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Welcome to the New Heights Show on Education. I'm Pamela Clark, founder and director of the New Heights Education Group. And I'm here with David Smith, the founder of Silicon Valley High School. Who has helped us get these podcasts produced and delivered to you?
Yes, Pamela. When we saw the great things that you and your army of volunteers were achieving at New Heights, we wanted to get involved. Happy to work with you to leverage the internet and make quality education accessible and affordable to everyone everywhere. Thank you, David.
We appreciate Silicon Valley High School helping us to get these podcasts out to the hundreds of thousands of listeners from all over the world. So I hope you enjoy the show. Hello and welcome to the New Heights Show on Education. I am your host, Erica Hanson.
It's another week and I'm here with another topic. Today's topic will be on adult ADHD. I've done an episode regarding ADHD in the past, in general, and in children specifically. And you can find that in the archives on our website, which is always as www.newhightseducationalgroup.com.
Excuse me.org.org. Now I'd like to highlight the problems faced by adults who have ADHD and whether they were first diagnosed as children or adults, which does happen. You can be diagnosed as an adult as having ADD or ADHD, although more than likely the symptoms started when you were a child, just nobody picked it up. The first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna go ahead and go over a short refresher on what ADHD actually is.
So what is ADHD? So according to the National Organization, children and adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which is called CHAD. I'll have a link to it in the show notes. Quote, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting 11% of school-age children.
Symptoms continue into adulthood in more than three quarters of cases. ADHD is characterized by developmentally inappropriate levels of inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. In most cases, people with ADHD are diagnosed as children, but a few, oh, in quote. And that was the end of that quote.
In most cases, people with ADHD are diagnosed as children, as I mentioned, but a few are diagnosed as when they become adults. Symptoms and adults may be slightly different than they are in children. For example, hyperactivity may decrease as a person ages, but an adult will still struggle to focus on tasks or be impulsive. These are both signs of ADHD.
So what are the symptoms of ADHD? Symptoms of ADHD, symptoms can decrease somewhat over time. It makes adults difficult to diagnose sometimes. Even so, many adults with ADHD will still struggle in their daily lives.
They may grow restless at work, forget due dates on projects or be disorganized in general, leading to poor work performance. In their personal lives, people with ADHD may easily forget to get together as special occasions, leading to friction relationships. Impulse control problems range from mild irritation at something like waiting in line, slight traffic irritation, something like that. And it can run the gamut to small irritations like that, to mood swings and angry outbursts, depending on how severe the symptom is in the patient.
Other symptoms of ADHD that are common in adults, they may include here, may have trouble coping with stress, poor time management skills, problems falling through and completing tasks, poor planning, mood swings, low tolerance, for frustration. And that harkens back to the standing in line thing I mentioned earlier. Okay, and now I'm going to pause for an announcement, the April announcements from NHEG. And once those have finished, I'll be back with you and we'll go into the causes of ADHD.
There is a lot of exciting happenings here at New Heights Educational Group and here are your announcements for the month of April, 2020, the one. Happy birthday to Ariana Penzo, April 2nd, Alan Liu, April 7th, Great Club, April 9th, Benjamin Club, April 12th, Sapna Shukla, April 16th, Kari Bush of April 19th, Joy T. Agar, April 24th, Sarika Gabba, April 29th, and happy anniversary to the following people. Shimi May Aave, April 3rd, Mingu Eichon, April 14th, Charge, Stewa, April 16th, John Atkins, April 13th, a special thank you to friend Wynia for donating nine photographs on canvas pictures.
For NHEG walls, we will treasure this always. New Heights Educational Group and Palulah Clock are now ambassadors of the American Business Awards. A special thank you to Silicon Valley High School for their continuous sponsorship of this radio show. New Heights Educational Group has announced new affiliations with ABC Mouse and Gamefly.
ABC Mouse, Reading IQ, and Adventure Academy offers a step-by-step landing path with 10 levels over 850 lessons and more than 10,000 individual landing activities. Learn more at abcmiles.com. Gamefly has been the leader for rinsing the best video games through the mail-to-gamers in the US for the last 18 years. NHEG will end commission on each new user, the signs up for the free trial, or one of the prepaid plans that start at $9.5 per month.
Gamefly offers over 8,000 titles for PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, and other consoles. There's no better way for gamers to make the most of their new system by using Gamefly. Learn more at www.gamefly.com. New Heights Educational Group Executive Director, Pamela Clark stated, We are always looking for ways to grow offerings and bring opportunities to the public.
These are two great examples. We look forward to your last in-appliation with these organizations. To learn more about NHEG, visit www.newhighteducation.org. NHEG announces a new partnership with Natural Bond leaders, which includes their Active Learning Data Program and its teacher support online training program.
Visit preschool. That's natural bond leaders.thinkific.com slash courses slash Active Learning Booster for your full information on the content and instance, access to free model with free video training materials. The ambassador program and partners and affiliations provide funds to NHEG once or one place is another. Thank you for the continued support of all state insurance and all those that donated through our Facebook fundraiser.
We couldn't accomplish what we'll do without you. Do have a great month. Welcome back to the new Heights Show on Education. I am your host, Eric Hansen.
I've been talking about ADHD in adults and what that looks like, what type of symptoms you might see. I wanted to add an addendum to that. We had just spoken about some of the issues in adults that adults with ADHD have, such as falling through problems with falling through and completing tasks, mood swings, low tolerance for frustration, poor time management skills. I wanted to point out that we have all experienced some of those at different times, like time management or running late for a meeting, something like that.
But adults with ADHD can have ongoing issues. That's what really, let's, you know, that's a main thing with ADHD. It's an ongoing thing. And the ADHD usually affects all aspects of an adult's life.
Adult ADHD can be difficult to diagnose though because individuals often have more and more additional mental health issues. This is like such as depression or anxiety and those symptoms can be shared between all three of those diagnosis. It doesn't necessarily have to be ADHD. So basically a person with ADHD can also have depression and anxiety, but a person with depression and anxiety, just because they have some of these symptoms, it may not mean that they absolutely have ADHD because something like anxiety, you can also have a symptom of mood swings, for example.
So that is why it's hard to diagnose, especially in adults. So what are the causes of ADHD? Again, accepting cases when an individual has suffered from a traumatic brain injury, which it can't happen if you're older and something happens, you get hit on the head, that you can't get ADHD as an adult without having had it as a child. But that's really the only instance in which that happens.
ADHD will start in childhood. The precise factors that cause ADHD are not known. Where researchers have found a few links to certain things that they think might be factors. You're genetics, ADHD can run in families.
Problems in fetal development, especially in the central nervous system. So if for some reason you're born, you're born premature, or have other issues, young in life, you are at risk for having ADHD, depending on what in the brain, what neural paths in the brain are affected. Your environment can also be a risk factor. It's found that high amounts of lead in the area may play a role, for example.
So if, for example, you're drinking water, ends up having lead in it, or something like that, there are researchers that are thinking that that could also be a possibility for causing ADHD in children. So let's go ahead and follow through, or actually, let's go ahead and talk about risk factors further. Some of the things I talked about just now are causes of, but these are some additional risk factors. You may be at risk for ADHD if you were exposed to an environmental toxin as a child, like I mentioned, the lead in the water or something.
You were exposed, your mother's smoked drink, or did drugs during pregnancy, or you were born premature, which I mentioned also. So I'm gonna go ahead and stop, and we're going to have an announcement from Silicon Valley High School, one of our sponsors, and I'll be right back with you at the end of the break. This podcast is brought to you by Silicon Valley High School, the world's fastest growing, video-based, self-paced, teacher-supported, fully accredited online school that's recommended by more than 96% of students. Take individual courses at just $95 each, or earn your high school diploma at NEH.
Check us out at svhs.co. Welcome back to the new high show on education. I'm your host, Erica Hanson. Today we are talking about ADHD, and what we see when we find it in adults.
So we already went through the causes of ADHD, or what physicians think may cause. ADHD, an official cause has not been named, it's still being researched, and we've also gone through some risk factors in the environment, premature births, something like that, that can cause ADHD to occur. Now I'd like to go through some complications and coexisting conditions of ADHD. And if you guys remember in the first part, I mentioned that it's hard to diagnose ADHD in adults, because often other mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression, come along with it, and they can also have some symptoms that are attributed to ADHD attached to anxiety for well, as well.
So we'll go through a few coexisting conditions as well. So ADHD can be a factor in many issues in life, such as poor school or work performance. I spoke a little bit about that earlier in the episode. Unstable relationships, frequent accidents, assuming they mean car accidents, poor physical and mental health.
Again, ADHD also often comes with its own set of mental health issues. A person with ADHD may have a poor self image. People with ADHD may be unemployed, more frequently. Again, that has to do with poor work performance, unable to plan, unable to manage one's time, that sort of thing.
And also financial problems, that may be tied to like impulsive buying, or a result of unemployment, or quite a few other things, a lack of planning. So that's a couple of things that ADHD, people with ADHD have difficulty with, and because the ADHD interferes with those processes of the brain. People with ADHD may suffer from additional difficulties, such as anxiety, depression, or learning disabilities, and learning disabilities as well. And I did talk about learning disabilities and developmental disabilities in an earlier episode, and that will be on the website, or actually that is on the website in the archive.
It can be found there if you'd like to check that out. So I'm gonna go ahead and take another quick break so we can hear a short clip from New Heights Educational Group. I'll be right back after this break. Hello listeners, if you're enjoying the new Heights Show on Education and want to support or donate to our organization, please visit www.newhiteseducation.org.
And while you're there, check out our online store at new-pites-educational-group.myshopify.com. Welcome back to the show. So we're discussing adult ADHD and what it looks like in adults and how you treat it. Let's move on to the diagnosis and treatment.
Again, I can't emphasize this enough. Diagnosis in adults for ADHD can be difficult because ADHD can mimic the symptoms of other disorders, such as depression, anxiety. Also people with substance abuse issues, that's often a corollary to ADHD as well. So there are quite a few conditions that can either show up concurrently with ADHD or mimic some ADHD symptoms.
When diagnosing ADHD in adults, a doctor will typically, the first thing a doctor will do is perform a physical exam to rule out any medical conditions that may be causing symptoms, such as seizures, lesions on the brain, that sort of thing, they're ruling out physical causes there. Then the individual may be referred to a psychologist or psychiatrist who will gather more information from the patient and performs tests. Now these are usually questionnaires used by the clinician to evaluate the presence and severity of the condition. So we're not really talking about medical tests per se, we're talking about psychological testing.
When ADHD is found in adults, it's treated very similar to what would be done for a child. There are medications that can help balance out neurotransmitters and alleviate symptoms of ADHD. These are maybe some of these you've heard of, Ritalin, Chatera, things like that. These medications do come with risks and side effects, so be sure to talk to your doctor about each option.
Now things like Ritalin and Chatera, they are considered to be stimulants, so that is something to consider. If you are looking for medication to treat your ADHD, additionally there is therapy that can be focused on increasing a person's skills in time management organization or marriage and family counseling, they'd be recommended if you need that as well. One of the things that I was recently told about that I did not know about is something called brain jam, which is a learning tool that's physical in nature, it's kind of like a PE, where with children specifically, you mimic early movement to make new pathways in the brain, and this is very helpful for ADHD, is my understanding. More research is being done about alternative therapies all the time, by all means, not everything.
We don't know everything about ADHD by a long shot, and we're still working on it. So here are some helpful everyday tips if you do have ADHD as an adult. Carry a notebook with you to write down important information. Place critical items such as keys or medication in a specific place all the time.
You'll see people who have a little side table by the door, that's usually when they put their keys, their phone, that sort of thing, so they know to pick it up before they walk out the door the next morning. Break down tasks into smaller and more manageable segments. Follow a routine. So again, don't be afraid to ask for help if you are struggling with the task.
Many employers are understanding there are a few out there that may not be. Feel your employer out, see how receptive they would be, as far as if you wish to disclose your ADHD or not, that is completely up to you. But it is something to think about if you are struggling in the workplace. So that brings us to a close on our episode on ADHD, on ADHD in adults, excuse me.
Take care and I'll see you next week with a new topic. Also, just a few reminders before I go. This episode does come with research leaks, so I will add those in the show notes. I am on Zoom, if you'd like to talk to me, the show is live.
Our meeting ID on Zoom is 46517282. If you'd like to contact me, please email me at ericah, that's ericawithakay, hsandherry at newhiteseducation.org. Have a great week and I'll talk to everybody next week. We hope you enjoyed today's show.
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