Latest / Raising ADHD: Real Talk For Parents & Educators / Latest ADHD Research 2025: Executive Function Training, Sleep Secrets, and Why Therapy Dogs Actually Work

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Latest ADHD Research 2025: Executive Function Training, Sleep Secrets, and Why Therapy Dogs Actually Work · Raising ADHD: Real Talk For Parents & Educators

0:00
Apryl: Welcome to Raising ADHD, the podcast for parents and teachers raising ADHD kids.
0:06
Apryl: If you've ever felt frustrated, overwhelmed, or just unsure what to do next, you're not alone.
0:12
Apryl: I'm April Bradford, a former teacher and ADHD mom, and alongside my husband, Dr.
0:18
Apryl: Brian Bradford, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, we're here to give you the clarity, strategies, and support you've been looking for.
0:25
Apryl: Every week we break down the misconceptions, answer your biggest questions, and share real tools you can use right away at home and in the classroom.
0:35
Apryl: So if you're ready to feel more confident and less overwhelmed, you're in the right place.
0:40
Apryl: Hey there, welcome back to Raising ADHD.
0:45
Apryl: Um, we're here tonight.
0:47
Apryl: We're a little bit late on this podcast because we recorded it and then tech issues went wrong.
0:54
Apryl: But Brian spent the last week in Chicago at the what?
1:00
Apryl: Adolescent and Child.
1:02
Brian: Yeah, American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
1:05
Brian: Conference.
1:06
Brian: Yeah.
1:06
Brian: ACAP conference.
1:08
Apryl: The ACAP, the National ACAP conference.
1:11
Apryl: So it's where all of the child and adolescent psychiatrists come together to geek out over things.
1:17
Apryl: So that's where he's been.
1:19
Apryl: And so we're bringing what he's learned or some of the poster presentations to you guys, some of the new and upcoming research.
1:32
Apryl: Um, before we get started, though, I want to invite you to join me next week at a free summit.
1:42
Apryl: This summit is the Holoplay, like holiday, but holoplay summit.
1:48
Apryl: And you can get your free ticket at holoplaysummit.com.
1:52
Apryl: And I will be teaching a session called From Road Trips to Red Eyes.
1:59
Apryl: And I'm teaching proven ADHD travel tips and hacks.
2:04
Apryl: So if you are going anywhere this holiday season, come join me.
2:10
Apryl: Um, and there's also a ton of other incredible guests in this summit.
2:14
Apryl: The girl who is hosting it, she is a play expert every holiday season.
2:20
Apryl: She's on national, you know, like ABC, NBC, all the places, um, talking about toys.
2:27
Apryl: And she really wants to bring into homes toys that kids will actually play with.
2:33
Apryl: And her slogan is going back to the 1970s where kids actually played with toys.
2:39
Apryl: So come join me at hallplaysummit.com.
2:42
Apryl: It's free um and it's next week.
2:44
Apryl: So join us there.
2:46
Apryl: All right, Brian, let's dive in.
2:48
Apryl: So before we get started, I'm gonna explain a little bit about what this is.
2:52
Apryl: So um at these professional conferences, they obviously have sessions, workshops, those kind of things, but then they also have poster presentations.
3:02
Apryl: Um, Brian did these when he was in med school.
3:05
Apryl: So um a lot of these are done by medical students, PhDs, doctors, but they are presenting research that they've done and they do posters.
3:17
Apryl: So that is what we're gonna be talking about.
3:20
Brian: Uh conference was awesome.
3:21
Brian: Thanks for asking everybody.
3:22
Brian: And if you ever have a chance to go to these, everybody, everybody who's listening, if you have a chance to go to one of these conferences, definitely take it.
3:29
Brian: Uh, there's a conference next month on ADHD in Kansas City.
3:34
Brian: I know we've already talked about this, but if you could make it to Kansas City, it was gonna be an amazing time.
3:39
Apryl: It's put on by Chad.
3:41
Brian: Chad, yes, it's very legit.
3:43
Brian: I mean, it is it is the ADHD conference.
3:46
Apryl: Yeah, it's the ADHD conference.
3:47
Apryl: Where this was not specifically focusing, this was everything in child psychiatry, not just ADHD.
3:54
Brian: Yep, yeah, it's the child child psych conference.
3:57
Brian: So, okay, so to start, I want to start with uh a poster by Rush University, which is a big university in Chicago.
4:05
Brian: And this poster was by Dr.
4:09
Brian: Cossey and a few of their colleagues.
4:13
Brian: Uh, and the poster was called The Efficacy of Executive Function Training in Kids and Adolescents with ADHD, and it was a literature review.
4:22
Brian: And we always have this question of what does therapy actually do for ADHD?
4:27
Brian: We know that it's uh it's an organic cause, it's it's very hereditary from parents to kids, uh, and medications are are for the most part first line in in most ages.
4:42
Brian: And so then the question comes up of what do we do for therapy?
4:46
Brian: Well, when we do, when we they did this test on the executive function training and found out that executive function training actually does improve uh short-term memory and especially working memory in kids and adolescents.
5:00
Brian: And so to kind of summarize, working memory is that that instant memory that you're you're using when you're like working through problems.
5:08
Brian: So if you were to do a three-digit division problem in your head, that would require a lot of working memory.
5:14
Brian: And so you can actually train that to be better through executive function training.
5:20
Apryl: So Brian was texting me things as he was at the conference.
5:24
Apryl: Um, a couple things here.
5:26
Apryl: Number one, one of the things that you texted me was um, this was from one of your sessions or one of the workshops, that they've found that therapy is more beneficial when it's done twice a week instead of once a week because the kids are forgetting between therapy sessions.
5:44
Brian: Yeah, specifically this type of therapy, which is the executive function training.
5:48
Brian: And so when you're doing these like uh intense trainings, frequency is important.
5:54
Apryl: Okay.
5:54
Apryl: And then you also mentioned, so there was someone there that did a whole workshop on this, right?
6:01
Apryl: The executive function training.
6:04
Brian: Yeah, yeah, organizational skills training.
6:06
Brian: It was actually Dr.
6:07
Brian: Gallagher who taught the training, and I mean it was it was amazing.
6:11
Brian: So if you do want to do some of this like training on your with your kids, starting with this organizational uh skills training by Dr.
6:20
Brian: Gallagher would be a a good uh a good place to start.
6:24
Apryl: Can you tell us a little bit too?
6:26
Apryl: I mean, you said that that was a really great uh workshop and presentation.
6:30
Apryl: Tell us a little bit, like what were his what are his findings?
6:33
Apryl: Because he's doing this live in clinic with patients, right?
6:38
Brian: Yeah, so this has been uh like a long-term project of his.
6:41
Brian: A lot of what the skills training is, is like organizing your like folders and things like that for school so that you're you're basically organized in school and coming up with some like pathways for you to stay on top of things very evidence-based.
6:58
Apryl: For teaching these skills as children, they're gonna transform into teenagers, adulthood, these organizational skills that they're using in school, they're gonna start using them at work, things like that as well.
7:11
Apryl: So it's like the earlier we start them, the better.
7:15
Apryl: And I was actually reading the Chad magazine.
7:19
Apryl: Um, the most recent Chad magazine had an article where the author was talking about a book um that uh the research found the earlier you can start these kids on this type of training, the better.
7:36
Brian: Yeah.
7:37
Brian: Yeah.
7:37
Brian: Well, so Dr.
7:38
Brian: Gallagher's his programs really meant for like third to fifth grade.
7:42
Brian: But there's there's corresponding programs also by other authors that are, you know, high school even adult programs.
7:48
Brian: There's I mean, you can start anytime, but yeah, starting starting young and starting your third graders would be a great idea.
7:55
Apryl: It's funny because I was literally just read on a Facebook post last night.
8:00
Apryl: Like parents were someone in uh one of the parenting Facebook groups, which has like hundreds of thousands of people in it, she was like, It seems like all of the posts in here are geared more towards younger kids.
8:12
Apryl: Why aren't there teenagers?
8:14
Apryl: And, you know, people had different answers.
8:17
Apryl: But I think the biggest thing is kids either learn how to mask or they're learning these skills in childhood, and then as a teenager, they can deal with the symptoms more.
8:30
Apryl: They're they've either learned to deal with them or they're masking them.
8:33
Apryl: So we why not look teach them how to deal with them so they're not having to mask as teenagers and adults.
8:40
Brian: Yeah, yeah.
8:40
Brian: And I mean, as a like third, fourth, fifth grader, they're being disruptive in class.
8:45
Brian: The teachers are advocating for, you know, well, parents are advocating for help, and so they're they're drawing attention.
8:54
Brian: By the time they hit sixth, seventh, eighth grade, they're masking.
8:58
Brian: Yeah, they're they're now able to hide their symptoms.
9:02
Apryl: And they don't want attention at that age.
9:04
Apryl: It's like, don't look at me, don't notice.
9:07
Brian: They don't want us attention.
9:08
Brian: The teachers are like, oh, the kid doesn't do his homework, but he's not really a problem otherwise, and problems go away from other people's standpoint.
9:18
Apryl: Yeah.
9:18
Apryl: So overall, this poster presentation and one of the workshops Brian went to was that executive function training.
9:28
Brian: Yeah.
9:28
Brian: Organizational skills training.
9:30
Apryl: Organizational skills training is highly effective.
9:35
Brian: Yes, highly effective if you have a third through fifth grade uh looking into Dr.
9:39
Brian: Gallagher's program.
9:40
Apryl: Now's the time.
9:42
Brian: Yep.
9:43
Brian: So another another interesting poster that came up, and this one, this one I think is interesting to me because it I want to know how they even got the idea to do this research.
9:53
Brian: But the title's called ADHD Outcomes After a Tonsilectomy.
9:59
Apryl: And Ooh, yes, this one was interesting because this is done by Family Practice.
10:05
Brian: Yes, family practice looked at this and made that correlation.
10:09
Brian: And they found that kids with ADHD and obstructive sleep apnea can have an improvement in behaviors after that tonsilectomy.
10:21
Brian: Which, of course, we look at this and it's like, oh, well, what's going on here?
10:25
Brian: Well, we know what's going on here.
10:27
Brian: This is when you improve sleep, you improve ADHD symptoms.
10:30
Apryl: Yeah, and this was exactly what we did with our daughter before she got an official diagnosis with ADHD.
10:37
Apryl: That was the doctor was like, Oh, she has really large tonsils, so she has issues with sleeping, and like, yes, she does.
10:44
Apryl: So we went that route.
10:45
Apryl: We got the tonsilectomy first.
10:48
Apryl: Yeah.
10:48
Brian: So interesting.
10:49
Brian: Could have been uh we could have given them some data.
10:52
Apryl: Yes, we could have.
10:54
Brian: Yeah.
10:54
Brian: And I I think the takeaway from this is if your child's not sleeping or if there's concern of snoring or sleep apnea or any sort of sleep issue, talking to your doctor about it could potentially get rid of some of the medical causes.
11:11
Brian: And then you can deal with ADHD, just ADHD without it being this like super ADHD.
11:17
Apryl: Yeah.
11:17
Apryl: Or maybe it's not even ADHD.
11:19
Apryl: Maybe it's truly super.
11:20
Apryl: Maybe it's not ADHD.
11:21
Apryl: Yeah.
11:22
Apryl: So I think I think another takeaway from this too is that, you know, it takes a team sometimes to really figure out what's going on and being open and honest and communicating with all of your different physicians, you know, um, that's super helpful so that everyone knows what's going on.
11:46
Apryl: Because obviously, this was family practice, this wasn't psychiatrists.
11:50
Brian: And to give credit, it was Dr.
11:52
Brian: I think it's Alaka, A-U-L-A-K-H of Skagot, S-K-A-G-I-T regional health in Mount Vernon, Washington.
12:03
Apryl: And just note, too, Brian's only reading the first person on these research papers, because there's usually like five or six.
12:12
Brian: Yeah, they could be a lot.
12:13
Apryl: Yeah.
12:13
Brian: So if you want to look up any of these, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry's Orange Journal for October 2025 will have all these.
12:21
Brian: The next one I want to talk about.
12:22
Brian: So this one was interesting.
12:24
Brian: This is from the University of Missouri School of Medicine.
12:28
Brian: And it was Ashley Brown, who's, I believe, is a medical student.
12:33
Brian: She does not have an MD quite yet.
12:35
Brian: Uh, but they did a study on 504 plans and accommodations.
12:40
Brian: And when they did this, they were they were sending out like surveys and they got a report on the best accommodations and how hard this 504 plan was to get and if they would make any changes to their 504 plan.
12:55
Brian: And we're gonna have a podcast at some point on actual 504s and IEPs and what they are.
13:00
Brian: If you don't know what they are, stay tuned because we're gonna have a podcast coming up on those.
13:05
Brian: If you already know what they are, you probably know how difficult they can be to obtain, and you probably know what your accommodations are.
13:11
Apryl: And if you don't know what they are, you need to know what they are.
13:14
Brian: You need to know what they are, yes.
13:15
Brian: Uh so for the results, the number one best accommodation that was reported by the patients was having more time on work.
13:26
Brian: And number two was having extended breaks.
13:30
Apryl: I think one thing to note about this too, Brian and I were actually talking about this before recording.
13:35
Apryl: Um I was recently reading research on accommodations and things like that.
13:43
Apryl: And this uh research, number one, it's a very small um population.
13:52
Apryl: It's only like 50 people filled out the research form.
13:54
Apryl: But the accommodations, what they're saying is like this more time was more time on assignments and homework, not just tests, because actually research shows that more time on tests, the kids tend to do worse on tests if they have more time.
14:10
Apryl: So, but it is helpful, you know, if they have a report or something due, giving them more time that way.
14:17
Brian: Yep.
14:17
Brian: So what's also interesting is those were also the most common accommodations.
14:22
Brian: 45% of people had those accommodations.
14:25
Brian: Uh, the next most common accommodations after those, although not necessarily the most well-liked, but the most given, is one-on-one, one-on-one learning or help from a learning specialist.
14:40
Apryl: Do you know what I find interesting about those two, though, is I don't feel like the schools are well equipped enough to know what what accommodations work well with ADHD.
14:53
Apryl: So they know these kids lack attention, so they probably need more time.
14:57
Apryl: So it's like the most given because it's like, oh, well, that makes sense.
15:04
Apryl: We should probably add that in.
15:06
Brian: So one of the questions they had is was the 504 plan easy to obtain?
15:10
Brian: 50% actually said yes, it was easy, but a full 50% said no.
15:15
Brian: Uh would be interesting to hear your guys' thoughts on if it was easy or not.
15:21
Apryl: Yeah, it's really really sad if it's hard to obtain, especially when your child is diagnosed.
15:30
Apryl: I mean, it is a legal document.
15:35
Apryl: Like they're supposed to do this, the ADA, there's so many, you know, like laws behind it.
15:41
Apryl: But also, I think it goes to show the more educated and more knowledgeable you are as a parent, the more you can advocate for your child.
15:53
Apryl: Number one, knowing that this is an option, you can go to your school and ask for this.
15:59
Apryl: And um, also getting your pediatrician, your psychiatrist on board, they can write letters to the school.
16:07
Apryl: That can be helpful too.
16:08
Apryl: Again, a whole nother episode.
16:10
Apryl: Um, but super sad that you know, 50% of these people have had a hard time getting their kids the accommodations they need.
16:20
Brian: Right.
16:20
Brian: And the thing was with these accommodations, is anytime there's a barrier for an ADHD patient, it's probably affecting their parent because we know it's highly hereditary, and most of the parents have at least some sort of executive functioning or something.
16:33
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
16:34
Brian: And so now it's you're having somebody who's struggling to accomplish things and you're making it harder for them to accomplish that.
16:40
unknown: Yeah.
16:41
Brian: And they need that to be accomplished to be successful.
16:44
Speaker 2: Yep.
16:45
Brian: Uh and then the last question they had was, would you make any changes to your 504 plan?
16:49
Brian: And 65% said no.
16:52
Brian: Which I mean, you can kind of infer that that would show that they're they're somewhat satisfied with their 504 plan.
16:59
Apryl: Yeah.
17:00
Apryl: And again, this was a small data set.
17:04
Brian: Small data set, yeah.
17:05
Brian: And I mean, this is in in Columbia, Missouri, so it's also like regional, but yeah, still interesting.
17:13
Apryl: Yeah, they could have had two different school districts.
17:15
Apryl: One's really hard to get a 504 and one's easy.
17:18
Apryl: Again, take it as you will with a small data set.
17:20
Apryl: Okay, there was one that I found interesting.
17:23
Apryl: Um, this one actually comes from the UK, and the title of the poster is in quotes, we tried everything.
17:32
Apryl: Teachers of ADH pupil, ADHD pupils need support.
17:38
Apryl: And to me, I'm like, yes.
17:42
Apryl: I'm so glad you did research on this.
17:45
Apryl: Um, so there was 155 who completed the survey, and this is what they found, um, which is interesting.
17:54
Apryl: So teachers often report warm teacher-pupil relationships, but they take an emotional toll.
18:01
Apryl: So 96% of teachers reported war warm relationships with ADHD pupils, 87% found managing behavior exhausting, and only 65% had communication or relational training, leaving one in three without it.
18:21
Apryl: So let's talk about that part first.
18:23
Brian: So, I mean, if if we were just to round this all up, what I what I would say is teachers are undertrained on dealing with this.
18:31
Apryl: Yep.
18:31
Brian: Teachers are highly sympathetic, empathetic towards these kids and want to help your kids.
18:39
Apryl: Well, they have good relationships with them.
18:41
Brian: They have good relationships, yeah.
18:42
Brian: They they I mean, I and I think you could maybe infer that this is they like the kids.
18:48
Brian: If they have a good relationship, I mean For sure.
18:52
Brian: They like them and therefore want to help them.
18:54
Apryl: Yeah, I have like literally, as you're saying that, faces of past students rolling through my mind, and I'm like, yeah, like I love these kids.
19:03
Apryl: They they're my kids, you know.
19:05
Brian: Yep.
19:06
Brian: And they're exhausting to deal with.
19:09
Apryl: I'm literally researching this right now as like the parent teacher relationship with kids with ADHD.
19:16
Apryl: But the teacher or the parents get really, really upset when the teachers send emails, which I get, I get that, but I also get the teacher side.
19:27
Apryl: But again, I think that if we all step back, especially as a parent, like how many times are you exhausted dealing with your ADHD kid?
19:35
Apryl: A lot.
19:36
Apryl: Yes, right?
19:39
Apryl: And so there are times that I mean it doesn't matter how perfect you are, it I mean, even with a neurotypical kid, there are times that we get exhausted with them and we get upset and we snap, right?
19:53
Apryl: And so with these kids, we've gotta remember that we're all on the same team, and we all find these behaviors exhausting.
20:03
Apryl: And so to give each other empathy and try to be on that same team.
20:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:10
Speaker 2: The teachers love your kids, your kids take extra work and the teachers want training.
20:19
Apryl: Yeah, and what's funny is the kids that take the most work end up being the ones that like stand out the most years beyond, and stand out in a way, not in a bad way.
20:36
Apryl: Like, I have kids that I'm like, oh my gosh, like I wonder how he's doing.
20:40
Apryl: Like, I just love that kid.
20:42
Apryl: Hardest kid I ever had, but the most memorable, the most, you know, like you just want the best for them, and you pour so much into them, like you just love them.
20:54
Apryl: Yeah, they're hard, but you still love them.
20:56
Brian: Yeah, that's the same with patients too.
20:58
Apryl: One thing that this said was teachers need tools to help balance building trust, preventing conflict, and repairing relationships.
21:08
Apryl: Which I found it interesting that it says building trust because it says they have these warm relationships, but I do think the preventing conflict and repairing the relationships when you know there's that outburst or whatever definitely is something that needs to needs more training.
21:26
Speaker 2: Yep, and that was Dr.
21:29
Brian: Pasternak Albert, P-A-S-T-E-R-N-A-K-A Albert.
21:35
Apryl: From Cambridge University, right?
21:37
Brian: From Cambridge, yep.
21:38
Brian: Cambridge in the UK.
21:40
Brian: So Harvard actually was there and had a presentation.
21:42
Brian: I'm assuming future Dr.
21:44
Brian: Ayerone, I-O-R-I-N-I.
21:47
Brian: First name's Maria, and she's currently a Bachelor's of Science, but I believe that she's gonna be in the medical program, is her goal.
21:55
Brian: Uh so they had clinical markers for early risk of ADHD, a focus on preschool and early elementary school-aged children and familial association.
22:08
Brian: And so they did a study on parents who have ADHD, as you know, uh diagnosed by their by their measures, and what happened with the kids.
22:21
Brian: And sure enough, when the parents have ADHD, the kids are more likely to have combined type ADHD, they're more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems, and interestingly, they're more likely to have a lower family cohesion.
22:36
Apryl: That is all very interesting.
22:38
Apryl: I'm just sitting here like processing this.
22:41
Brian: Yeah, I mean, really to summarize this, kind of what we talked about, ADHD is super heritable.
22:46
Brian: And so parents with ADHD, you're more likely to have kids with ADHD, more likely to have ADHD in themselves, as pass it down.
22:53
Brian: They're more likely to have emotional problems, they're more likely to have behavioral problems, and they're more likely to have a lower family cohesion.
23:00
Apryl: You know, I'm just hearing that and I'm just thinking, like my immediate mind, like I start thinking, like, oh, I wonder why that is, you know.
23:07
Apryl: Um, but I really wonder if it's the emotional dysregulation, and it's easier for an ADHD parent to get emotionally dysregulated, and so therefore that affects the kids and they're not seeing the emotional regulation as much.
23:27
Apryl: And then also the repair part, like the last poster talked about like, do we know how to repair our relationships with our kids when we have like outbursts or things like that?
23:42
Apryl: Just some just some thoughts running through my head on that one.
23:48
Brian: Yeah, I also I don't know, I'm trying to like process this family cohesion.
23:52
Brian: Like, what's the issue with the family cohesion?
23:54
Apryl: These are just posters, so it's not like a big long research paper, so you don't get all of the Yeah.
24:00
Brian: Oftentimes these ask questions.
24:02
Brian: Like, like at the end, it's like, well, now we have the question.
24:05
Brian: Like it just asks more and more questions, and and where do we need the research?
24:10
Brian: And and it's giving you interesting tidbits of data with no like real answer there.
24:15
Apryl: Usually, at least in Brian's experience, you know, like a research paper is usually like years-long studies, things like that, where these posters are shorter term.
24:27
Brian: Yeah, yeah, they're shorter term.
24:28
Brian: And and also, I mean, this is like first rate research where they're sending out surveys and asking questions and getting these, getting these back.
24:39
Brian: And then as more and more researchers look at all these papers that have been done, they start to put you know correlations in place and doing further like literature reviews and stuff like that.
24:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
24:51
Brian: Uh so another neat one by Mr.
24:54
Brian: Gruber, G-R-U-B-E-R.
24:57
Brian: Uh Mr.
24:59
Apryl: Is it Mr.
24:59
Apryl: or Doctor?
25:01
Brian: They didn't put their initials past there, so I'm not 100% sure it's a Mr.
25:06
Brian: or Doctor, but it's from Tel Aviv University in Israel.
25:10
Speaker 1: Okay.
25:11
Brian: And the Department of Psychiatry and McGill University and the Douglas Hospital Research Center.
25:16
Brian: The title of their paper is The Excessive Daytime Sleepiness is associated with higher levels of executive functioning impairment in adolescents with ADHD.
25:26
Brian: And of course, I mean, this is this is exactly what we're talking about when we talk about that super ADHD.
25:30
Brian: This is just a paper proving it.
25:32
Brian: Uh their conclusion was daytime sleepiness is strongly associated with executive functioning deficits in adolescents with ADHD.
25:39
Brian: Which we know this.
25:40
Brian: We know that it causes these problems.
25:43
Brian: So kids have to sleep.
25:44
Apryl: And so do teenagers.
25:45
Brian: So do teenagers.
25:46
Brian: Yeah.
25:48
Brian: I just love when we see like further research, like, yes, we know this.
25:53
Brian: Thank you for proving it once again.
25:55
Brian: And I don't think we've talked about this on April, but this is an interesting one.
26:00
Brian: This is animal companions in ADHD treatment, including some that were equine therapy.
26:07
Apryl: Hmm, no, we haven't.
26:09
Brian: And what do it's literally called the animal companions in ADHD treatment.
26:14
Brian: What do the RCTs say?
26:15
Brian: Which RCT is the randomized controlled trial, which is fancy research talk for big fancy research.
26:22
Brian: This is Rowan uh Virtua School of Medicine, and this is Dr.
26:28
Brian: Vasudevin, V-A-S-U-D-E-V-A-N.
26:32
Apryl: Where's this medical school at?
26:34
Brian: So this medic medical school is in Stratford, New Jersey.
26:38
Apryl: Okay.
26:39
Brian: Interestingly, uh what they were able to find is that the animal assistant therapy can be a valuable intervention.
26:47
Brian: There's some limitations, but there are some uh positives.
26:52
Brian: They found out that equine therapy, this is this is from another paper, but in their in their summaries, that equine therapy was found to not be inferior to medications.
27:02
Brian: Which I thought was interesting that it's like when you would compare medical medications to horse therapy, like they were able to figure out that horse therapy was not worse, which is basically a way of saying like when we compare them, it's actually within within range.
27:21
Brian: Now we'd have to look at the look at the study and see how big it was to figure out.
27:26
Apryl: Yeah, if you could see my face right now, it's a look of computer.
27:28
Brian: Yeah, she's like, wait, what?
27:30
Apryl: I'm like, okay, because our daughter rides horses every weekend.
27:36
Apryl: And I mean, maybe if she was riding every single day, but I'm like, there's no way that she would make it through a week of school.
27:45
Apryl: And I do find that it has had positive benefits for sure.
27:51
Apryl: And the days that she does ride, I feel like she's calmer.
27:55
Apryl: But that's that's just very interesting to me.
27:59
Brian: Yeah, I mean, we'd have to look at this data also.
28:01
Brian: I mean, it could just be they didn't have enough enough data to get uh to get those two to separate.
28:06
Brian: Um there was another study that shows that equine therapy did not improve quality of life.
28:18
unknown: Okay.
28:19
Brian: There's another one that shows that equine or or just AAT, they weren't they weren't calling out equine therapy on this one, but animal assisted therapy improved occupational and executive functioning.
28:30
Brian: So another one they did they compared it to a control, which was a stuffed animal, and a live animal showed improvement in social interactions.
28:39
Apryl: Both stuffed and the live animal?
28:41
Brian: Nope.
28:42
Brian: Just the the live animal.
28:43
Apryl: Okay.
28:44
Brian: Compared to a stuffed, I mean they may have both had improvements, but a live animal is better than a stuffed animal.
28:50
Apryl: Well, yeah, because you have to like treat it nice.
28:52
Apryl: Yeah.
28:53
Brian: Well, I mean, the fact that there's actually an improvement though, like an improvement in social interactions when you're able to do this therapy with animals.
29:00
Apryl: Yeah, that's interesting.
29:02
Brian: Uh this one's interesting.
29:04
Brian: So canine assisted therapy with CBT, which I don't know if we've talked about CBT on this, but CBT is like a very very like common type of therapy.
29:13
Brian: It's cognitive behavioral therapy.
29:15
Brian: And I mean I'm it's probably the number one most common therapy in America, I would assume.
29:21
Brian: Uh for the most part, when you're like, I need to go talk to my therapist, they're probably a CBT therapist.
29:27
Brian: Uh so canine assisted therapy with CBT showed greater symptom reduction than just CBT alone.
29:35
Brian: It was actually better if the dog's there.
29:39
Speaker 2: There you go.
29:40
Brian: This may be my favorite one.
29:41
Brian: So animal assisted therapy improved self esteem in kids with ADHD.
29:46
Apryl: That's interesting.
29:47
Brian: That is interesting.
29:48
Brian: I'm actually gonna pull up that study and read that, read that study, how they found that.
29:53
Apryl: Yeah, it makes me like my initial thought was like, oh yeah, well, doing chores and stuff is proven to uh help kids self-esteem ADHD or not.
30:03
Apryl: But this is therapy.
30:04
Apryl: So they're obviously not like taking care of the dog.
30:08
Apryl: They're literally just sitting in therapy with the dog.
30:12
Apryl: So that's super interesting that that raises self-esteem.
30:16
Apryl: I wonder how they tested that too.
30:19
Brian: Yeah.
30:19
Brian: Yeah.
30:20
Brian: And so they're they're doing like research on these RCTs, the randomized control trials.
30:26
Brian: And they have six of them that they're they're kind of summarizing.
30:29
Brian: And so it makes me want to go back to those original six and read those further.
30:34
Brian: Uh where they talk about like what this animal assisted therapy can be beneficial for and things like that.
30:41
Brian: Also this is a study of animal assisted therapy which is not the same as like an emotional support animal.
30:48
Brian: So this is actually like therapies where uh an animal is involved.
30:52
Apryl: Well any any other great takeaways from your conference I mean I have thousands of them.
30:58
Brian: It was a great conference.
30:59
Brian: I'm so grateful I went.
31:01
Apryl: Thanks Brian for sharing some of what you learned and took away from the conference.
31:07
Apryl: Like I said join me next week at the Holoplay Summit.
31:14
Apryl: And I'm going to spell out it's like holiday but instead of day it's play.
31:19
Apryl: So holoplaysummit com we'll put the link in the show notes.
31:23
Apryl: I'm doing a presentation it's like I said it's free.
31:26
Apryl: I believe my presentation is on Thursday and it's a road trip uh from road trips to red eyes and I'm sharing some of our favorite things that have gotten us on long trips road trips we've traveled the country multiple times cross country in a car also flown overseas and didn't use a screen for part like for one whole leg home across the Atlantic didn't use the screen um so I'll be sharing some of our favorite things there.
32:00
Apryl: So we will see you next week hopefully at the correct on the correct day hopefully our tech works next week um but we'll assume that it will so we'll see you next week same time same place.
32:13
Brian: Thanks so much for joining us for today's conversation on raising ADHD remember raising ADHD kids doesn't have to feel overwhelming small shifts can make a big difference.
32:23
Brian: If you found this episode helpful it would mean the world if you would hit subscribe if you'd leave a review or if you shared it with another parent or teacher who needs this support.
32:32
Brian: And don't forget to join us next week for more real talk, practical tips and encouragement.
32:37
Brian: Until then you've got this and we've got your back