Explore the Counseling Services at ADHD Clinic

The ADHD Clinic at Gunzburg & Associates
Are you worried about your child having ADHD? Has the teacher expressed concerns to you? Does your child get anxious about school or have difficulty staying focused? Has someone suggested to get your child tested? Many families go through these worries and wonder about getting their child tested for attention challenges but are reluctant because of the cost and time involved.

The ADHD Clinic addresses this dilemma: we will work to identify the causes of your child’s challenges and determine whether he/she has ADHD without the additional costs and time of unnecessary testing. We streamline the process of diagnosing attention challenges without losing the integrity of the diagnosis.

The Clinic process takes a few hours from start to finish and includes an in-depth interview, a computer-based assessment in the initial session, and then a follow-up feedback session with a final report that identifies whether there are attention challenges and their cause as well as providing appropriate recommendations.

Explore Frequently Asked Questions About ADHD Clinic

Who does the Clinic help?

We mainly work with children and adolescents who are typically struggling in school, at home, and with their peer relationships, and there is a question about their ability to sustain focus for everyday tasks. Many times, attention challenges can be at the center of other daily problems, including difficulty with impulse control (e.g., interrupting and blurting out), following everyday routines (e.g., getting ready for school), remembering important information, and being organized and keeping on top of everyday life.

We also work with adults who may not realize they have ADHD but experience daily frustration with many aspects of busy modern lives, such as: losing track of things, being disorganized, procrastinating and feeling unable to be productive, and having difficulty with work and personal relationships (often to do with other people getting frustrated by the impact of attention challenges) and impulsive (often sensation seeking) behaviors that can be dangerous.

What is the advantage of the ADHD Clinic?

It can be hard to distinguish between attention challenges and other learning or emotional problems (like anxiety and depression). For many children, adolescents, and adults, the judgment of whether they have ADHD is made by either a brief 10-minute meeting with the primary care doctor and filling in some questionnaires or a full neuropsychological assessment and evaluations that take many hours and cost a lot of money.

The ADHD Clinic takes the middle path by using state-of-the-art evidence-based tools for assessing ADHD as well as a full in-depth intake interview to ascertain whether an individual has attention challenges and then provide a basic report which can then be taken to a healthcare provider or educational establishment with appropriate recommendations.

This means a more efficient, faster, accurate, and cheaper process for identifying attention challenges.

How do we identify ADHD?

We use clinical judgment based on many years of experience, questionnaire data, and computer-based tests to identify whether a person may have attention challenges.

For children in elementary school:
For children of elementary age, we use a slightly different process that takes more time. We prefer to meet initially with parents to get a full scope of the challenges and then discuss the next steps in the assessment process. For many children, we will advise a school observation before we meet with them, especially if the school has expressed concerns that have led parents to have an assessment. We believe that a school observation is a natural setting to understand what is happening to the child academically, socially, and emotionally. In our experience, we have found that it is better to do a school observation before meeting the child, so they are not aware of being observed. This is a key part of having a successful observation.

The next step will be to continue with the ADHD Clinic process by bringing the child with the parent(s) to meet with us and take the computer-based assessment. We work hard to make the child comfortable by playing games and chatting about their daily lives at home and school. Most children enjoy the process and see it as a fun experience.

For adolescents:
With adolescents, we meet with the adolescent and the parents to get a full description of the learning, emotional and social challenges. This is followed by the completion of questionnaires (often prior to the initial meeting) by parents and the adolescent. Finally, we administer a computer-based assessment that measures sustained attention. This process takes about 2-3 hours.

For adults:
With adults, we will meet for an initial intake, and if relevant, we encourage the partner to attend so as to get their perspective. Again, questionnaires are completed, and the computer-based task is administered. This process takes about 2-3 hours.

Based on the information collected, we will then write a short report that describes the challenges and provides the appropriate diagnosis, as well as initial recommendations. Then we will meet for a feedback session to discuss the results and provide consultation about what to do next.

What are the possible outcomes?

It is possible that the assessment does not find challenges that meet the criteria for any diagnosable problem, and in these cases, there will be a discussion about whether further assessment is needed.

But for most cases, there are three possible outcomes:

ADHD is identified, and appropriate interventions are recommended, which typically include consulting with a medical doctor about whether a medication approach would be helpful.
Some other learning challenge is present and requires more clarification, which would best be done with a more thorough neuropsychological evaluation (please note that if you decide to continue the evaluation with us, the cost of the initial assessment is deducted from the cost of the full neuropsychological evaluation).
An emotional disorder (such as anxiety or depression) is identified, and appropriate interventions are recommended, including therapy.

What are the limitations of the ADHD Clinic?

For most people, the ADHD Clinic Assessment should be sufficient to help make decisions about the appropriate treatment approach to deal with the challenges of having ADHD. However, the assessment is not the same as a full neuropsychological evaluation with an in-depth assessment of different areas of cognitive functioning. When relevant, we will advise certain patients to undertake a fuller evaluation in order to determine underlying cognitive and emotional challenges properly.

Remember, it is possible that there is insufficient information from the process to make an accurate diagnosis and that further assessment and investigation are needed. We work hard to make the process transparent and to explain the way we reach conclusions so that you can make the best decisions for you and your child.

What are the next steps?

Who are we?

The team at the ADHD Clinic is all part of Gunzburg & Associates and is dedicated to helping children, adolescents, and adults who struggle with attention challenges, as well as any co-occurring diagnoses or presenting issues. What we all share in common is an understanding of the educational environment and a passion for helping students to thrive in the school setting and grow to their potential.

Abram Sterne has a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in the field of literacy and language development and a second doctorate in clinical psychology from University College, London. Dr. Sterne is licensed to practice clinical psychology in Maryland, Virginia, and New York and has been working with children, adolescents, and their families with different mental health issues for more than 20 years.

Joel Gunzburg, a licensed clinical social worker, has been working extensively with children, adolescents, and their families in both the public and independent school sectors, since 2003. He has provided clinical interventions on both the individual and group level, including ADHD support. For many years he served as the school counselor and Director of Learning Support at the British International School of Washington and is currently the Lower School counselor at Sandy Spring Friends School.

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