychopathology.  More important, if parents can understand what’s going on “inside” the brain of someone with ADHD, if they can understand what’s driving this disorder, then they will have a much better understanding of how to raise a child with ADHD.


_ADHD, simply put, is a delay in the development of crucial abilities (much like someone with a reading disorder).  Those abilities, specifically, are attention and inhibition (including hyperactivity which Barkley says goes away in adulthood).

The only way, to diagnose ADHD is to measure and compare because it is a developmental lag that defines the disorder.  And here is the crucial point, according to Barkley: ADHD is a chronic delay in development, a lag that doesn’t catch up.  “Only one-third of the ADHD population will recover,” said Barkley.  “There is nothing in the social environment that predicts who recovers and who doesn’t.” In fact, he says, when the brain reaches maturity at the age of 25 or 30 those who haven’t caught up never will.

YOUNG AT HEART/YOUNG AT BRAIN
The idea is not to hope for something that can’t happen, but to attain what can.  “The goal is not normalization,” said Barkley.  “Functionally effective, happy, competent is the goal.  I can’t get you to normal, but I can get you to functional.”

And here’s why.  The brain is at the heart of this disorder.  The frontal lobe, the right hemisphere of the brain, is anatomically different, actually smaller than it should be.  During breakthrough discoveries of the past decade, researchers have determined that for those suffering from ADHD key part of the brain’s executive networks are not developing at a normal rate.  They are:
-  The part of the brain that functions to inhibit actions until they are ready to be released.
-  The part of the brain in charge of coordination of action
-  The communication highway between the left and right brain
-  The valley between the two sides of the brains, a.k.a the gateway to the executive brain, crucial for handling conflicts, assigning priorities and managing emotions

Because of the delayed development of these executive factions, children/people with ADHD have trouble in the following areas:
  1. Self discipline
  2. Self management across time (time management)
  3. Organization of their environment (which helps with facilitation of goals)
  4. Self-motivation (difficulty functioning when there are no consequences)
  5. Self regulation of emotions

NATURE VS NURTURE
For two-thirds of children with ADHD, the disorder is genetic.  For one-third, especially boys, ADHD traits are acquired in-utero.  “You cannot take a normal child and raise him to become a child with ADHD.  ADHD isn’t from diet or watching television.  Keeping them from watching Sponge Bob is a joke,” exclaimed the outspoken Barkley.

In our next blog, which you will be able to find on the WEG Facebook page, two things Barkley says parents can do to help their children: 1) “Shut up” and break it down and 2) Learn to forgive. 

By Cari Shane
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