Hyper~talk

Semiannual Publication of Greater Baltimore CHADD

Fall/Winter 2001, 2002
In This Issue:

Evening Meetings 2001-2002

Information on Presenters 

Meeting Location and Driving Directions

Conferences and Workshops 2001-2002 (Including the BIG Spring Conference)

How to Join CHADD

Selected Articles from Fall/Winter 2001-2002 Hyper~Talk

Register Now for the Mid_Atlantic Interdisciplinary Conference on AD/HD!

Evening Meetings: for directions see below

• Registration and Library: 6:30-7PM
• 7-8:30PM Guest Speaker
• 8:30-9PM Small Group Support
• Donation: Members: Free; Non-members: $5

Wednesday, September 5, 2001
AD/HD on the National Scene
E. Clarke Ross, D.P.A. CEO CHADD National 

Wednesday, October 3, 2001
Executive Function in Children and Adults
Vincent Culotta PhD. and Thomas Baumgarten, PhD.

Wednesday, November 7, 2001
Parents' Section: Nonverbal Learning Disorders: What's a Parent to do who suspects more than AD/HD?
Blossom Zell, M.Ed., and Randi Zell M.A.
Adult Section: AD/HD and Marriage
Drs. Susan and Phillip Robinson

Wednesday December 5, 2001
Medication Management
John Walkup, M.D.

Wednesday January 16, 2002
Complementary Therapies
Panel Discussion with Speech Pathologist, Occupational Therapist, Educational Advocate and Tutor

Wednesday February 6, 2002
Parents' Section: Educational Issues: IEPs, Accommodations, and Required Testing
David Heath, and Kathy Volk 
Adult Section: Coaching
Linda Sepe

Wednesday March 6, 2002
Support Groups Meeting

March 9 
Mid-Atlantic Conference on AD/HD
For more information Click Here 

Wednesday April 3
Legal Issues in AD/HD

Wednesday May 1 
AD/HD in the Social Arena: What Else Helps? Social Skills Workshops? Family Counseling? Behavior Management Training? Sibling Workshops?
Addison Back M.Ed., and Sabrina Cooke, M.S.W.

Directions to Meetings
All meetings are held at Towson Unitarian Universalist Church, 1710 Dulaney Valley Road, Timonium, MD. Take I-695 to the Dulaney Valley Road North Exit 27B. Follow past Seminary Avenue (0.7 miles) and Pot Spring Road (0.8 miles) lights to where the road narrows; TUUC is on the left at 1.2 miles from the Beltway. Construction on the Dulaney Valley bridge has been completed. 

Information on Presenters

E. Clarke Ross, D.P.A.
Joined CHADD as chief executive officer in November, 200. With nearly 30 years of national association and executive experience, he most recently served as deputy executive director for public policy at NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill). Dr. Ross has also held leadership posts with the American Managed Behavioral Healthcare Association, The National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors and the United Cerebral Palsy Association.  Clarke has maintained an interest and involvement in children's disability rights for many years. In 1974-1975, he worked on the enactment of the Education for All Handicapped Act (since renamed IDEA-the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), not realizing that twenty years later his own son, Andrew who has AD/HD, would benefit directly from such rights protections. 

Thomas Baumgarten, Ph.D.
is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Neuropsychologist in Maryland. Earning his doctorate in 1994 from the California School of Professional Psychology, he completed postdoctoral training in Pediatric Developmental Neuropsychology at the Learning Disabilities Research Center under the direction of Dr. Martha Denckla. Appointed to the full-time faculty of the Kennedy-Krieger Institute and the Johns Hopkins Medical School, he conducted NIMH-funded research in areas of Developmental Learning Disabilities and Behavioral Genetics. He has written on topics related to Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and neurogenetic conditions. 

Vincent Culotta, Ph.D.
earned his doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of Memphis in 1987 and completed his internship at the West Virginia University Medical School. He is a Licensed Psychologist with subspecialty training in clinical neuropsychology. Dr. Culotta has held clinical and administrative positions in medical, rehabilitation, and private facilities treating children, adolescents, and adults with neurobehavioral disorders. He served as Director of Neuropsychology in the Neurosurgery division at the University of Maryland's Shock Trauma Center. Dr. Culotta's research and clinical interests include Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Learning Disabilities, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Neurotoxin Exposure. Dr Culotta is a Diplomate of the American Board of Neuropsychology and currently serves as president of Neurobehavioral Associates in Columbia, Maryland. 

Blossom Zell, M.Ed.
with a specialty in emotional disturbance, is currently a special education teacher with the Central York District in Pennsylvania and the parent of a student with a learning disability. She specializes in workshops for teachers and has over 15 years of experience as a special education teacher in Montgomery County. She has her B.S. degree from the University of Maryland in Special Education and her M.Ed. from American University. She has worked with students with emotional disavilities and learning disorders and has additional experience with Pervasive Developmental Disorder and Autism. She trained with Sally Smith at the Lab School in Washington, D.C.

Randi Zell, M.S.
earned her master's degree form The Johns Hopkins University with a specialty in inclusion education and her B.S. and teaching certificate from Hood College. She specializes in language-based and non-verbal learning disabilities and has over ten years experience teaching in Maryland, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. 
The Zells' presentation will focus on Non-verbal Learning Disabilities and how they differ from language-based disabilities. They will cover the problems in diagnosing NVLD and explain what kinds of problems a parent might see or the difficulties the child's teacher might perceive. Of special interest to those parents or teachers who see frustration with mathematics, comprehension and social skills, the presentation will include ideas for inclusion in an IEP for students with an NVLD and how parents can help at home will be included. 

Drs. Susan and Phil Robinson
are the co-directors of the Center for Extraordinary Marriages, where they sponsor workshops on marital communication and conflict resolution and coach couples. They will present a program on marriage and work/life balance. You can send your advance questions through their website http://www.extraordinarymarriages.com/ or by phone 410-461-1382.

John Walkup, M.D.
received his M.D. from the University of Minnesota. Currently Deputy Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at The Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, he also serves as the Medical Director of the Research Unit of Pediatric Psychopharmacology. He is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at JHMI. 

Conferences and Workshops 

Saturday March 9, 2002

March 9, 2002--CHADD of Greater Baltimore will host the 2002 MID-ATLANTIC
INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE ON AD/HD. This full-day program will be
held at the Loyola College Graduate Center north of Baltimore in Timonium, MD. It will feature more than 30 presentations by nationally and internationally known speakers in areas of current concern. The program is open to families, adults with AD/HD, and professionals. For more information call: 410-377-0249 or e-mail CHADD168@aol.com. 

For More Information about the Conference
Click Here

To Register for the March Conference  
Click Here 

Or visit: http://www.chaddonline.org/chapters/chadd168.html

Selected Articles from 2001-2002 Hyper~Talk

Who Says AD/HD Isn't Contagious?

New Books added to CHADD Of Greater Baltimore circulating library  

Blue Cross Denies Psychotherapy for Individuals with AD/HD

Who Says AD/HD Isn’t Contagious?
Barbara Hawkins, Chapter Coordinator, Greater Baltimore CHADD 

In all the research and reading that I have done, I have never seen mention of the fact that AD/HD is contagious.  Even though I have been married to someone with ADHD for over 30 years, and parented a child with ADHD for almost 14 years, I managed to “escape” the contagion until I accepted the job as Chapter Coordinator.  Somehow, every coping mechanism I had developed failed; all my organizational skills went straight out the window and I became a quivering mass of adult hyperactivity! 

Seriously, I do think that most of us –adult or child-  have “some of the symptoms, some of the time” and when things are going along normally, we wouldn’t begin to meet the criteria of AD/HD.  Under pressure, stress or medical exigencies, we can all fall apart.  Dr. Ned Hallowell has a wonderful little booklet that arrived in the mail last week called 10 Things to Do in 10 Days to Relieve Stress.  This was sent to me as a subscriber to his wonderful Monthly newsletter Mind Matters.  It couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time for me.  The necessity to contact incoming and outgoing chapter board members, the Hypertalk deadline, the annual report/next year’s plan for the chapter as well as a year end report for Girl Scouts and one for the county funded program I run for teens were all due within two weeks of the family’s scheduled vacation.  “Yipes, I really do need that vacation!….But will I make it?” 

Not without help, and that is the key to my message for this issue.  If it weren’t for the help of Tish Michel, immediate past coordinator and  Barbara Schaffner, co-coordinator, I wouldn’t have had a prayer.  Board Members Suzanne Strutt and Kerch McConlogue pitched in to fill area speaking engagements as representatives for CHADD.  Barbara Prince assisted with finding speakers for next years and agreed with Kerch to coordinate the volunteers we need to register the members and non members at our meetings next year.  Kerch also agreed to help Bill Waring keep track of our membership data base.  Dr. Linda Spencer agreed to chair our conference next year and Dr. Sharyn Rhodes and Leslie Margolis, J.D. spoke to the chapter this year.  Diane Borenstein will return as our treasurer and Trish Peiper will serve as secretary next year.  Dr. larry larsen, who gave a wonderful workshop this spring will return in the fall for two more workshops on legal issues in special education.  Among the most thankless jobs are supervising the phone line and hauling the library to and from for each meeting.  A very special thank you to Pam Merwitz and Felicia Maxsam for their dedication in these areas. 

Even with all of this wonderful help, deadlines have a way of sneaking up on me.  All of a sudden there are simply not enough hours left and my temporary case of AD/HD has me bouncing from one phone call to the next, frantically answering email from next year’s potential speakers and editing this on the way to my daughter’s end of the year concert.      I hope this issue gives you information that can alleviate some of the stress we feel when our teens start driving, when we face our next IEP meeting and when we confront the ignorance about AD/HD we meet so often.

Sincerely,

Barbara Hawkins, Coordinator

New books added  to CHADD Of Greater Baltimore circulating library:

1.  Taking A.D.D. to To School:  A Story About Attention Deficit Disorder

Written by Ellen Weiner, Illustrated by Terry Ravanelli, Jaylo Books, L.L.C, MO, 1999. (This is a booklet written for children.)

2.   What does everybody else know that I don't?, Social Skills Hel;p for Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Michele Novotni. Ph.D. with Randy Petersen. Specialty Press, Plantation Florida, 1999.

3.  Worry, Controlling It and Using It Wisely. Edward M. Hallowell, M.D. Pantheon Book, New York, 1997.

4.  Finding a Career that Works for You, A Step-by-Step Guide to Choosing a Career and Finding a Job. Wilma R. Fellman, M.Ed. Special Press, Plantation, Florida, 2000.

5.  The CHADD Information and Resource Guide to AD/HD , Landover MD. 2000.

  6.      AD/HD and Driving A Guide for Parents of Teens with AD/HD. Marlene Snyder, Ph. D.,WhiteFish Consultants, Whitefish MN, 2001

Casette Tapes

7.  Casette Tape:  John Ratey, M. D.  The User's Guide to the Brain. Presentation at the ADDA 2001 National Conference (set of 3 casette tapes.)

8.  Casette tape: Dr. Edward Hallowell: A Talk without a Title, A book Without A Name, For Those Of Us With ADHD. Presentation at the ADDA 2001 National Conference.

9.  Casette Tape: Jennifer Cummings, Champion Your ADD Child to Greatness. Presentation at the ADDA 2001 Conference.

Video Tapes

10. Video Tape:  Father To Father, Four fathers talk about the challenges of parenting children and teenagers with ADD.  Facilitation, Chris A. Zeigler, M.S., produced by ClarkHill/Communications, Atlanta, GA.

11.  Video Tape: Teen to Teen:  The ADD Experience!  Six young people talk about living with ADD.  Chris A. Zeigler Dendy, Clark R. Hill, Inc. Atlanta Ga.

Booklets:

12.  Ten Ways to Reduce Stress in 10 Days, Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., Paul J. Sorgi, M.D. Hallowell/Sorgi 2001.

13.  Baltimore County Public Schools ADHD Identification and Management Guidelines, Baltimore Co Public Schools, August 2000.

The following books have been donated to our library by our members: 

14. All About Attention Deficit Disorder, Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment: Children and Adults Thomas W. Phelan, Ph.D. Child Managment Inc., Glen Ellyn, IL, 1996

15.  The Way They Learn How to discover and teach to your child's strengths, Cynthia Ulrich Tobias, Focus on the Family Publishing Colorado Springs, CO 1994

16. ADD Success Stories A guide to Fulfillment for Families with Attention Deficit Disorder Thom Hartman Underwood Books, Grass Valley, CA, 1995

17.  Beyond ADD Hunting for Reasons in the Past & Present Thom Hartman Underwood Books, Grass Valley, CA 1996

18. Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours, Dr. Kevin Leman Choice Books, VA 1994

19. Learning to Learn Carolyn Olivier and Rosemary Bowler Fireside, New York, New York 1996

20.Raising Your Spirited Child Mary Sheedy Kurchinka Harper Collins PUblishers, New York NY 1991

21.  Distant Drums, Different Drummers, A Guide for Young People with ADHD Barbara D. Ingersoll, Ph.D., Cape Publications, Bethesda, MD 1995

22.  Think Fast! The ADD Experience, Ed Thom Hartmann, Janie Bowman with Susan Burgess Underwood Books, Grass Valley CA 1996

23.  The Brain Richard Restak, M.D. Bantam Books, Toronto, 1994

24.  Shadow Syndromes John J Ratey, M.D. and Catherine Johnson, Ph. D. Pantheon Books, New York NY 1997

Care First Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maryland Denies Psychotherapy Services to Individuals with AD/HD

Carol E. Watkins, M.D.

When you sign up for health insurance your company may have restrictions that do not show up on your contract. You may not find out about these restrictions until you get a denial notice. Then it is too late.  

Many of you are probably insured by Care First Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maryland. (BCBS) Did you realize that BCBS does not feel that psychotherapy is a useful treatment for AD/HD? If you look at your policy, you may not see this statement. I obtained a copy of the relevant section of the BCBS Medical Reference Policy Manual. This Manual is not routinely distributed to beneficiaries.  

“Medical treatment (e.g. methylphenidate/Ritalin drug therapy) of attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity is considered medically necessary. 

“Psychological/neuropsychological testing required to make a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder is considered medically necessary. 

“Traditional psychotherapy is not considered medically necessary for attention deficit disorder itself, as no mental health treatments have been proven effective for the primary diagnosis of ADD/AD/HD, but may be appropriate for secondary diagnosis, such as depression or anxiety.” 

A nurse from BCBS who dealt with medical policy said that a team of expert clinicians had reviewed and approved their policy on AD/HD. When I asked for the names of the experts, she said that this was confidential. I have serious doubts about any “expert” clinician would need to keep his or her identity secret. If a psychiatrist or psychologist really believes that medication is the only effective treatment for AD/HD why not say so publicly? Are they afraid to defend their scientific opinions when they see their peers at medical meetings? 

I called the company for clarification of the term “traditional psychotherapy.” It took me a couple of weeks to get clarification. If I had not asked my congressman intervene, I might still be waiting for an answer. When I asked about the long delay, they said that they had referred my request to someone who was on vacation. The representative from provider relations said that BCBS would not cover any form of psychotherapy—even behavioral therapy for AD/HD. She described AD/HD as “incurable.” She said that I should code for something that was treatable, such as “impulsive behavior.” When I asked for a specific separate code for “impulsive behavior” she said that she was not an expert in mental health.  

Clarke Ross the CEO of CHADD National is actively involved in this issue. I have been very impressed with how rapidly he responded when I contacted him. He is coordinating with members of the CHADD Professional Advisory Committee. He has also made contact with representatives from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The American Psychiatric Association Managed Care Advocacy Division has also expressed interest in the issue.   The AACAP is sending a letter of concern.

Blue Cross was originally founded by physicians who wanted to make sure that their patients had access to affordable health care. It was an idealistic venture. Unfortunately, health care and the insurance field has become big business. BCBS of Maryland, long a non-profit company, is currently seeking permission to become a profit-making company. I am concerned that once it is beholden to stockholders, it will become even less responsive to the needs of patients. Stockholders are often after short–term profits. They may be less concerned about long-term cost savings related to preventative care.  

Call your state representatives. Let them know how you feel about BCBS’s position on AD/HD. Call the office of the Maryland Insurance Commissioner. Medication is important in the treatment of AD/HD, but we need to have the option of multimodal interventions. 

2002 Update: Care First Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maryland has now agreed to cover cognitive and behavioral psychotherapy for AD/HD even when co-morbid diagnoses are not present! Thanks to Clarke Ross (and everyone at CHADD) the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the Mental Health Association, Del. Wade Katch, Congressman Bob Erlich and everyone else who helped! We can make a difference!

Editor: Barbara Hawkins
Associate Editor: Tish Michel, CPA, MBA
Associate Editor, Design and Layout: Suzanne Strutt
Editorial Advisor: Carol Watkins, M.D.
Webmaster: Carol Watkins, MD ncpa@qis.net