6 Tips on Treating Adults With ADHD
Nearly 8 million adults in the United States have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). These adults often find speech, social and executive function skills challenging, affecting their social communication. As speech-language pathologists, we can help people with ADHD through educating and coaching social communication skills and self-awareness.
Adults with ADHD experience difficulty forming social relationships, communicating clearly in those social relationships, and controlling executive functions. SLPs understand social communication and skills from our work with people on the autism spectrum, we understand treating executive function impairments through work with acquired brain injury, and we certainly know about treating speech.
The following affected areas fall within our scope of practice:
Speech
Rate
Volume
Clarity (mumbling)
Amount
Social skills and relationships
Non-verbal communication (posture, gestures, non-verbal communication)
Turn-taking
Topic maintenance (tangentiality)
Listening
Self-awareness
Perspective-taking
Voice quality
Disinhibition
Executive functions
Organizing ideas
Problem-solving
Emotional regulation
It makes sense then, for SLPs to help adults with ADHD develop greater self-control, self-awareness and social inclusion. I’ve experienced success working with clients with ADHD using the tips below.
Set goals: Your client may wish to work on multiple areas of concern in one treatment session. Rather than skimming over m...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Melissa James Tags: Speech-Language Pathology ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder Autism Spectrum Disorder Executive Functions social skils Speech Disorders Source Type: blogs
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