ARE YOU SURE IT'S ADHD? WEBINAR RECORDING

Presenter: Dr. Paul G. Swingle

“The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder” (Alan Schwarz, Sunday NY Times, December 14, 2013) reviews this “...national disaster of dangerous proportions.” The Times analysis of the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention data revealed that the number of children on medication for ADHD has soared from 600,000, in 1990, to 3.5 million!

It has become apparent that we are becoming intolerant of normal children's behavior. We do not recognize the emotional challenges that many children have in our culture and we, as parents, often do not take responsibility for the tensions we create that our children must endure. We routinely treat the wrong problem and we are turning childhood into a disease! We should also keep in mind the very sobering data indicating that over 50% of our children have been exposed to severe emotional stress that borders on “traumatic.”

Attention Deficit Disorder(S), are real, they exist and can be very successfully treated. Untreated ADD can lead to very severe consequences as indicated by prevalence of this condition in our prison populations. BUT, most causes of children’s inattentiveness have nothing to do with neurologically based impediments. These children are stuck with ADD labels which don’t peel off easily and then treated inappropriately with substantial risk for side effects and worse, the creation of a life-long fictitious “mental” disorder that can be crippling.

The webinar recording starts with some fundamental neurology describing how a specific electroencephalographic assessment allows the brain to tell us everything we need to know to precisely identify the AD(H)D disorders. More importantly, the procedure also offers some hints about conditions that may be responsible for causing or exacerbating attention and learning difficulties that are NOT ADHD disorders and how we clinicians can treat these conditions that impede our children’s ability to thrive.

All views expressed in the recording are solely those of the presenters and participants.

Learning Objectives

• Learn common ADHD EEG patterns
• Learn to identify EEG patterns associated with exposure to severe emotional stressors
• Learn braindriving protocols (classical conditioning) for enhancing skill development in learning challenged children

Swingle, P. G. (2015) When the ADHD Diagnosis Is Wrong: Understanding Other Factors That Affect Attention in Children.
Swingle, P. G. (2015) Adding Neurotherapy to Your Practice: Clinician’s Guide