Dr. Russell Barkley

That's an accommodation.

It's like a ramp coming into a building for somebody physically disabled.

You didn't get rid of the physical disability, but you allow them to participate effectively in the things that the rest of us can do.

So, you know, things like time management and using a day planner and a week at a glance calendar and Outlook

and making yourself accountable to your colleague, your boss, your supervisor, your spouse for the things that you commit and checking in with your adult ADHD coach several times a week on your goals and your strategies and what you are trying to do.

These are all ways of rearranging your environment so that you get to do the things your disorder otherwise would preclude you from doing.

But you're still ADHD.

You still have to own it.

But oh my God, there's hundreds of things in my book

that we talk about of ways of altering environments to lessen the impact of the disorder.

But you won't do those if you don't own that disorder.

So again, to reiterate, evaluation, education, medication, modification, accommodation.

Do all five of those and you will be doing a great job.

I don't think the diagnosis can be accurately or reliably made in less than two to three hours.

Now, that may mean

that i'm going to see you three times for 45 minutes to an hour because of the way physicians and psychiatrists schedule their time psychologists on the other hand are used to blocking out three to five hours to do their evaluations all at once so just understand it may not be done all at once but it usually takes that long because i've got to go back through your history i've got to survey all of these symptoms i have to look across all these disorders

I have to have you complete these rating scales and score them up and then I have to interpret those.

I may need to do some psychological testing with regard to your intelligence and your achievement because two of the rule-outs for having problems in work and education are, do you have adequate intelligence for the environment that you're in and do you have any learning disabilities?

Because 50 percent of people with ADHD also have a learning disability that's not their ADHD.

If I don't realize that,