A New Understanding of ADHD in Children and Adults: Executive Function Impairments

For over 100 years, ADHD has been seen as essentially a behaviour disorder. Recent scientific research has developed a new paradigm which recognises ADHD as a developmental disorder of the cognitive management system of the brain, its executive functions. This cutting-edge book pulls together key ideas of this new understanding of ADHD, explaining them and describing in understandable language scientific research that supports this new model.

A New Understanding of ADHD in Children and Adults includes a detailed explanation of the Brown Model of ADD/ADHD which is an expanded model to describe the complex cognitive functions impaired in ADD/ADHD. This model describes executive functions, the cognitive management system of the human brain.

The book addresses questions like:

• Why can those with ADHD focus very well on some tasks while having great difficulty in focusing on other tasks they recognise as important?
• How does brain development and functioning of persons with ADHD differ from others?
• How do impairments of ADHD change from childhood through adolescence and in adulthood?
• What treatments help to improve ADHD impairments? How do they work? Are they safe?
• Why do those with ADHD have additional emotional, cognitive, and learning disorders more often than most others?
• What commonly-held assumptions about ADHD have now been proven wrong by scientific research?

Psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other medical and mental health professionals, as well as those affected by ADHD and their families, will find this to be am insightful and invaluable resource.

Table of Contents

Introduction.

35 Myths about ADHD and Why They are Wrong.

A New Paradigm for an Old Disorder: ADHD as Impaired Executive Functions.

What Research Reveals about the Causes and Unfolding Nature of ADHD.

How the New Model Changes Assessment in Children and Adults.

How Treatments for ADHD Affect the Brain and Improve Executive Functions.

Why Many Learning and Psychiatric Disorders so often Co-Occur with ADHD.

"Brown presents a comprehensive case for comprehending this disorder in terms of a wide range of executive functions, rather than on the basis of behavior and attention alone. Loaded with up-to-date research findings and synthetic in scope, this work is bound to challenge assumptions and pave the way toward new paradigms."
- Stephen P. Hinshaw, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, and Editor, Psychological Bulletin

"Tom Brown’s book is placing cognitive changes at the heart of ADHD and drawing out the implications for clinicians and researchers.  It is a welcome corrective to the overemphasis on disruptive behavior and it is written so clearly that it can be recommended to everyone who wants to understand the nature of this serious problem for adults and children."
- Eric Taylor, FRCP, FRCPsych, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, University of London

"Dr. Brown presents a science-driven and cohesive way of re-conceptualizing the disorder, revitalizing the central role of executive functioning impairment in ADHD.  This book translates recent advance in ADHD science into understandable words not only for mental health professionals, but for all those interest in this very prevalent disorder affecting individuals across the whole life cycle."
- Luis Augusto Rohde, M.D., Ph.D., President of the World Federation of ADHD, and Professor of Psychiatry, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

"This book presents a highly useful and current summation of the major findings concerning ADHD and the role of executive functioning in it.  Clinicians, students, and lay people will find here much valuable information on the disorder, its assessment and diagnosis, and its management.”"
- Russell A. Barkley, Ph.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Medical University of South Carolina