Remembering that our goal is to prepare the student for independent functioning post-school, it is not enough to lend them our frontal lobes to chunk their work or to prioritize it for them. We need to teach them how to generate prioritized to-do lists, how to monitor their progress towards a goal, how to pace themselves, how to plan, how to sequence, how to organize their materials, time, and space, etc.

It’s a lot. And we need to ensure that we have goals for each deficit area. So here are some terrific resources to help you formulate goals, objectives, and accommodations for students with EDF:

Tigers, Too: Checklists for Classroom Objectives and Interventions (Dornbush & Pruitt, Parkaire Press, 2010). Tigers, Too Checklists provides an easy format to identify necessary and appropriate goals for the student. The book is a supplement to Tigers, Too: Executive Functions/Speed of Processing/Memory – Impact on academic, behavioral, and social functioning of students with ADHD, Tourette syndrome, and OCD: Modifications and Interventions by the same authors (2009).

Need some accommodation ideas for students with EDF in a convenient format organized by issue? See my book, Find a Way or Make a Way: Checklists of Helpful Accommodations for Students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Executive Dysfunction, Mood Disorders, Tourette’s Syndrome, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Other Neurological Challenges (Packer, Parkaire Press, 2009). This book contains some of the great classroom accommodation ideas that are explained in more detail in Challenging Kids, Challenged Teachers (Packer & Pruitt, 2010).

When you’re done reading up on this site,  check out the companion  TS+ Blog to keep up-to-date with the newest research on these conditions and to get advocacy news and tips to help you parent or advocate for your child.  I also publish the SchoolBehavior.com web site for educators.

Want something you can use to help you plan for your child or student, or need information to give the parents of your young patients?  Check out my books, linked from the home page.  Other great resources are listed on the TS+ Blog and on ChallengingKids.com.

Parents are asked to complete a survey about: themselves, their children, and their relationship with the school.

To participate in the survey, please go to the secure survey address on Vanderbilt’s site.

If you have any questions about the study, you may contact the senior investigator, Meghan Burke or call (615) 585-1420.

Some of the other significant findings are that of those with current ADHD, nearly half (46.7%) have mild ADHD, with the remainder having moderate (39.5%) or severe (13.8%) ADHD. Not surprisingly, ADHD continues to be diagnosed more than twice as often among boys as girls (13.2% versus 5.6%). Among children with current ADHD, 66.3% were taking medication for the disorder.

The biggest increases in diagnosed cases were for older teens, multiracial and Hispanic children, and children with a primary language other than English.

The study is creating quite a buzz, and you can read their report here (see pp.  1439-1443 for the study).

For other articles and resources on ADHD, see the ADHD section of this web site.

The documentary premiers Sept. 13, 2010 at 9 pm. Check your local cable provider for the Discovery Health Channel. “Tourette’s Uncovered” will also be replayed at 11:00 pm on September 13 and again on September 15 at 10:00 pm. You can check the TSA Facebook page for updates on future airings on Discovery Health and The Learning Channel (TLC) as well.

You can find more about the four children on TSA’s web site.

Remember that the companion blog is interactive. You can add your own tips to share with other parents or ask a question or discuss any of the topics covered on the site.

Additional resources have moved to another one of my sites — ChallengingKids.com. If you are looking for books for educators or parents, books for youth, videos, and other web sites on a particular topic, explore that site and pull down the “Resources” menu to find the topic of interest to you.

Thank you to the many organizations, professionals, and parents who have recommended this site in their books and newsletters.

If there’s something you are looking for that you cannot find, please let me know.

In 1992, after realizing that most of the children I was working with did not have just Tourette’s Syndrome, but also had other disorders such as ADHD or OCD, I coined the term “TS+” to remind parents and educators that many children with Tourette’s Syndrome have features of other disorders that we need to screen for, treat, and/or accommodate. “TS+” is my way of reminding ourselves that not every neurological symptom is due to Tourette’s Syndrome and that we may mislead our children’s teachers if we lump everything under Tourette’s by saying, “That’s part of his/her TS.”

“TS+” is not a diagnosis. It is just a short-hand way of communicating that a child, teen, or adult has more than “just TS.” Over the years, this site expanded to include coverage of the other disorders commonly observed in conjunction with TS. Learning what disorders emerge at what ages and what to “be on the lookout for” can help parents, teachers, and clinicians recognize when symptoms of another disorder may be emerging.

If you need help preparing for a 504 or an IEP meeting, this guide with reproducible checklists may be just what you need.  In it, you will find checklists of accommodation strategies for tics, obsessions and compulsions, medication side effects, mood disorders, homework hassles, handwriting issues, etc.   Bring a copy to any team meeting so that the team can look at all of the ideas for each challenge and determine which ones to try for your child.