Customer Reviews

Understanding Girls With AD/HD

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Understanding Girls with AD/HD, Nadeau, Littman and Quinn This book discusses how attention deficit disorder may manifest itself in girls from preschool to late adolescence. The authors identify types of ADHD girls. Active girls may act like tomboys. They may socialize with boys. They are active, and may engage in impulsive escapades. Another group of girls shows their ADHD by talkativeness and excessive socializing. They too may become involved in risky behavior. Some girls with ADHD seem to fade into the background. They are shy and inattentive. They may have few friends and are more likely to be depressed. The last group is often escapes diagnosis until adolescence or adulthood. These are the very smart girls who have the ability to put in an extraordinary effort to hyper-focus. Adults see them as achievers but are often unaware of the anxiety and extreme effort the such girls use in order to compensate for their inattentiveness. Such girls are often anxious and self-critical. This is an excellent resource for parents and adolescents. I have only one criticism. The screening checklists in each chapter are fairly non-specific. The lists highlight the fact that ADHD may manifest itself differently in girls. However, some of the items on the lists can be caused by other conditions.  

Carol E. Watkins, M.D. Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist

As the mother of an 8-year-old ADHD girl, I can't recommend this book enough. It has been totally invaluable in learning to understand and love her (and all her quirks - like chewing on her hair and clothes -- who would have thought that was ADHD related? ) Furthermore, in addition to very valuable and practical information I can use now for her while she is in elementary school, there are sections that I know I will come back to (or read to anticipate) what will go on as she grows older. I think of this book as the "what to expect when you are expecting" book for living with ADHD girls! This is a great book and I, for one, am very grateful that the authors have written this.

As the father of two girls who some might label as "having ADD," I found this book both enlightening and reassuring. As a psychotherapist who writes and works in the field of ADHD, I found it solid, well-informed, and useful. Highly recommended...

The authors of this incredible book put into words what I've wanted to say for years, but still struggle to make someone understand. Girls with ADD, especially those who are succeeding academically, will rarely be diagnosed unless parents, educators and child care providers educate themselves. This book should be required reading for every educator in our country.

I have worked with special need children for almost 25 years. This book is groundbreaking, easy to read, practicle and will help parents stratagize better in dealing with their ADHD daughters. It will also be of great use to professionals working with these children. It shows clearly the differences for ADHD girls. Buy it right away, don't wait for this special knowledge that can help your child.

Laymen and clinicians need to understand that ADD/ADHD guidelines primarily reflect observations of boys with hyperactivity, and that ADD is neither a deficit nor a disorder. (A name change for our differences would help too.) I am former law enforcement officer and a registered nurse who was finally treated at age 49 after 32 years of being labelled clinically depressed. (Accurate but grossly incomplete.) After decades of overachieving, perfectionistic behavior and being told to "try harder", I finally found a psychiatrist and therapist who knew enough about ADD to treat me. BE AWARE clinicians,even psychiatrists, are not diagnosing girls because we are compliant, nice and "people pleasers". The stats stun: 75% of all people incarcerated may have ADD (undiagnosed) and 60 % of inmates have mental illnesses. Nadeau and Quinn give us tangible, specific ways to improve our lives and that of those around us. I heartily recommend this for all law enforcement personnel, mental health workers, judicial system personnel,and child care workers as well as parents and teachers. We can pinpoint the differences in people. especially girls, with ADD early and provide support and encouagement to avoid lifetimes of much heartache,despair, and shame. I hope that people discard the stereotype that ADD only happens to boys and if you aren't bouncing off walls or being the class clown, you are not suffering. Nadeau and Quinn eloquently illustrate this.

This is really a great book directed at the issues surrounding girls. Most books are written from research done with boys, and girls do have different concerns and show different signs of ADHD. For instance, they seem to be moodier, and more easily brought to tears. (At least this is true in my household between my son and daughter who both unfortunately have ADHD). This book addresses how to answer some of our questions that I have not found elsewhere. I think this book is a must for families who have girls with this disorder. It also has pointers to teachers. I recommend it.

This is the first book that I have read that everything clicks. In other books there has always been a few areas that applied but I was always left wondering about alot of my daughter's behavior. This books covers many of her problems, such has why her hands are always at her mouth, or why she will only eat certain foods. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has a girl who has ADHD. Since I don't know anyone else who has a daughter with ADHD, this book has opened my eyes and explained several types of behavior that I didn't think were ADHD related. I hope as time goes on more studies will be made of girls with ADHD, it would be really helpful to those of us raising these girls.

This is a GREAT book to read if you suspect a daughter has ad/hd, or if you have ad/hd yourself and would like to make sense of your entire childhood/adolescence etc.!! Book is broken down into age groups - preschool, elementary, etc. Fabulous! I only wish it had a "Gifted with ADHD" section!

My only complaint is a LOT of typos! Very distracting for someone with add to read!!

Thank you Nadeau, Littman and Quinn for this book! It is written by women, for women, about girls who will grow up to be women, which I loved. After all, whether or not you have a liberated husband or partner, here in South Africa it's usually mum who actually sits and oversees daughter's homework each day, shleps her to occupational therapy, speech therapy, remedial, physio or whatever and bears the brunt of the classroom problems and emotional follow-up. This book also covers the dreamy or distractible AD/HD girl quite thoroughly, which I personally was looking for information on. I found the chapter on brain development was a bit technical, but I presume professionals would appreciate it. Overall the clinical tone is a bit sobering, as the authors don't hold back with all the bad things that can happen to a child suffering with AD/HD. It's scary to think what the teenage years of my AD/HD seven-year-old may throw up (drug and/or alcohol abuse, promiscuity, eating disorders, teen sulks and temper tantrums de luxe), but also reassuring to hear that others have walked that path and survived. It's also fascinating to think my child's tactile defensiveness may be linked to AD/HD, and not a separate issue as we had thought. Similarly, the link to learning disabilities, all of which goes towards building up a better understanding and more appropriate interventions. What was so weird was that I could see parts of my daugher and myself in so many of the case histories, aspects which I'd never really noticed in other readings on AD/HD. My only problem with this book is that it was very expensive for a South African customer to order - the postage alone cost more than $22, which is about R200, and import tax a further R56. It would have been cheaper to order from the authors' addvance.com website, but I only realised this after getting the book. However, it's a reference I'll use for years to come and will lend to other parents of AD/HD girls (and our paediatrician, our occupational therapist, school psychologist and whoever else!).