Adult ADHD: Denial in Adults wrecks Family Life

"My husband won't seek counseling or take meds for attention deficit, even though two of our kids have been diagnosed with it. His forgetfulness, procrastination, and inability to keep promises to our children upsets all of us." 

Many adults who live with undiagnosed ADHD do not understand the impact their symptoms have on those around them.

Your best bet is to start a polite and patient, but firm, campaign to help him understand how his actions -- inactions, in some cases -- affect you and your family.

It's important that you approach the subject in a noncritical, nonjudgmental way.

If you don't, you will make him defensive and unwilling to take your concerns seriously.

Communicate carefully with your husband. Broach the subject by saying, "I felt sad when we were late for Lydia's birthday party" instead of  "I was angry that you made us late for the birthday party."

Tell them, "I love you, but I feel I'm not getting enough attention from you to be happy" instead of "You never pay attention to me!"

Since your kids have been diagnosed with ADHD, it may be easier to get your husband thinking about the disorder as it relates to them.

Many adults, after reading books to learn how to help their children, see their symptoms more clearly and think about their problems in a new light.

Don’t make the mistake of taking charge of your kids' ADHD challenges without him. You'll miss out on an opportunity to discuss things with him.

Playground peers can predict adult personalities

Even on the playground, our friends know us better than we know ourselves.

New research has revealed that your childhood peers from grade school may be able to best predict your success as an adult.

Lisa Serbin of the Department of Psychology at Concordia University and Alexa Martin-Storey, a recent Concordia graduate and a current post-doctoral student at the University of Texas -- both members of the Concordia-based Centre for Research in Human Development -- recently published a study online, which reveals that childhood peer evaluation of classmate personalities can more accurately predict adulthood success than self-evaluation at that age.

"This study, known as the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, was started in 1976 by my colleagues in the Department of Psychology, Alex Schwartzman and Jane Ledingham, who is now at the University of Ottawa," says Serbin.

"Over two years, Montreal students in grades 1, 4 and 7 completed peer evaluations of their classmates and rated them in terms of aggression, likeability and social withdrawal. The students also did self-evaluations."

Over the next twenty years, these children were closely followed as researchers used the exhaustive longitudinal study to track their progress into adulthood.

A follow-up survey was conducted between 1999 and 2003 with nearly 700 of the participants from the initial study.

The survey included measurement of adult personality traits, such as levels of neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

"We were able to compare peer and self-perceptions of the childhood behaviours to these adult personality factors," says Martin-Storey.

"We found the evaluations from the group of peers were much more closely associated with eventual adult outcomes than were their own personality perceptions from childhood.

This makes sense, since children are around their peers all day and behaviours like aggressiveness and likeability are extremely relevant in the school environment."

For example, children who perceived themselves as socially withdrawn exhibited less conscientiousness as adults.

On the other hand, kids whose peers perceived them as socially withdrawn grew up to exhibit lower levels of extraversion, the latter being a more accurate association.

Peer-perceived likeability also predicted a more accurate outcome, associating the personality trait with higher levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness, and lower levels of neuroticism than those who thought of themselves as likeable.

Overall, the findings supported the use of peer rather than self-ratings of childhood personalities in the prediction of adulthood success.

"Adult personality traits are associated with a lot of important life factors, such as health, mental health and occupational satisfaction," says Serbin.

"The information from our study could be used to promote better longitudinal outcomes for children by helping kids and parents develop effective mechanisms for addressing aggressive or socially withdrawn behaviours and promoting more pro-social behaviour."

Conversation Simulator for Adults with Autism

Simulated interactions in which adults with autism converse with a virtual partner may help them develop better social interaction skills, according to a novel study presented in  Cyberpsychology, Behaviour, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

Click on the picture to download and view the published report.

More than half of individuals diagnosed with autism have normal intellectual capabilities yet struggle in social and work environments because of their severely impaired abilities to interact and converse with others.

Researchers published a report that adults with autism who participated in a prototype conversation simulation program responded positively to the experience, supporting the quality and usefulness of the simulation.

In the article, “Virtual Conversation Partner for Adults with Autism,” the authors describe a simulated environment in which participants with autism who are not otherwise intellectually disabled interact with virtual partners, are given onscreen dialog options, and are scored on their ability to initiate, maintain, and conclude a pleasant conversation on a variety of topics.

“Over the past two decades, simulations have proven effective at helping people with a variety of physical and mental disorders. This new application could make it so many with Autism Spectrum Disorder could function more effectively in the larger world,” says Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, BCIA, Editor-in-Chief of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, from the Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, CA.

Adult Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a common cause of reading difficulty in adults. Many adults were never diagnosed as children, so they have no idea that they are suffering from adult dyslexia. Every job application, mortgage application, or complicated instruction sheet makes them cringe.


A common misconception is that dyslexia only affects children. Not only does it affect adults, it impacts millions of adults. In fact, many famous people have dyslexia. Having dyslexia does not have to hold you back – if you learn how to work with it.

These days there are many adults who have come forward to talk about their dyslexia and share their experiences. In this age of disclosure, it is a welcome sight to see adults who have struggled alone with this challenging brain disorder see that they are not alone and that there are others who face the same challenges.

From Einstein to Tom Cruise, and millions of other adults, dyslexia affects so many. Common symptoms of dyslexia include difficulty with reading or writing, trouble understanding directions, poor spelling, and many other signs.

Often people with dyslexia will simply say that they don’t care for reading – not understanding that it is their brain function that is at fault. Some feel as if they must be stupid, when in fact dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence. Many very intelligent people suffer from dyslexia and many successful people have learned to overcome it.

Dyslexia can often lead to more creative thinking, since dylexics can often see the world in a slightly different way than those who rely more on their linear, left-brained thinking. If you think that you, or someone you love, might need adult dyslexia testing, there are simple, private tests to help determine if dyslexia is the root of the problem.

If it is, there are may learning techniques that can make reading and writing much easier – coping with dyslexia is easier when you know you have it. Just knowing that there is a name for the problem, and most importantly, that you are not alone in dealing with it, can make all the difference.

Dyslexia treatment has come a long way in recent years, there are now even colleges for learning disabilities, ensuring that anyone who wants an education can get one. These colleges are set up to allow for extra time to take tests, individualized learning styles and more.

However, any college is required to make allowances for a disability – even a learning disability. This is one reason testing is so important. If your college determines that you do indeed have dyslexia, they are then able to offer certain study aides such as textbooks on audio or increased testing time.

Dealing with Adult Dyslexia

One of the first things you should do if you think you might have adult dyslexia is to go for professional testing and diagnosis. This will allow you to work on accurate strategies to help you address and overcome your issues.

Many people with adult dyslexia try to hide their daily struggles, which can only make things worse, because neither you nor the people around you will know what’s really going on. You will only spend a lot of time and effort on developing coping strategies instead of getting to the root of the problem.

Try to manage your time better
Many adults diagnosed with dyslexia have time management issues and one way of overcoming this is to maintain a daily planner, in which they write absolutely everything down, within reason.

Remember your mother's diary, the old yuppie filofax, well we now have a startling number of low and high tech devices to help us take notes and keep track of our time.

Pick something that you find simple and convenient to use, something that fits with your life style, a planning touchstone to refer back to, as frequently as you need to, to check on what, how and when things are due.

Gadgets can help
Around the house you can use a simple wind up cooker timer to keep track of activities but when you are out and about you can use some of the newer electronic gadgets on the market today. Something with alarms you can set to remind you in advance that you have an appointment to keep or a presentation to make, etc,.

Other, more expensive gadgets can take a snapshot of a sign, document or other text and read it back to you through an earpiece or out loud, depending on what you prefer.

These capabilities are now built into or loaded on to mobile devices and smartphones, which can travel with you when you travel and are particularly helpful if you are going to a strange city. These devices are discussed at length in other postings on this blog.

Lack of short-term auditory memory
One of the characteristics of dyslexia is a lack of, or deterioration of short-term auditory memory. By repeating instructions or directions back to someone after hearing them, and writing them down or even recording those directions in your diary, is a simple method to help overcome this particular obstacle.

You should also try to focus on key words and perhaps try to visualise these words in a series of mental pictures.

Improve your reading and writing
One way to work on improving your reading and writing skills is to break words into their basic sound components i.e. blends, graphs, diphthongs. etc, and then learn to rearrange the sounds to produce different words.

This technique has been shown to help adult dyslexics develop better reading fluency while producing fewer errors in their writing.

Summary
If you have been diagnosed with dyslexia, you shouldn’t despair. It may take some time to rebuild your self-esteem and confidence, especially if you’ve been trying to manage this disorder without external or additional support.

You should keep in mind that being dyslexic does not mean you’re unintelligent or unable to learn; it just means your brain is wired differently.

If you have any questions or comments on this post please let us know at dyslexiauntied@gmail.com

Adult ADHD Research Breakthrough using MCT

Let's begin with a brief explanation about Meta-cognitive Therapy (MCT):
Meta-cognitive therapy is a therapy based on the principle that anxiety, worry and circular ruminations are universal processes that can lead to an emotional disorder.

These processes are linked to common but erroneous beliefs about thinking and unhelpful coping or self-regulation strategies. These are things we do to address the problem but they can be responsible for keeping it going.

Metacognitive therapy recognises this negative change in thinking patterns and believes it is very important. It gives it a name: the Cognitive-Attentional Syndrome (CAS).

Affected persons can suffer from repeated patterns of thinking that consist of worry, rumination, a fixation of attention on a threat, and they can develop coping behaviours that the person believes are helpful but in many cases they keep the emotional problems going.

So, successful use of meta-cognitive therapy can allow people to escape from, or break out of repetitive thinking patterns and therefroe the behavours that lead to prolonged psychological distress.

In this blog we will look at one team's research into it's effectiveness and use in addressing the needs of adults who suffer from ADHD - Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder.

Research
Mount Sinai researchers have learned that meta-cognitive therapy (MCT), a method of skills teaching by use of cognitive-behavioural principles, yielded significantly greater improvements in symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults than those that participate in supportive therapy.

The study, titled "Meta-Cognitive Therapy," is now published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Mary Solanto, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Director of the Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Center at The Mount Sinai Medical Center examined the effectiveness of a 12-week meta-cognitive therapy group. The intervention was intended to enhance time management, organisational, and planning skills/abilities in adults with ADHD.

"We observed adults with ADHD who were assigned randomly to receive either meta-cognitive therapy or a support group," said Dr. Solanto. "This is the first time we have demonstrated efficacy of a non-medication treatment for adult ADHD in a study that compared the active treatment against a control group that was equivalent in therapist time, attention, and support."

The study observed 88 adults with rigorously diagnosed ADHD, who were selected following structured diagnostic interviews and standardised questionnaires. Participants were randomly assigned to receive meta-cognitive therapy or supportive psychotherapy in a group setting. Groups were equated for ADHD medication use.

Participants were evaluated by an independent (blind) clinician using a standardised interview assessment of core inattentive symptoms and a subset of symptoms related to time-management and organisation.

After 12 weeks, the MCT group members were significantly more improved than those in the support group. The MCT group was also more improved on self-ratings and observer ratings of these symptoms.

Meta-cognitive therapy uses cognitive-behavioural principles and methods to teach skills and strategies in time management, organisation, and planning. Also targeted were depressed and anxious thoughts and ideas that undermine effective self-management.

The supportive therapy group matched the MCT group with respect to the nonspecific aspects of treatment, such as providing support for the participants, while avoiding discussion of time management, organization, and planning strategies.

In addition to Dr. Solanto, the research team included David Marks, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, and Jeanette Wasserstein, Ph.D., Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

If you would like to know more about MCT - Meta-cognitive Therapy, you can click on the link to go to the MCT Institute website.

NB: I have not examined this site at great length and see it only as a possible source of further information for the reader.