<p>is this for high school or college. would it be appropriate to hire someone like this to coach a freshman through the first year of college. he does not have any disorders</p>
<p>Hi jym - I didn’t think those words were insulting. It does kind of seem like an arms race to me. But feel free to tell me your opinion again a few more times once more. I will check out the movie. I’ll ignore the insults, though, OK?</p>
<p>smile: don’t feel that you have to have a “disorder” to justify having a coach who helps with such skills as time management. First years in college often struggle because they’re no longer in that rigid hs schedule and they don’t have their parents reminding them of all they need to juggle.</p>
<p>i apologize if i offended anyone. i did not read the entire thread and noticed ADHD at the beginning and although I had my son tested for ADHD he was diagnosed as not to be in that category. i do have a niece who is ADHD and she is like my own daughter. We struggled through her high school and college years and she is now a teacher and doing well.
My sons problems seem to be procrastination and the lack of urgency. He was going to go to college at a public school in our home state and I was not to concerned because he was testing in the top 20%. However, at the last minute (Thanksgiving) he applied and was accepted to a private school where he now ranks in the lower 50% . The school has a <25 acceptance rate and i am concerned that my son will be behind the eight ball on many things. Organizational skills, time management, long term planning, thinking ahead, etc. are a few of the things that concern me. The idea of a academic coach is new to me and I was curious if hiring one would appear extreme. even if it did appear extreme, i might still hire one for a year if i could find a good one.</p>
<p>smile,
You have nothing to apologize for. You asked an appropriate question, and hiring a person to help your son with organization, planning, time management, prospective memory, fluency, etc is <em>totally reasonable</em>, especially as you want him to have the skills to succeed in school. FWIW, those skills are in fact part of a diagnosis of ADHD. I don’t mean to doubt the testing and diagnosis you have had done on your son, but it is possible that he has ADHD inattentive type, as opposed to the overactive, impulsive or combined type. The frontal lobe/executive function skills that you describe are often referred to as a “dysexecutive disorder”, which can result from a head injury or be part of an ADHD diagnosis (inattentive type) [Attention-deficit</a> disorder (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder without hyperactivity): A neurobiologically and behaviorally distinct disorder from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (with hyperactivity)](<a href=“http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1474811/]Attention-deficit”>Attention-deficit disorder (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder without hyperactivity): A neurobiologically and behaviorally distinct disorder from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (with hyperactivity) - PMC) Some question whether there is a true dysexecutive disorder in and of itself. [Is</a> there a dysexecutive syndrome?](<a href=“http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2430005/]Is”>Is there a dysexecutive syndrome? - PMC) but nonetheless, having help with these skills can be very important to succeed in school , work and life.</p>
<p>MisterK, I have only tried to gently point out to you, with several examples, that some of your posts seem unnecessarily defensive and aggressive in their tone. I was hoping you didn’t mean them to be, and that you would appreciate the feedback that they may come across as inadvertently offensive or insulting to other posters. Perhaps I was wrong in that assumption. If you felt insulted by the feedback I am sorry you feel that way, as that was not the intent. Perhaps your posts werent intended to be inflammatory either, but thats how they tend to read. There was a poster a while back named limbwalker who seemed to post with a giant chip on his shoulder. It really isn’t necessary here. Really. Welcome to cc. I hope you find it a helpful site as your s explores his college search. Peace.</p>
<p>MisterK- This does tend to be a site that attracts parents and students with an intense interest in higher education and the process of being admitted to highly selective colleges. Most of us who have been around awhile clearly recognize that there are more great colleges in the country than just those in the Ivy League, but the fact remains that admission to many colleges has become extremely difficult to achieve, and many posters come to this site to gain insite.</p>
<p>If it isn’t for you- and it does seem that you are somewhat offended by the intensity of the whole thing- just click your mouse somewhere else. There is much to learn and a wealth of information here, but it certainly isn’t the world of Leave It To Beaver.</p>
<p>awaytoschool and smile:</p>
<p>You might want to also check out these resources:</p>
<p>[Thinking</a> Organized](<a href=“http://thinkingorganized.com/]Thinking”>http://thinkingorganized.com/)</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Get Organized (Fry, Ronald W. How to Study Program.) (9781401889135): Ron Fry: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Get-Organized-Ronald-Study-Program/dp/1401889131]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Get-Organized-Ronald-Study-Program/dp/1401889131)</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>It is my belief that many students would benefit from such a coach. It seems to matter more what the disposition of the coach is and less about credentials, don’t you think?</p>
<p>quest - My son agrees with you. He doesn’t care about the creditials, just that he can connect with the person. </p>
<p>smile - I understand there are some colleges that provide the organization through the school resource centers. Contact the college and ask what is involved in the tutoring center, freshmen advising and resources. Some of the freshmen advisors may function as a coach in organization. The key is to know what the school offers AND have a student willing to take advantage of the offers from day 1 before the kid is in a jam.</p>
<p>Good points. Sometimes these services are offered though the school’s Disabiliity Services (so the student might need to qualify for services) and sometimes through the school’s counseling center. Some schools have organized tutoring resources and this may be available through these as well. Many students have really never been taught good organizational skills. We somehow seem to think that this is learned by osmosis or something. It is a skill that needs to be learned. </p>
<p>And yes, while the credentials may not be of prime importance, the person providing the service should be adequately trained and know what they are doing. There are many different ways to address organization-- and different methods work for different people.</p>
<p>I don’t want to go too off topic, but for those of you who have had a coach work with their child, what were you looking for?</p>
<p>I’ve been fortunate enough to be a SAHM for the last 9 years. My previous career was technical, and I’ve lost many of the tech skills, but not the management skills. I’m highly organized myself. I have a DD who is ADD, so I’m very well versed in ADD issues and ways to address them. I live near a university. I am looking for a second career, but one with a bit of flexibility. I could provide “coaching” or organizational help to students. My degree is totally unrelated to this field. Would anyone hire me? Just a thought.</p>
<p>In response to whether or not I have reverted to my old ways now that I am not seeing the coach, it’s kind of a mixture. I did retain some skills, but the problem is that I only saw her once a week for a couple of months, and that really isn’t long enough to undo 20+ years of misguided coping mechanisms and replace them with new ones. A lot of time I spent with her was untangling crises that I was in at the moment and not on working on day-to-day skills, there just wasn’t enough time to get to everything that needed to be gotten to with one hour a week of appointment time. I think had we had adequate time, it would have been totally life changing-- it is definitely possible to retain the skills you learn in executive functioning coaching, but there is no one strategy that works for every person, you need to work out which strategy solves each problem for each individual and that is a lot of work and a lot of it is trial and error. So if you have someone with moderate to severe executive functioning problems, you really need a coach that you are going to be able to get a lot of face time with to really get to the bottom of all that. </p>
<p>Now I am at a point where professors are refusing to allow my accommodations, the coach is supposed to be intervening for me because the prof refuses to listen to me, and it’s spring break and I still don’t have my accommodations for winter term. The situation right now is just out of control. I have now taken midterms without having my notetaker accommodation for my dysgraphia set up, I had no notes until the week before the exam and even then I was missing a month’s worth. I still don’t have notes for one of my classes or any exam accommodations set up. Our office is just completely overworked, apparently. It doesn’t surprise me it’s so hard to get into the coach right now if they’re that busy.</p>
<p>geogirl: Someone like me would need someone with background in educational psychology and experience (not just with one child) with ADHD and autism. With your background you would probably not have enough knowledge of my symptoms to be able to help me figure out multiple different options for circumventing them (which is what is necessary, since what works for one wont work for another). So I probably wouldn’t hire you at this point, but someone with more run of the mill organizational issues would probably benefit from your help. Mine aren’t just rooted in lack of knowledge about how to be organized in the conventional way, my coach and I were basically coming up with disability accommodations that I could give MYSELF to get through life, these are off-the-wall, think-outside-the-box ways of doing day to day things, and my coach has to have dozens of these ready to go for my every problem-- and to do that you’d need a LOT of knowledge about the disability-- and more than you could likely get just from working with your DD, since ADHD manifests slightly differently in every child.</p>