Laura Rolands, ADHD Coach
AD/HD Awareness Week 2009
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The week of September 14, 2009 is designated as AD/HD Awareness Week by CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) in order to celebrate the progress that has been made in raising awareness and also evaluate how much work lies ahead.
CHADD helps educate the public about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is asking for help to increase awareness about the importance of identifying and treating it early in life. Early diagnosis is important for many reasons.
- For starters, it enables parents to develop a plan to address challenges that their child is having.
- When a plan is developed, it can also help maintain the child’s self-esteem.
- A child can also learn to better self-advocate for themselves and develop coping strategies that will help them as they go through school and their working careers.
- Many adults who have been diagnosed later in life wish they had known what was wrong earlier.
- Please share your thoughts about early diagnosis by leaving a comment.
If you are concerned that your child may have AD/HD, you owe it to yourself and your child to find out more. You have made a great start by doing some on-line research. I encourage you to check out CHADD’s website if you haven’t already done so and talk to your child’s doctor to determine whether a diagnosis is appropriate. If your doctor is not well-versed in AD/HD, it will be helpful to meet with a child psychologist or neurologist as they are likely to know more about the disorder and effective treatments.
To help raise awareness, CHADD will hold a radio news tour during the week of September 14-20. Board president Marie Paxson will take to the airwaves to share her experience as a mother of two grown children with AD/HD, and CHADD members across the country will hold community events and share science-based information with their neighbors. Please look for local events in your area.
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Self-Advocate in College when you have ADHD
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Are you going back to college this fall or just starting? Do you have ADHD? Other time management or attention-related concerns? It is important that you self-advocate for yourself! This will help set you up for a successful semester.
In college, you have less outside structure than you did in high school. If you are starting college, this will, of course be new for you and you may want to think about how to create structure for yourself. A few ideas to get started with self-advocating are listed below…
- If you have been diagnosed with ADHD or a learning disability, contact the disability services office on your campus. If you aren’t sure of the name at your school, just search for disability services and the name of your school.
- Talk to your professors and teaching assistants about the support that you need. Even if you have accommodations from the disability services office, conversation with professors and teaching assistants will ensure a common understanding among everyone.
- Consider your learning style and how you can maximize your strengths in school.
For more information about self-advocating, I recommend “Self Advocacy for College Students” on www.ldonline.org.
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Managing Email
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Can you check your email only once or twice per day? Yes, I said only once or twice! I, like many of you, often check email whenever it comes to my in box. When I check email only once or twice per day, I spend much less time on email. Most importantly, I save time by avoiding multiple transitions between tasks. Transitioning between tasks can add time to both the task I was doing and reading email so it ends up being a lose-lose proposition. When you check email as it comes in, you are more likely to rush through your response. Reading and responding to email in chunks of scheduled time can help you focus on the email at hand and give it the attention it needs.
Give it a try and let us know how it goes. Time yourself before and after – did this idea help you save time?
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Back to School Planning Tips for Families Experiencing ADHD
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Read more about back to school planning tips at Families with Purpose. I am honored to write a guest article for them. You will enjoy the Families with Purpose site and products. They even have a free back to school checklist to facilitate your planning.
Let me know what you think!