Is an ADHD coach worth the money? What can you expect to get out of a coaching relationship? Do experts recommend coaching? Learn the basics here and find out if coaching might be right for you.

You’re under-performing and you can’t seem to break out of bad habits that produce predictably disastrous results…could an ADHD coach help you to transform the limitations of your disorder and achieve the kind of success you deserve?  

Read on to find out more about:

• General info on adult ADHD coaching, how it can help you and what it can’t do for you
• Expert recommendations and research supporting its efficacy

What Is ADHD Life Coaching?

An ADHD coach assists you in identify goals and also obstacles that interfere with your ability to realize these goals. He or she then helps you develop and stick with a plan for success.

Through very regular interactions (regular check-in texts, for example) a coach learns how ADHD symptoms affect daily life and then offers personalized feedback, focusing questions, encouragement or advice to help you overcome limitations and achieve your stated goals.

If you struggle with financial problems, for example, a life coach might help you to set up a system for bill payments that keeps you from the late fees you normally incur. She could then keep you on track with reminders, questions and advice.

So What, Specifically, Can an ADHD Coach Help Do for Me?

Adults with ADHD may struggle in one or more areas of life.

• Though intelligent and creative - career success may prove elusive.
• Though loving, kind and pleasant – relationships never last
• Though well intentioned – finances are a disaster…

An ADHD coach helps you to identify areas in life you’d like to improve on, and then helps you to implement effective behavioral strategies to get you where you want to go.

A committee from the US Attention Deficit Disorder Association (ADDA) came up with a draft proposal on the benefits of ADHD coaching. Some of the benefits from their list include:

 1. Facilitating Goal Achievement, by:

• Helping you to overcome procrastination habits
• Helping you to consider options beyond your normal responses
• Offering feedback on course correction when you encounter obstacles
  
• Creating the types of accountability that help you to achieve (such as breaking up large projects into a serious of smaller deadline tasks)
• Helping you to create an environment that facilitates your success

2. Encouraging Skill Development, by:

• Helping you to learn effective time and money management skills
• Teaching tricks and skills to control impulsivity
• Helping you to set and keep personal boundaries
• Helping you to improve social and communication skills
• Helping you improve assertive conflict resolution skills

3. Improving Your Emotional State, by:

• Helping you to reduce stress, worry and feelings of being overwhelmed
• Improving your self confidence

4. Encouraging Self Knowledge, by:

• Helping you to realize how ADHD affects you personally, specifically
• Assisting you in developing personalized strategies for success¹

ADHD Coaching Cautions

Two cautions to keep in mind when considering the idea of adult ADHD coaching are:

1. Coaching is not the same as therapy and should not substitute for professional help
2. While many qualified and capable people work as ADHD coaches, people with minimal qualifications/abilities/experience can also call themselves ADHD coaches. A doctor, mental health counselor or psychologist can’t practice until fully qualified and licensed, but an ADHD coach can open for business without needing any qualifications or licensing.
   

Do Experts Recommend Adult ADHD Coaching?

Experts generally recommend comprehensive multimodal treatment as the best approach. Elements/characteristics of this treatment may include:

• Medication
• Psychotherapy
• Education/skills training
• The coordinated involvement of a team of healthcare professionals
• The involvement of a spouse or other significant family members²

ADHD coaching is not generally recommended as a core component of multimodal treatment for adult ADHD, but that being said, many people find that it helps as an addition, rather than replacement, for core treatments.

It’s a valid tool in a well stocked tool box against ADHD – but it’s not a first line treatment.

How Much Does It Cost?

Fees vary tremendously, depending on experience, services provided, geographical location and a great many other variables.

Fees are often charged as a flat rate per month and are inclusive of a pre-arranged number of interactions per day or week, for example, a twice a week telephone check-in and 2 longer phone meetings per month.

In general, the costs of working with an ADHD coach are similar to the costs of working with a therapist, often between $300 and $600 dollars per month.³

Is There Any Research to Support the Concept of Adult ADHD Coaching?

Although a lot of anecdotal evidence supports the use of ADHD coaching, very little clinical research has been done to prove that it really works.

One initial study, however, released in 2010 by Wayne State University researchers, shows that ADHD coaching helped college students with ADHD achieve greater success.

• For the study, researchers tracked 127 college students with ADHD from 10 institutions across the country. Students were randomly assigned to either receive ADHD coaching or to receive no treatment (the comparison group).
• The results – students who received the ADHD coaching had statistically significant improvements in self regulation, study skills and  motivation, self confidence, time management skills, overall sense of well being and positive emotional states.⁴

Will an ADHD Coach Be Able to Help Me?

The likelihood of success depends largely on the skill and motivation of the coach and on your willingness to work, make changes and follow recommendations and directions.

Before you consider paying for coaching, ask yourself?

• Am I ready to get coaching? Do I really believe that I have a problem and that I need to make significant changes to my lifestyle to improve myself?
• Can or will I find enough time to work meaningfully with a coach on a regular basis?
• Am I willing to make the changes to lifestyle and life-strategies that a coach might suggest?⁵

Image Copyright: Quantumlars

If you have adult ADD/ADHD you may have difficulty sustaining attention when in conversation with another person – and because of this you’re more likely to miss the important information that’s communicated through body language and through other forms of non verbal communication. Fortunately, with effort you can improve. Here are 8 ways to get better.

You have ADD/ADHD so you’re probably a little more forgetful, impulsive and inattentive than the average person.

It’s not your fault… but since most people you interact with won’t know of or take into account your condition, you’ll still get punished socially for your lapses.

Learning How to Accurately Interpret Non-Verbal and Polite Communication

ADD/ADHD causes inattention.

It’s just hard to stay focused on what someone says to you, and how they’re saying it. 

The lack of attention, unfortunately, can cause you to miss important details, or more likely, to miss the social cues that reveal the true intention and meaning of any verbal communication.

An overly blatant example might be:

The popular girl sighed and rolled her eyes as she said,”I guess you can come too, if you really want to…”

Anyone paying close attention would understand the non-welcoming intention lurking below the words, but if you took the statement at face value, you might end up in an awkward social situation.

Unfortunately, our daily interactions are filled with non verbal messages and social cues, and they are rarely as easy to spot as in the example above.

With inattention, you may think you understand the message, but you actually miss the point entirely.

It’s not fair (!) but since you can’t do much about correcting that, you might as well work on learning compensatory strategies that minimize how ADD/ADHD affects your social relationships.

Finding the Message behind the Words – 8 Things to Keep in Mind

Fortunately, since you already know of your attention deficits, you can make a concerted effort to better your communication skills.

None of the following is likely to surprise you, but the trick to improving yourself is to take note of what makes-up effective non verbal communication and then to make a concerted effort to pay more attention to what most people already take for granted.

1. Make an effort to pay attention to body language and try to maintain eye contact during conversation. Ask yourself if body language is congruent with spoken words. If it's not – ask yourself why not?
2. Also pay close attention to a person’s tone of voice and pattern of speech. If a person’s tone of voice doesn’t match their words – using a bored or distracted tone to voice a caring sentiment, for example – you should ask yourself whether the words express true feeling or are spoken out of politeness or obligation
3. When a person’s words and deeds conflict – you’re better off listening to the non-verbal message sent by the actions.
4. Pay close attention to the words chosen to express a message. “I’d love to come tonight!” does not mean the exact same thing as, “If it’s important to you then I can come tonight.”
5. Also be on the lookout for polite statements that conflict with a person’s true wishes. You’re the last to leave a party – does the host really want you to stay for another piece of pie, or is she just offering to be polite?
6. Pay attention to how others around you respond in certain situations for clues to what you might want to also do. In the party example above, if you’re among the last to leave a party and everyone else declines that pie – then maybe you should as well.
7. Make note of how other people use personal space to communicate sentiment. Closeness and physical contact might emphasize caring or affection or it might indicate aggression or dominance – proximity speaks volumes, but you still have to interpret its message.
8. Take a moment at the end of a conversation to reiterate what you took to be its important message. This gives the other person an opportunity to correct you on any misunderstandings before they result in mistaken behaviors¹

Image Copyright: Shandi-Lee

You can’t get a diagnosis of adult ADD or ADHD unless you can show that your symptoms originated in childhood and persisted into adulthood. Answer the following questions to see if your behaviors in childhood match the criteria for a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD.

To get diagnosed with adult ADHD you have to show that your symptoms originated in childhood, by the age of 7 (although there is talk of moving this cut-off up to the age of 12).

But how can you reach decades back into the memory banks to remember specific behaviors that would confirm or deny a diagnosis of childhood ADD or ADHD? It’s not always an easy task, but tests like the following make the process a little less abstract.

Adult Self Test – Did You Have ADHD as a Child?

This test is very closely based on the Wender Utah Rating Scale for ADHD

Answer the following questions honestly. Answer each question with a statement and when finished add up your responses to get a score and to find out if your score meets the cut-off score for ADHD.

For each question, choose one of the following statements as the response that best matches your childhood experience:

1. Not at all – score 0
2. Mildly – score 1
3. Moderately – score 2
4. Quite a lot – score 3
5. Very much – score 4

When you were a child:

1. Were you an angry kid?
2. Were you moody?
3. Did you have temper tantrums?
4. Were you nervous and fidgety?
5. Did you have trouble concentrating or were you easily distracted?
6. Were you prone to daydreaming?
7. Were you stubborn?
8. Did you have trouble finishing things you started?
9. Did you have a short temper?
10. Were you depressed, unhappy or sad a lot?
11. Did you have a low opinion of your self-worth?
12. Were you irritable?
13. Did you talk back to parents, were you rebellious?
14. Were you anxious
15. Did you act without thinking things through (impulsivity)
16. Were you immature for your age?
17. Did you often feel guilty or regretful about your actions
18. Did you have trouble controlling yourself
19. Did you often act irrationally
20. Were you unpopular or did you have trouble keeping friends or getting along with other children?
21. Did you have a hard time looking at things from another person’s perspective?
22. Did you frequently get in trouble at school or with other authorities
23. Were you a poor student or a slow learner?
24. Did you have a hard time with math?
25. Did people say you weren’t living up to your potential?
    

What’s You Score?

If you scored over 46 there is a good chance you had ADHD symptoms as a child.

When researchers tested the validity of the test they found that if they used a cut-off score of 46, then the test correctly identified 86% people with ADHD.¹

Image Copyright: Zitona

Adults with ADD/ADHD face similar challenges and tend to exhibit similar behaviors. Read on to find a list of 20 very common behaviors of adult ADD/ADHD. The more behaviors that match your own, the more you may want to think about getting tested for a diagnosis.

Wondering if you might have undiagnosed adult ADD/ADHD?

Well, to get diagnosed you’ll have to show that your problems originated in childhood and have continued into adulthood and your doctor will also want to rule out other conditions that can cause similar symptoms – but if you do have undiagnosed ADD/ADHD, effective treatments can make a huge difference to your quality of life.

Does ADHD explain some of the problems you may have...?

Read on and compare your life to this list of 20 common behaviors of adults with ADHD. The more behaviors that match your own, the greater the odds you too have a treatable mental health condition.

20 Behavioral Signs of Adult ADD/ADHD ^1 2 3 4

1. You tend to change jobs frequently and you don’t find much success at work
2. You have a history of driving problems – multiple driving infractions, speeding tickets, suspended licenses etc.

3. You get in more traffic accidents than most people seem to
4. You’re always late for things and you struggle with time management in general (you have a hard time estimating how long it’s actually going to take you to do something)
5. You have trouble sustaining long-term romantic relationships
6. You have poor listening skills. You often miss important details from a conversation
7. You have difficulty not interrupting other people when they’re speaking
8. You smoke cigarettes (adults with ADHD are almost twice as likely as adults from the general population to smoke cigarettes)
9. You’re a huge procrastinator and you perform best when under a strict deadline
10. You’re always losing your belongings (where did I leave those keys…?)
11. You’re good at starting tasks and projects, but not so good at finishing what you start
12. You’re short tempered. You’re anger seems to come out of nowhere sometimes and then disappears just as quickly. You may also have other types of rapid mood swings
13. You say things without thinking about the consequences and sometimes this gets you in trouble
14. You find it very hard to stay focused when you find something boring and any outside distractions can pull you away from what you’re ‘supposed’ to be attending to
15. You have trouble following directions that have multiple steps
16. You’re disorganized
17. You have a hard time relaxing. You often feel restless
18. You’re a thrill seeker and enjoy taking risks. Sometimes you take risks without really thinking about your personal safety or the safety of others around you
19. You have a hard time prioritizing tasks
20. You’re a bit careless and lack attention to detail

Image Copyright: Franck Vervial

ADD/ADHD causes impulse control problems, so it’s not surprising that many people with ADD/ADHD have money problems stemming at least in part from impulsive spending. Here are 9 simple ways to overcome an impulsive spending problem.

Having money problems?

Well, if you’ve got adult ADD/ADHD it’s not surprising that you’ve got money stress, since the symptoms of your disorder almost certainly affect your ability to manage your cash.

Unfortunately, though your ADHD may cause irresponsible spending…your creditors probably don’t care to hear excuses and the problems you’re left with are yours to deal with - no matter how you earned them.

Fortunately, though your ADD/ADHD may complicate money management, you can learn skills and tricks to compensate for your disorder and you can retake control of your financial health.

ADD/ADHD can create a number of money leaking behaviors, but one of the commonest is impulsive spending, which is hardly surprising when you consider that poor impulse control is a hallmark characteristic of your disorder.

Do you buy things you don’t need on a whim? Is your house full of unused items that seemed like a good idea at the moment of purchase? If so, read on to learn 9 great tips and tricks you can use to curb your impulsive spending habits.

9 Ways to Squash Impulse Buying

1. When contemplating a major purchase, take some time to call a friend or family member – someone who knows how you struggle with impulse spending – to ask whether or not you’re making a reasonable decision.
2. Limit your exposure to temptation. If you tend to impulse buy online, then decide you’re not going to visit ebay or Amazon or other large online merchants anymore
3. When grocery shopping, always make a list and stick to the list once you’re in the store (avoid shopping when hungry)
4. Go shopping without any cash, ATM or credit cards. If you see something you want, go home and sleep on the decision for a night. If you still want or need it the next day, return to the store to buy it. Anything you can do to put some time between impulse and action is going to help keep you from bad decisions.
5. Write down what you’re buying and how much you’ve spent over the course of a day. It may start adding up to more than you can afford, and having this reminder of how much you’ve already spent may help you to resist the impulse to buy more.
6. Don’t go shopping as a way to feel better when you’re sad or down. Research suggests you’re more likely to overspend just to make yourself feel better¹
7. Avoid using credit cards whenever possible. Paying for things in cash helps to reinforce the consequences of the action.
8. If impulse spending causes you problems, shopping as a hobby or social event probably doesn’t serve your best interests. Instead of meeting friends at the mall, suggest a park or restaurant instead.
9. If you really can’t resist your impulses, put someone you really trust in charge of your finances. ²

Image Copyright: 401K 2012

There are about 15 other common disorders that can cause symptoms that can be misdiagnosed as adult ADD/ADHD…which makes self diagnosing, and especially self medicating, a pretty bad idea.

So you think you’ve got undiagnosed ADD/ADHD?

Well, though online tests and quizzes might indicate it and though you may seem to show all the signs and symptoms of the condition, diagnosing yourself is never a good idea.

Before you can get an accurate diagnosis (which is necessary if you want to get treatment that’s going to actually help) you need to make sure you don’t have another physical or mental health condition that may be causing your symptoms, or which may co-exist with and complicate the ADD/ADHD diagnosis and treatment.

And unfortunately, a surprising number of conditions can create symptoms that closely mimic adult ADD/ADHD symptoms.

Other Conditions That Can Look Like Adult ADHD

So before you get diagnosed, a doctor or mental health professional will first want to rule out conditions that may be creating the symptoms, or other conditions which may be co-occurring with ADD/ADHD and which might complicate treatment, such as:

• Depression or bipolar disorders
• Anxiety disorders
• Addiction and substance abuse
• Conduct disorder or oppositional defiance disorder
• Personality disorders
• Obsessive compulsive disorders
• Developmental disorders
• Hearing problems
• Other learning disorders
• Autism spectrum disorders (Asperger’s Syndrome)
• Dementia
• Brain injury
• Sleeping problems
• Hypo or hyperthyroidism
• Tic disorders

Who Can Diagnose Adult ADHD?

Getting to a diagnosis of adult ADD/ADHD is a fairly complex process that requires:

1. The elimination from consideration of other conditions that could be causing or influencing symptoms
2. Determining that symptoms have been present since childhood
   
3. Determining that symptoms indicate the presence of an attention disorder

According to the Attention Deficit Disorder Association, the only professionals qualified to make these judgments are:

• Physicians
• Psychologists
• Social Workers
• Professional counselors
• Psychiatric nurses

To be qualified, a professional needs to licensed and certified to diagnose and treat ADD/ADHD and also have the training and experience necessary to be able to differentiate between ADD/ADHD and other psychiatric disorders.¹

Image Copyright: KellyB

Wondering if you might have undiagnosed adult ADHD? Well, diagnosing adult ADHD isn’t easy or straightforward (you have to show that you've had it since you were a child, for starters) - so here’s a brief guide to what you can expect to encounter in the diagnostic process.

Think you might have adult ADHD?  Could undiagnosed ADHD explain some of the problems you have at work or with personal relationships?

Well, it’s certainly possible - roughly 60% of children with ADHD grow into adults with ADHD, and since many children never get diagnosed – many grow into adults who also have undiagnosed and un-treated ADHD (a 2008 study in World Psychology indicated that only 11% of adults with ADHD receive any appropriate treatment).¹

Unfortunately, getting a diagnosis once in adulthood isn’t a straightforward process, but although you may have to jump through a few hoops to get diagnosed, if you do have ADHD then a diagnosis opens the door to effective treatments that can really help you to achieve your full potential – so though getting a diagnosis isn't easy, it’s very worth trying for.

How do you know if you might have undiagnosed adult ADD or ADHD? Click here to learn about the warning signs and symptoms of undiagnosed adult ADD and ADHD.

Getting Diagnosed with Adult ADHD

It’s easy to recognize a child who can’t sit still in class, but since most adults get a handle on the hyperactivity part of the disorder, adult ADHD symptoms aren’t so easy to interpret or understand.

And to make matters worse, once in adulthood, there’s no single test or exam you can take that will provide you with a concrete diagnosis. So to make a diagnosis a doctor must first look at factors that would rule out ADHD and if nothing is found, look at how much past and present evidence indicates current ADHD.

Before a doctor can start evaluating for a diagnosis of ADHD she must:

1. Confirm that symptoms originated in childhood, by the age of 7*, and have persisted since then. (*Some experts argue that symptoms musty only originate before the age of 12, not 7.)
2. Rule out other explanations for the symptoms, such as other mental health problems like anxiety or mood disorders, physical health problems that might point at another diagnosis or the use of illicit drugs or medications that can cause similar symptoms.²
   

To make a diagnosis, your doctor may then want to:

• Ask you questions about your ADHD symptoms and about how these symptoms cause you distress or problems in life. Your doctor may also want to interview a loved one to get a secondary perspective on your symptoms.
• Ask you to take psychological tests.
• Ask you questions about your symptoms as a child, and perhaps ask someone who knew you as a child, like one of your parents or an old teacher, similar questions about your behaviors at a young age.
• Look at outside documents which may confirm a history of impairment, such as criminal history, driving records, employment records, financial records etc.
• Give you a medical exam to really rule out physical health problems that could explain symptoms.³

Image Copyright: Alex E. Proimos