Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Systems for daily life
The classroom is the strongest place to help and most clinicians cannot get into one. That is a reason to work well in the next best place, not a reason to give up.
ADHD sits in how a brain is built, and the work is on the executive skills themselves rather than on attitude or effort. Where the moment of performance is out of reach, the home comes next and the consulting room after it. What travels best out of a room is coaching the parents and teaching the child to talk themselves through a task, because both of those go home with somebody.
Qur’an and Sunnah
If you are on a journey, and cannot find a scribe, something should be handed over as security (Quran 2:283). A second arrangement is provided for the times the first is out of reach, and it is still a proper arrangement.
۞وَإِن كُنتُمۡ عَلَىٰ سَفَرࣲ وَلَمۡ تَجِدُواْ كَاتِبࣰ ا فَرِهَٰنࣱ مَّقۡبُوضَةࣱۖ فَإِنۡ أَمِنَ بَعۡضُكُم بَعۡضࣰ ا فَلۡيُؤَدِّ ٱلَّذِي ٱؤۡتُمِنَ أَمَٰنَتَهُۥ وَلۡيَتَّقِ ٱللَّهَ رَبَّهُۥۗ وَلَا تَكۡتُمُواْ ٱلشَّهَٰدَةَۚ وَمَن يَكۡتُمۡهَا فَإِنَّهُۥٓ ءَاثِمࣱ قَلۡبُهُۥۗ وَٱللَّهُ بِمَا تَعۡمَلُونَ عَلِيمࣱ
If you are on a journey, and cannot find a scribe, something should be handed over as security, but if you decide to trust one another, then let the one who is trusted fulfil his trust; let him be mindful of God, his Lord. Do not conceal evidence: anyone who does so has a sinful heart, and God is fully aware of everything you do
Qur’an 2:283read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
The updated European consensus statement on adult ADHD exists because the condition is underdiagnosed and undertreated across many European countries, which is the wider setting for any argument about where to intervene. A twelve-week collaborative school and home programme delivered by school-based mental health professionals combined teacher consultation, parent training and direct work with the child, which is what using several venues at once actually looks like. That was an open trial without a control group, and a consensus statement is agreement among experts rather than new evidence.
Kooij JJS, Bijlenga D, Salerno L, Jaeschke R, Bitter I, Balázs J, Thome J, Dom G, Kasper S, Nunes Filipe C, Stes S, Mohr P, Leppämäki S, Casas M, Bobes J, Mccarthy JM, Richarte V, Kjems Philipsen A, Pehlivanidis A, Niemela A, Styr B, Semerci B, Bolea-Alamanac B, Edvinsson D, Baeyens D, Wynchank D, Sobanski E, Philipsen A, McNicholas F, Caci H, Mihailescu I, Manor I, Dobrescu I, Saito T, Krause J, Fayyad J, Ramos-Quiroga JA, Foeken K, Rad F, Adamou M, Ohlmeier M, Fitzgerald M, Gill M, Lensing M, Motavalli Mukaddes N, Brudkiewicz P, Gustafsson P, Tani P, Oswald P, Carpentier PJ, De Rossi P, Delorme R, Markovska Simoska S, Pallanti S, Young S, Bejerot S, Lehtonen T, Kustow J, Müller-Sedgwick U, Hirvikoski T, Pironti V, Ginsberg Y, Félegyházy Z, Garcia-Portilla MP, Asherson P. (2019). Updated European Consensus Statement on diagnosis and treatment of adult ADHD.. European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists doi
Pfiffner LJ, Villodas M, Kaiser N, Rooney M, McBurnett K. (2013). Educational outcomes of a collaborative school-home behavioral intervention for ADHD.. School psychology quarterly : the official journal of the Division of School Psychology, American Psychological Association doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Help given nearer the moment works better, and help given further away still works better than none at all.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Writing things down is not evidence that your memory has failed. It is what happens once there is more in your life than one head can hold.
Sort the work into hardest, middling and easiest, then choose the order on purpose. Easy first for momentum or hard first while you are sharp, both are fine. What is not fine is letting the most interesting thing win by default.
Early on, reward the work being finished even when it is rough. Accuracy tends to follow once things are getting done at all.