ADHD Conference: - A timely dialogue

What makes a gold standard approach to ADHD management, intervention & treatment?

Keynote:
Professor Philip Hazell, is Head, Discipline of Psychiatry, Sydney Medical School and Director of Infant Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services for the Sydney and South Western Sydney Local Health Networks. He also holds a conjoint academic appointment with the University of Newcastle. Philip was awarded a PhD in 1997 for a thesis concerning automatic and effortful information processing in ADHD. His other research output spans youth suicide and deliberate self-harm, mood disorders, autism, children in out-of-home care, systematic review of treatment effectiveness, psychological sequelae of disaster, and the evaluation of medical education. He was in 2004 honoured by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry with the Elaine Schlosser Lewis Award for Research in Attention Deficit Disorder. ADHD across the life span - Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects about 5% of children. Problems, for a minority at least, persist into adulthood. This keynote address will outline the manifestations of ADHD at different stages of development, and review recent research that examines factors influencing the trajectory of people with ADHD. In addition, the address will review evidence for the optimal treatment of ADHD at different stages of development.

Keynote:
Dr Caroline Stevenson B.Sc (Hons), M.Psych, PhD. - Caroline is a Clinical Psychologist who trained at the University of Sydney. She is a registered psychologist and Member of the Clinical College of the Australian Psychological Society. In 1999, she completed a PhD on the management of AD/HD in adults. Since 2000, Caroline has worked in private practice helping individuals and families with the challenges associated with having AD/HD and learning difficulties. Caroline has also worked with mothers and babies and enjoys helping parents adjust to parenthood. In addition, Caroline works at Macquarie University as a Clinical Supervisor on the Master of Clinical Psychology Program. What the science says about overcoming problems with attention, organisation and working memory without medication? - In this presentation a cognitive remediation approach to managing the symptoms of ADHD will be discussed. Cognitive remediation refers to strategies that aim to

overcome cognitive deficits and includes, making changes to the physical environment, teaching compensatory strategies and re-training cognitive functions. In the community, children are using a range of programs to improve their skills including neurofeedback, COGMED and luminosity. Children are also being encouraged to use a diary, colour code their books and take regular breaks. The evidence base for these approaches will be examined.

Keynote:
Mark Brandtman, B.Ed, Grad Dip L.D. - Mark operates an educational consultancy which works exclusively with adults and children with ADHD. His consultancy offers services and support to schools, as well as education for parents and school students regarding the effective management of ADHD. Mark also operates the Sydney Adult ADHD Clinic. Mark has worked in both private and nongovernment schools where he was a boarding housemaster, an assistant principal and a classroom teacher, as well as having been involved in remedial education in both primary and secondary settings. His consultancy offers services and support to schools, as well as education for parents and school students regarding the effective management of ADHD. Mark has been a speaker at conferences both in Australia and internationally and takes on an advocacy role. Could do better, ADHD journey

Keynote:
David Hong B. App. Sc.,[Nursing] Master of Family Therapy, Grad. Cert. Couple Therapy, Dip. Clinical Hypnotherapy. - David is a Credential Mental Health Nurse and practising family & couple therapist. David has extensive experience working with children and adolescents with serious emotional & behavioural challenges, and or mental health problems, & their families in primary, secondary and tertiary services. He was Nursing Manager of a specialist mental health tertiary service for Children & Adolescents. David has worked with the Catholic School system for 15 years an outreach family therapist and school counsellor. His background in acute adult mental health, child and adolescent mental health, trans-cultural mental health, school systems and systemic training as well as experience in family dispute resolution and management have enriched his understanding and enabled him to appreciate the complexity of mental health concerns by parents in relation to their childrens challenges. Pieces of the puzzle, marrying 20 years of anecdotal experience with families & evidence based approaches to family therapy - In this presentation David will share his extensive anecdotal experience of his work with families as well as update the evidence of family therapy as an effective treatment modality. David will also share how he develops the niche of working collaboratively with school system as well as looking for resources and competence.

ADHD Conference: A timely dialogue

What makes a gold standard approach to ADHD management, intervention & treatment?

Concurrent Sessions: 1. Assessing for ADHD in children and adolescents. - Dr Caroline Stevenson, Clinical Psychologist. This presentation will outline a comprehensive assessment approach for assessing for the presence of ADHD. Evidence based practice requires that clinicians undertake a multi-modal assessment and collect information from multiple informants. In this workshop, a range of assessment tools suitable for use with children and adolescents will be discussed. A strong emphasis of the workshop will be on differential diagnosis and the characteristics of ADHD that make the diagnosis a distinct entity.

2. Working with your childs School. This session will address the legal context of catering for students with disabilities (including learning difficulties and ADHD) in education settings; the models of support which are currently operating in NSW schools & reasonable expectations of parents and consulting professionals in terms of determining productive ways of working with schools. Nicki Levi is a teacher with an Honours Masters Degree in Special Education. She has taught at all levels from Kindergarten to University including having taught Literacy and Numeracy within Corrective Services. Nicki was a tenured academic at University of Western Sydney for 8 years teaching in the Primary and Special Needs programs as well as developing the Master of Education (Support Teaching) program. Nicki's current work is in K-12 education for students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities, behaviour problems, multiple disabilities and autism. She has owned and operated several businesses from tourist parks to farms and currently works as a teacher and consultant from her home, a macadamia farm in northern NSW.

3. Gifted students with ADHD who are diagnostically homeless. This presentation will focus on learners who are BOTH gifted and ADHD how to identify them, how to meet their needs in your classroom, and how to lift the lazy, bored or naughty masks to reveal the gifts beneath. All gifted children can, and some gifted children do, suffer from one or more disabilities including ADHD - which may be experienced by non-gifted children. A high IQ is protective against nothing except a low one. Not all learning impairments are apparent in early childhood - indeed, the higher the IQ, the later they are usually identified. Too often the signs of ADHD or other disability in an underachieving gifted

child are simply dismissed by parents, teachers and other professionals on the grounds that the child is just gifted or just bored and under-challenged. Is it worth delineating the exact cause of a gifted childs academic underachievement, and does it matter what its called? Is it wise to discard medical labels in favour of so-called less-stigmatising euphemisms? And what about the gifted child whose professionally diagnosed ADHD and simply referred to by a nebulous, supposedly gentler description instead of an internationally accepted diagnosis, and who is thus left diagnostically homeless? Carol Barnes, National Coordinator GLD Australia, a not-for-profit online learning community and support group for parents and teachers of gifted children with learning disability (GLD). Also Vice-President/parent group convenor of the Queensland gifted associations Gold Coast Branch and an invited lecturer at Griffith University, Carol has presented on GLD for Education Queensland, Mensa Australia, SPELD NSW and SPELD Qld, and a variety of international and Australian conferences, and primary and secondary schools in NSW and Queensland. Carol is also a lawyer but, most importantly, the mother of two gifted university students, each with multiple learning disabilities. Lizette Campbell, [Co-presenter] BSc., MA., MAPS, MCClinP, MCEDP is a Clinical Psychologist. She is NSW Chair of the College of Educational and Developmental Psychologists. She has over 30 years experience in working with gifted students, including those with learning and developmental difficulties, autism spectrum disorders, and ADHD. Lizette has been an active member of GLD Australia and its forerunner support group for over 20 years. She has her own private consultancy service.

4. The quiet ones, missed or misunderstood, clinical implications as an adult. This presentation is focused on adults with ADHD of inattentive type. Inattentive type of ADHD is often under diagnosed or misdiagnosed in childhood. This population is known as lazy, not serious in studies or of having learning disabilities. In this presentation we will focus on symptoms, pathways to seeking help and implications of delayed diagnosis of the condition. Dr Sujay Sringeri, Senior Consultant Psychiatrist comes with a wealth of experience in psychiatry. He is a highly regarded clinician and have special interest in Neuro-psychiatry, Adult ADHD, Personality Disorder, Mood Disorder and Cultural Psychiatry cross cultural presentation of psychiatric illness, cultural meaning of psychiatric symptoms, ethnopsychopharmacology. He is trained from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences [NIMHANS] the most prestigious training organization in Bangalore, India. Dr Sringeri has an interest in adult ADHD management and treatment, he will now compliment a comprehensive team approach at the Delta Clinics vision of providing a service across life span.