ADD coaches

Ive read several blurbs about ADD coaches. What is this? I have a husband with ADD and a young daughter just diagnosed with ADHD.

My husband sees an ADD coach and she is terrific. They are still evolving in terms of the work they're doing together (he just started going to her this summer) but it's been working out well.

For the first few months, it was (for me) a very slow 'getting-to-know-you' set of weekly sessions. I was impatient because they weren't really getting much accomplished, although she did walk him through some of the practical things he needed to get done. She interviewed both of us and came up with a few simple systems for him to try for remembering his responsibilities and managing his schedule.

She was holding off on doing the real work until he had a full neuropsychological evaluation, which he completed last month. The purpose of the evaluation was to rule out any kind of cognitive or brain problems, to be determine whether learning disabilities were a factor. It cost about $900 but I feel that it was worth it. The neuropsych doctor determined that my husband has severe ADD (something that neither of us had previously thought) as well as severe anxiety, but no learning disabilities or cognitive impairments.

Where the ADD coach has really shown her most valuable worth was two months ago when my husband went through a rather severe anxiety attack and became paralytically depressed, almost failing out of school, although he had been earning straight A's prior. She did the unimaginable and got him back on his feet within a few days - previously it would take months. She and I consulted with several of his doctors and got an emergency med change, and she was able to reassure him that it wasn't a lost cause. I am eternally grateful to her for that. I've been living so long with him being like this that I'm no longer able to discern when it's an emergency or when we're just settling in for a long 'down' period, and she is more objective than I am when it comes to noticing red flags.

Mind you, not all of this is ADD. Much of it is anxiety, but the two are so intertwined that it's pretty much pointless to focus on one diagnosis in isolation.

Anyway, I really recommend at least our particular ADD coach. I found her via Google, but I also put an ad on Craigslist under "Wanted", asking people for recommendations of ADD coaches in our city.

Good luck!