Do mindfulness interventions improve challenges associated with ADHD? Mindfulness involves focusing on the current moment nonjudgmentally. Mindfulness interventions involve enhancing present-moment awareness with the goal of strengthening attention and self-regulation. This research update covers two recent studies that investigated the outcomes of mindfulness-based interventions. The first study is a review of randomized controlled trials of…

Social confidence does not always come easily to people with ADHD. Making new friends, reaching out to people, and trying new things requires some level of confidence. Making jokes, chatting with people, or joining a new activity all depend on feeling confident enough to try. If you’re telling a joke, you have to start with…

Men with ADHD throughout the United States now have access to an array of online services dedicated to improving their quality of life, thanks to the nationwide reach of the Men’s ADHD Support Group. These services include ongoing updates on effective tools and strategies designed to help manage ADHD, presentations by ADHD experts who share…

The 2023 Annual International Conference on ADHD will offer both an in-person conference and an online conference, featuring separate programming and sessions. Join CHADD, ADDA, and ACO in person from November 30 to December 2 in Baltimore, Maryland, for over ninety educational presentations, workshops, peer support groups, meet-the-speaker opportunities, and social events. Can’t make the…

Twenty-five years ago, when we published our first book on women, Understanding Women with ADHD, Patricia Quinn and I were primarily focused on making the case that lots of women have ADHD and that the prevailing diagnostic criteria are biased against the diagnosis of women. At the time, other ADHD researchers teased us about being…

You had the best of intentions. You were going to finish that project. You thought about it every day. You planned it in detail. But somehow it didn’t happen. You promised your child you’d be the first car in line at school pickup today. And that didn’t happen either. Where does the time go? You…

The way we talk about ADHD now will influence how a child sees themself for the rest of their life. Explaining ADHD to anyone is complicated, never mind a young child! For starters, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: is not actually a deficit in attention, does not always involve hyperactivity, and does not lead to disorder…

If you go to a doctor because you have an illness, the doctor will primarily rely on three things to diagnose you: the history (what you tell them about what you feel), an exam, and medical tests. Tests could include bloodwork, X-rays, MRIs, EKG, or other tests. Increasingly, doctors do DNA tests that contribute genetic…

You are swamped with several pressing assignments, and a partner (or someone senior to you) gives you an assignment: to research and write a memo recommending a course of action. You are responsible for getting this done in an acceptable manner and in a timely fashion. There are junior associates (or subordinates) who have worked…

For parents who believe that having children with invisible disabilities like ADHD and autism precludes them from traveling: take heart. Many special needs parents and travel advisors tell a different story. Those featured in Traveling Different: Vacation Strategies for Parents of the Anxious, the Inflexible, and the Neurodiverse recognize that vacations can be more than…

Got a kid WHO CAN’T SEEM TO FOCUS, finish tasks, or manage time? Don’t worry. Your student isn’t lazy. They likely have weak executive functioning, which is a fancy term for your child’s inability to get all the gears in their brain in motion to get stuff done. For students with ADHD, these skills can…

I joined CHADD because I was struggling. My son, who’d been overwhelmed with sensory and developmental challenges since birth, had just been diagnosed with ADHD. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my own diagnosis was a few years away. Looking back, it’s no wonder I was struggling. My son’s doctors did that thing they do,…