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ADHD and ADA – The Americans with Disabilities Act
November 14, 2010
I attended the recent American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders (APSARD) conference in Washington DC and would like to share information from a wonderful presentation given by Dr. Kevin Murphy on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and its relevance to ADHD. What is ADA vs. IDEA? Why is ADA relevant to treating ADHD? Let’s review.
ADA is a civil rights act that evolved from anti-discrimination laws in the workplace. It is not an extension of special education laws such as the IDEA, which supports that handicapped or underachieving kids are entitled to remedial services that facilitate success. Instead the goal of the ADA is to prevent discrimination and ensure equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities. So contrary to popular belief, ADA was NOT intended to facilitate success! It is important to understand this distinction in the law for those seeking accommodations and for their clinicians.
Although the original ADA was signed into law in 1990, an Amendments Act was added in 9/2008. Later the Department of Justice (DOJ) proposed additional rules for law, including testing guidelines for accommodations. The final DOJ rules of the Amendments Act were not enacted until very recently in July 2010. The good news is that the Amendments Act is designed to apply less stringent criteria to establishing disability, but extensive documentation will still be required, generally including testing from a qualified professional with details of why each specific accommodation is being requested. NOTE: Diagnosis does not equal disability. In other words having a diagnosis of ADHD does not automatically qualify you for services.
Since the final ADA Amendments Act was just recently enacted (July 2010) there have not yet been any court cases to establish a baseline. We do not yet know how this will play out in the court system. If you are considering pursuing a case based on the ADA, at least make sure you build it on the concept of anti-discrimination – the true intent of this law and its amendments. For academic or workplace accommodations, I would recommend seeking a diagnostic evaluation that includes neuropsychological testing, which is done by a neuropsychologist (PhD). Neuropsychological testing offers the strongest case for accommodations.
Frequently I have patients arguing that because they have ADHD or a learning disability that academic conditions must be set to ensure their success. This idea is false. Neither IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act) nor ADA guarantees success. ADA is an outcome neutral, anti-discrimination law with origins in the civil rights act of 1964, while IDEA supports that underachieving children and entitled to remedial services to facilitate success. Success is still rightfully left in the hands of the individual to achieve.
Theresa Cerulli, M.D.
What Do You Do When Nobody Loves You?
November 3, 2010
“Nobody loves me, but my mother, and she could be jivin’ too.”
B.B. King
A Reflection on Love
B.B. King’s lament, “nobody loves me but my mother,” is sad enough, but then he postulates that she could also be lying, leaving him loved by no one. When you hear the artist sing out those words, the blues never sounded so blue. Who are we if we are not even certain of a mother’s love? I enjoy listening to B.B. King, but I will have to admit to cringing every time I hear this particular line. As a therapist, I work with too many people for whom the words are not simply lyrics, but rather a way of being in the world. For those who grew up in environments when loving parents were in any way absent, or untrustworthy, what does the voice inside of their head’s say? I imagine it sounds like, “if I wasn’t loved by my parents, no one will ever love me, and if I couldn’t trust my parents, I will never be able to trust anybody.”
How tragic! Think about it, going through your day-to-day life never allowing yourself to be fully connected to another person. Never allowing yourself to go beyond having a superficial relationship, always assuming that it can never be completely real…never fully trustworthy…never something you can really count on.
It’s quite a dilemma, isn’t it?
When others disappoint us, even from an early age, the truth is that we still have opportunities to find connection in the world, even if it’s from places we never expected to find it. For example, consider inmates in high security prisons. When inmates from these facilities are released, recidivism rates are typically quite high. If, however, inmates are paired with dogs for 12 to 18 months prior to their release, the rate of re-incarceration is nearly zero. What then did the connection with a canine provide the human? The answer is the same as what we had hoped we had gotten from parents…unconditional love.
Finding love requires us to be open to the possibility of love. We need to imagine ourselves as loveable. This can be tough work but it is clearly possible. One only needs to look at the example of the former inmates and what they learned about the unconditional nature of relationship to appreciate the potential of new experiences. Too many of us lament the loss of parents, siblings, spouses, and other family members without ever attempting to find those loving, affirming and sustaining relationships elsewhere. I have seen those connections occur in therapy groups, in adoptive homes, in faith communities, between close friends, and yes, with animals. Isn’t it time for all of us to consider who we have in our lives who would willingly, perhaps gleefully, enter our lives as loving mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, friends and soul mates. It is never too late for that!
Best,
Walter
“Walter is a credible, personable therapist with an interactive style that works. He cares deeply about his patients and is committed to their growth and well being. I am grateful that I can count on Walter to care for the children and adults in our community.”
Theresa Cerulli, M.D.
Walter Sherburne, Psychotherapist
walter@sherburnecounseling.com
www.sherburnecounseling.com
978-470-HOPE
Keep it Simple
September 26, 2010
Keep it Simple
“Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” – Albert Einstein
When you’re trying to create a system to organize your projects and obligations, keep it simple but be sure it does what you need it to do.
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“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” – Albert Einstein
Don’t get so caught up in learning a new computer program or creating such a wonderful system that you forget you started out to complete your projects and obligations.
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“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works.” – Leonardo da Vinci
Try things! Try a simple approach and learn from what works and what doesn’t.
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“Dealing with complexity is an inefficient and unnecessary waste of time, attention and mental energy. There is never any justification for things being complex when they could be simple.” – Edward de Bono
For some reason, we don’t seem to feel that simple approaches will work. Yet it is the simple approaches that are most likely to get done and therefore to be remembered.
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“It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated.” – John Ruskin
Designing a simple system may require experienced help. The first time through you are likely to see vexing problems instead of straightforward solutions.
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“Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.” – Jim Rohn
Remembering to practice is the key. Be sure you include a simple system to remind you to do it.
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“Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” – Albert Einstein
Back to School
September 12, 2010
The lazy days of summer are ending and it’s back to school. For some individuals it is a time of opportunity, growth, learning, and excitement. For others it is a time of dread. Your child may be thinking, how am I going to survive another school year? You may be thinking, how am I going to pay for another school year? My experience in working with children and adults with ADHD is that transitions in general are difficult and the “back to school” weeks are particularly rough waters to negotiate for everyone. Deep breaths – you can do this.
I initially sat down intending to focus this blog on ADHD and back to school days, but my thoughts evolved into reflecting on managing stress through any transition. First we need to recognize the transition and label it as such. “This too shall pass”. We need to remind ourselves that transitions don’t last forever, nor do our mood states that occur during them. By definition a transition time is temporary and giving it more weight than it deserves can be a slippery slope. That does not imply you shouldn’t take such life periods seriously – indeed you should! It is the temporary nature of a transition that I wish to emphasize. Whether good days or bad, they pass without our permission. Unless of course you have discovered the fountain of youth.
I would also like to raise awareness that a period of transition is usually not occuring to one person at a time. Transitions occur in systems, affecting classrooms, families, companies, and even countries when they invade our lives. Which means an individual is impacted not only by the content of the transition itself, but by the others reactions around them to that transition. For example, say your 3rd grader is going back to school and is worried. It’s their transition, yet your life changes as much as theirs. So too may your mood. Or maybe your child is angry about school. Maybe instead you are relieved they are out of the house as you envision a more peaceful day for yourself. The varying reactions we have to the same event are as endless as the events themselves.
Try to find common ground during such transitions. What is it we are all seeking? When you boil down all the excess baggage, we basically have the same needs at our core, children and adults alike: the need to feel safe (physically and emotionally), to be understood, to feel loved, to be heard, to have a sense of purpose and happiness. We all want to be accepted for who we are, our good points and our not so good ones. Knowing someones faults and loving them despite those faults is one of the greatest gifts we can offer.
So during this back to school transition time, take a moment to remember it will pass, and despite our varying reactions to stress, what we all want at our core is the same. Perhaps we can wish each other a safe back to school season filled with acceptance and understanding. Or at least a good nights sleep.
Theresa Cerulli, M.D.
A Tough Time Being Wrong
August 7, 2010
When I was in my twenties, I knew that I was right. Other’s observations were really just opinions and didn’t take my full situation into account. Well, I wasn’t always right, but I was rarely absolutely wrong.
One day when I was 19, a group of people explained that I was just dead wrong in my perception of why I did a certain thing. I explained that they didn’t know me well enough to know the whole story. They said, “Give it up!” There were eight of them so I just let them talk and then tried to let it go.
30 minutes later I was walking down the street when I got hit so hard by the truth that I had to stop and sit on the curb until my legs could hold me up again – they were right, I was wrong. I was never able to be as confidently right again. That conversion experience opened up a rich life-long self exploration path.
Kathryn Schulz, in her new book, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margins of Error, takes the whole issue of being wrong and gives it the attention it deserves. Hers is the most balanced look at rightness and wrongness that any of us non-philosophers could want. She is entertaining, easy to follow and asks provoking questions, the kind that start to creep into the rest of your life in interesting ways.
One of her key points is that we need errors to help us learn. If we can’t be open to alternatives, if we don’t dare explore possible dead ends, we limit our growth. Coaching, therapy and any other kind of exploration of the truths of our lives puts us at risk to discover that we’ve been wrong.
But if we feel we can’t afford to be wrong, we’ll block the reality that is right in front of our eyes. I say to myself that the only way to be wrong is to not learn. An interesting idea, but it may be wrong. I’ll keep my eyes open and see what there is to learn.
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