Advances in ADHD Diagnosis & Management + The OTHER Attention Disorder: Sluggish Cognitive Tempo

Author of more than 20 books, rating scales and clinical manuals, Russell Barkley is an internationally-recognized authority on ADHD. His work is considered to be the cornerstone for best practices in ADHD Diagnosis and Management.

In this 3-hour webinar, Dr. Barkley will update you on:

• The latest information about how to diagnose and manage ADHD as it manifests in childhood vs adulthood
• Major advances in pharmaceutical and psychosocial treatments of ADHD
• The diagnosis, management of the lesser known attention disorder: Sluggish Cognitive Tempo

Advances in Diagnosis, Etiologies and Management of ADHD:

Clinicians are becoming increasingly aware that ADHD in childhood does not disappear over development and that many individuals with the disorder in childhood will continue to manifest the disorder into adulthood. In fact, research indicates that ADHD will persist into adolescence in up to 80 percent of the childhood cases, and into adulthood in up to 65 percent of these cases.

With ADHD being one of the most common childhood behavioural disorders, mental health, medical and other professionals need to update themselves on current research findings on diagnosis and treatment for both children AND adults.

This presentation will provide current information on the diagnosis of ADHD and changes that were made in the DSM5 diagnostic criteria for ADHD. Highlighted will be recommendations for addressing inadequacies in these current diagnostic criteria. The presentation will also include a discussion of the major domains of causes of ADHD and their likely interactions. Dr. Barkley will then provide an overview of the major advances that have occurred in medications and psychosocial treatments of ADHD including a discussion of experimental and disproven management methods.

The Other Attention Disorder: Diagnosis, Nature, and Management of Sluggish Cognitive Tempo vs. ADHD:

Studies of children having ADD without Hyperactivity suggest an important subset of ADHD with a pattern of symptoms distinct from the better known markers of ADHD. These symptoms included daydreaming, mental fogginess and confusion, staring, slow processing of information, hypoactivity, slow movement, and lethargy, among others. How many clients have you encountered who exhibit an attention deficit disorder of low power, arousal, or focus?

Since 1798, the medical literature on attention disorders has identified at least two kinds. The first is very well-known: a disorder of distractibility, lack of sustained attention, and poor inhibition. The second one has been largely ignored for 2 centuries until the mid-1980s.

This lesser known disordered is called sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT). Controversy has continued over the past 25 years on the nature of SCT and whether it is a subtype of ADHD or a distinct disorder from it.

In this presentation, Dr. Barkley reviews the history of SCT and what is known about it from past research. He also describes the results of his own recent investigations into SCT in children and the only study of SCT in adults that he recently published, all of which suggest that SCT is a distinct disorder from ADHD but one that may overlap with it in nearly half of all cases. Dr. Barkley discusses the differences between SCT in symptoms, executive functioning, comorbidity for other disorders, and psychosocial impairment and what little is known about differential treatment response. He also discusses several different possibilities for explaining the underlying nature of SCT.