The mis­use and abuse of pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tion is a grow­ing con­cern. I remem­ber speak­ing with col­leagues 15–20 years ago as reports about the non­med­ical use of stim­u­lant med­ica­tions used to treat ADHD (non­med­ical use is defined as use by indi­vid­u­als with­out a pre­scrip­tion) were first appear­ing in the media. At the time, these were gen­er­ally thought to be iso­lated inci­dents that were being over-dramatized in the press. Read the rest of this entry »

As we announced last Octo­ber, Prac­tice­Wise, the com­pany that main­tains the Amer­i­can Acad­emy of Pedi­atrics “Evidence-based Child and Ado­les­cent Psycho-social Inter­ven­tions,” has ele­vated biofeed­back to “Level 1 — Best Sup­port” as an inter­ven­tion for Atten­tion & Hyper­ac­tiv­ity Behav­iors. Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing stays at Level 2. It is impor­tant to note that those lev­els do not con­trast effect sizes or clin­i­cal effi­cacy per se, but qual­ity and over­all direc­tion of under­ly­ing research.

To check out the cur­rent edi­tion of the report: click HERE.  Read the rest of this entry »

Mind­ful­ness train­ing is an approach for enhanc­ing men­tal health and alle­vi­at­ing men­tal health dif­fi­cul­ties that is based on east­ern med­i­ta­tion tech­niques. The focus of mind­ful­ness train­ing is to increase one’s aware­ness of the present moment, enhance the non-judgmental obser­va­tion of one’s sur­round­ings, and decrease impul­sive and Read the rest of this entry »

Train­ing pro­gram improved inat­ten­tive symp­toms in chil­dren with ADHD (Healio Pediatrics):

“An 8-week inter­ven­tion with a brain-computer interface-based atten­tion train­ing pro­gram sig­nif­i­cantly improved inat­ten­tive symp­toms asso­ci­ated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity dis­or­der in chil­dren aged 6 to 12 years, accord­ing to recent study results Read the rest of this entry »

For many indi­vid­u­als with ADHD the symp­toms and prob­lems asso­ci­ated with the dis­or­der per­sist into young adult­hood and beyond. In cases where an ongo­ing pos­i­tive response to med­ica­tion occurs, and where there are no sig­nif­i­cant adverse side effects, treat­ment that per­sists across many years of devel­op­ment could thus be help­ful. Read the rest of this entry »

Prac­tice­Wise, the com­pany that main­tains the Amer­i­can Acad­emy of Pedi­atrics “Evidence-based Child and Ado­les­cent Psycho-social Inter­ven­tions” (see cur­rent edi­tion here) has just announced it will ele­vate biofeed­back to “Level 1 — Best Sup­port” as an inter­ven­tion for Atten­tion & Hyper­ac­tiv­ity Behav­iors in the next edi­tion. Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent issue of Atten­tion Research Update I reviewed a study of cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­apy (CBT) for adults with ADHD that yielded encour­ag­ing find­ings. Promis­ing find­ings of this approach for adults raises the ques­tion of whether CBT could also be help­ful for teens with ADHD.

Devel­op­ing effec­tive non­med­ical inter­ven­tions for teens with ADHD is impor­tant for sev­eral rea­sons. Read the rest of this entry »