LD OnLine News Headlines

More than a third of the federal government’s education research budget — an estimated $289 million — could go unspent this year, according to an analysis by an advocacy group.  

The proportion of people diagnosed with and treated for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is growing. Prescription rates have increased 11-fold in 20 years.

But the growth isn’t uniform across the country. This week, ABC’s Four Corners found higher rates of ADHD prescribing in some regions, while other areas were much lower, suggesting ADHD was being missed.

Students in Vanessa Malzone’s third grade class at Sheehy Elementary put on their headsets and log into a reading tutoring program a few times a week. They watch videos and read out loud from worksheets into their laptops. On the other side of the screen: college students from across the country, connected by video, hoping to build a connection and confidence in reading. At Sheehy, which, like some other schools, has struggled with third grade reading test scores, school leaders say they’ve seen payoff from the partnership through the Teach for America Ignite Fellowship. The program pairs students with real-time tutors during school hours.

While there are many great brain-based learning strategies out there, students may not fully buy into these strategies if they don’t understand why they work. And for many students, no one has ever explained that why. These four hands-on activities guide students to explore how their attention and memory function and how that impacts learning.

A first-of-its-kind study has found that early intervention services — which can include occupational, physical and speech therapies, among others — improve children’s test scores, even years down the road. The study, conducted jointly by researchers at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the New York City Health Department, showed that children who received the services between birth and age 3 outperformed similar peers on third grade reading and math tests. Early intervention services are intended for children with disabilities, developmental delays or those who are at risk of them.

With her most recent announcement that the Treasury Department would take over student loans, Education Secretary Linda McMahon is reversing history and redistributing her department’s major responsibilities across the federal government. K-12 programs are going to the Labor Department, while the Department of Health and Human Services is expected to absorb special education. McMahon dismisses her staff’s oversight functions as unnecessarily burdensome and says parceling out the department’s functions will reduce red tape. But others say those rules ensure that schools spend the money the way Congress intended.

[There is] a widespread way of thinking about intervention that if students didn’t learn the material well in class, they might benefit from new ways of approaching it or different explanations of the same concepts. But a new study suggests the opposite was true, that teachers and tutors may have inadvertently confused students by, for example, teaching different letter sounds in different orders or referring to the “magic e” in one setting and the “silent e” in another. The findings are important as school districts look for ways to make tutoring more effective with limited dollars. 

When you finally receive a neurodevelopmental diagnosis that reflects your strengths and the challenges you face, it can be life-changing.

But for people with both autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) – known colloquially as AuDHD – getting the right diagnosis can be difficult.

People with AuDHD (pronounced awe-D-H-D) often find their traits and experiences don’t always neatly fit into either category. Sometimes the two conditions contradict each other and appear to act in opposite ways. Other times they exacerbate or increase a trait or difficulty.

This can delay diagnosis and support.

It’s long been assumed that the disorder primarily affects young boys, leading to the widespread misdiagnosis of women who can face significant challenges as a result. But that may be changing.

New brain research sheds light on the different guises of ADHD.

ADHD is characterized by a list of 18 symptoms equally divided between the Inattentive and Hyperactive/Impulsive groupings. They yield different presentations: Predominantly Inattentive, Predominantly Hyperactive/Impulsive, or Combined. They used to be called subtypes, but there is so much variability in how ADHD presents across individuals that the groupings have been recognized to be extremely heterogeneous.

The former Acting Director and Deputy Director of the NIMH, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and longtime ADDitude contributor died on April 7 at age 92.

Increasingly, we’re realizing that people’s brains work differently.

The French startup has created a new way to help individuals with dyslexia, according to the company.

Can video games really help children learn to focus?

Whether you’re seeking an ADHD diagnosis or advocating for better treatment, these three webinar takeaways will help you respond effectively to a dismissive doctor.

Understand how the “ADHD doom loop” impacts the circadian clock, and practical ways to protect your sleep.

Everyone has a unique “neurodiverse” learning profile and brain.

Two children sit in different schools. Both struggle to read. Both have similar low scores on national tests. But while one gets a diagnosis of specific learning difficulties and a package of support, the other is left to fall behind.

My colleagues and I have carried out new research analysing the records of around 540,000 primary school children across England. It reveals a troubling picture.

President Donald Trump wants to stop directing federal funds to the nation’s university centers on developmental disabilities, multiple Individuals with Disabilities Education Act programs and much more.

ADHD isn’t merely a dysfunction. It’s best understood as an impulsive motivational drive for novel information.

“The question is not whether ADHD exists across communities. It is whether our assessment systems are reflective enough, and flexible enough, to see it.”

Reading speed and spelling accuracy are not reliable measures of intelligence or leadership ability. Leadership depends on big-picture thinking, pattern recognition, and decision-making under uncertainty. Many individuals with dyslexia show strengths in systems thinking, narrative reasoning, and resilience.

Sanchez: Language access, cultural understanding and parent partnership are foundational, not supplemental, for special education systems.

The Reading Reimagined program funds teams of researchers to study how to support struggling readers in grades 3-8. In 2024, it published research with the testing organization ETS that confirmed the idea of a “decoding threshold”—a mastery of sounding of words that students needed to achieve in order to continue making progress in reading in upper elementary school and beyond. But that threshold isn’t static—the decoding skills that students need grow and change as kids start to read more complex texts, Kockler and her colleagues argue in a new report from AERDF. The report makes the case that all students could benefit from instruction that helps them decode multisyllabic words, the longer, more complicated words that often bear much of a text’s meaning in upper grades’ classrooms. This instruction is so central to reading comprehension, the report argues, that states should include advanced foundational literacy skills in their academic standards for grades 3-8.

Only 10% of ADHD coaches received formal clinical supervision and worked in mental health before launching an ADHD coaching career, according to a new study.

Why so many adults are missed, and what a late diagnosis actually changes.

When both autism and ADHD are diagnosed

A woman has said that managing her finances with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) felt like “holding on to 10 helium balloons in a strong wind”.

Millions of Americans who rely on medication to manage Attention‑Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) could face continuing difficulties with their prescriptions, as a prolonged shortage of key stimulant drugs stretches into another year. 

AuDHD is a new term that’s being used to describe people who have both autism and ADHD. It’s not an official diagnosis but is meant to draw attention to the combined effect of having the two disorders.

“The biggest lessons we can learn from Liu: Be yourself. Do what you need to do for you. Follow your interests, because that’s where your success lies.”

A recent survey highlights variation in the training credentials and experience across the burgeoning industry, which is mostly unregulated and unlicensed

Universities from Harvard to Hampshire have admitted significantly more students with disabilities over the last decade, as diagnoses for A.D.H.D. and anxiety increase.

Whether you’re seeking an ADHD diagnosis or advocating for better treatment, these three webinar takeaways will help you respond effectively to a dismissive doctor.

ADHD diagnosis has risen in recent years, particularly among adults. But we need to improve how we view and treat it.

Middle-aged Americans are considering a new possible explanation for their slowing brain.

When more than 90% of San Diego Unified School District teachers voted to authorize a strike, it wasn’t just about pay increases or health care benefits — it was about special education caseloads that some teachers say are pushing them out of the profession.

Revisiting a book repeatedly helps children develop a sophisticated understanding of what emotions look and feel like. Stories place emotions inside meaningful contexts. Characters want something, try something, struggle, make mistakes, persist, or eventually give up. Along the way, characters feel many things: worry when something feels hard, joy when something works, amusement at surprises, pride in effort, and confidence as they grow. Emotions are presented not as isolated labels, but as lived experiences tied to situations: the pursuit of ideas or dreams, relationships, discoveries, effort, and learning.

Autism, developmental delay and multiple disabilities marked the fastest growing IDEA disability categories between 2023 and 2024. About 8.2 million students ages 3-21 qualified for services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 2024. There were increases for both pre-K and K-12 students. 

American media personality Paris Hilton recently shared on a podcast that she suffers from rejection sensitivity dysphoria, or RSD. Hilton, who has been diagnosed with ADHD, says the condition is common in people with the disorder. She also spoke of the impact RSD has had on her mental health over the years, describing it as being “like a demon in your mind” and saying that has been “extremely painful”.

For decades, ADHD was widely associated with hyperactivity or impulsivity. But researchers now recognize that not everyone with ADHD displays those traits. Students with inattentive ADHD, for example, may struggle to focus and be organized without exhibiting hyperactive or impulsive behavior. Recent research also suggests that a lack of attention may not be the primary driver behind the challenges facing children with the disorder.

“Sequential multimodal care manages ADHD effectively in children but remains under-prescribed by clinicians.”

Today, we know that ADHD affects every life domain and that medication alone is usually not sufficient. Most people need multimodal care, and the sequence of treatments matters; however, few patients benefit from these insights because ADHD care is fragmented.

Why so many women with ADHD end up in jobs below their potential.

Federal lawmakers are considering taking up legislation that would amend the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a move that disability advocates fear could open the door to broader changes amid an already tumultuous time for special education.

Advocates say they are alarmed that the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, known as HELP, is weighing whether to move forward on multiple bills that would amend the IDEA.

Meyer: Curriculum quality, teacher training and evidence-based instruction are harder and slower than a font swap — and much more likely to work.

The number of young people in Australia prescribed medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increased more that tenfold in 20 years, our new research shows, while it is no longer most prevalent in poorer areas.

Children living in the lowest socioeconomic postcodes used to have the highest rates of ADHD prescriptions. But this has flipped, with kids from wealthier families now most likely to be prescribed.

So does this mean ADHD prescription depends on how much your parents earn?

Not quite. Overall, the variation in prescription levels has narrowed around the national average over the last 20 years. But there is a stark difference between the most and least wealthy postcodes.

Yes, children need protection from the pervasive influence of digital media. But isn’t it time you got serious about your digital media use, too?

The important side effects of ADHD medication that few people recognize.

The Victorian government has announced it will train 150 GPs to diagnose and start treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults and children.

This decision could shorten wait times and lower costs for people yet to be diagnosed. It will also bring Victoria in line with most other Australian states.

But how will it all work?

Stimulants for ADHD work differently than previously thought by boosting arousal and reward systems in the brain, not attention, and by reversing symptoms of sleep deprivation, according to new research.

Brain stimulation devices have increasingly been promoted as a drug-free option for ADHD. These devices deliver very mild electrical stimulation to specific nerves or parts of the brain. They are generally considered safe, with side-effects that tend to be mild and short-lived, such as skin irritation or tingling. Safety, however, is not the same as effectiveness.

One of the most widely discussed of these technologies is trigeminal nerve stimulation (TNS). The trigeminal nerve is the largest nerve in the face and carries signals to the brain. Devices using this approach are worn on the forehead and deliver gentle electrical pulses, usually during sleep. The idea is that stimulating this nerve might influence brain systems involved in attention and self-control.

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, affects tens of millions of people in the U.S.

About one in nine children and one in 16 adults have ADHD. That’s according to an analysis from the nonprofit Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, or CHADD.

As researchers learn more about the brain and its complexities, they’re also gaining new insights into what the condition looks like across different ages, genders, and races.
In recent years, more adults — especially women — are being diagnosed than ever before.

In this installment of our series “In Good Health,” we focus on ADHD – from symptoms, to diagnoses, to treatments.

The term, long considered a slur for those with intellectual disabilities, is seeing a resurgence on social media and across the political right.

Supporters say the change would improve dyslexia identification practices, but critics worry it could delay interventions and lead to misidentification.

At UW-Madison, 145 federal awards received stop work orders or were terminated by the Trump administration.

A new report recommends that states inform parents of any education and civil rights that may be lost if they participate in a private school choice program.

A budget agreement working its way through Congress rebuffs Trump administration efforts to make major changes to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and eliminate some disability programs.

Proven methods for teaching the readers who struggle most have been known for decades. Why do we often fail to use them? Many American schools don’t use scientifically supported instructional methods, though, and, partly because they don’t, dyslexia can be hard to distinguish from what one elementary-school principal described to me as “dystaughtia.” If reading were taught better, almost all students would benefit, and students with neurological differences would be easier to identify and treat before their difficulties with reading derailed their lives. “There’s a window of opportunity to intervene,” Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive neuroscientist, told me. “You don’t want to let that go.”