I am currently in law school. I have had add/adhd my entire life, but my parents never had me on any type of medication or therapy for it, because they didn't believe in it. Instead they were extremely hard with discipline & made me spend countless hours on school work. I always did very good in school, and only ok on standardized tests. I had no idea there was any type of held out there for tests & other things.
When I first entered law school I was at the height of having difficulties socially, emotionally, etc. Also I was having horrible academic difficulties for the first time. The overwhelming amount of work was impossible to me because unlike high school & undergrad, there was no way I could devote the amount of hours needed to read things over & over...
Anyways I got on straterra & paxil the first year & had some problems with it... but then once I got the straterra doseage all worked out things turned around drastically for me socially, emotionally, and academically. I read some books & did some research about ADD/ADHD & finally understood nearly every problem I had been having with my personality, with social interaction, with compulsiveness, and with academics.
Further I convinced the school to give me exam accomodations the first semester of my second year. They also approved them for this semester but are now telling me that I cannot get them next year without extensive documentation of my problems. They say I need to have comprehensive tests & reports done to give them. Has anyone else had any experience with this & can tell me exactly what type of doctor I need to go to & what type of testing to do (right now I have just been seeing a general family doctor, but she has helped immensely)... Also does anyone know of where I can go to look for these doctors in my area?? Maybe a website or an 800 number??
Thanks so much for any help. Things are just starting to work out for me & I don't want to lose out now.
My general doctor didn't recognize the ADD in me. I kept telling him that my thinking wasn't right.....................
I ended up seeing a psychologist who then referred me to a psychiatrist (the psychiatrist has an M.D. and writes my prescriptions). At this time I see both of these doctors for my ADD.
I took about 6 hours of IQ tests which included the TOVA test. During the IQ tests the clinician recognized my ADD.
At this time to determine if meds are helping me, they will have me do the TOVA test.
Good luck to you!
It seems that if they are asking for extensive documentation, they would need to tell you what kind of documentation, etc. Are they just saying "extensive documentation" or are they more specific?
I think I'd ask them to tell me exactly what they require in written format - so you can make sure to give exactly that to them.
I was extensively tested (a whole day of tesing) - most of the testing I had, however, primarily ruled out other possibilities.
I'm not sure where you live, but try to find the local CHADD chapter inWARNING: Don't bother reading this unless you really want to learn about exam accommodations testing. It's way too long and a waste of your time otherwise. I got carried away.
Hi LawLizard,
Your posting finally convinced me to join this thing. I'm a third year law student who was diagnosed with ADHD (well, without the H) summer after my junior year of college. Basically, my incessant procrastination was driving my mother nuts-- so when my little sister got retested for her learning disabilities, I got my own appointment.
The kind of testing that schools/Bar Exam require to provide accommodations is an extensive battery of neuropsychological testing translated into a report that a quasi lay person can understand, but with all those scores included to support any claims You want to find a Psychologist (PhD) or an Educational Psychologist. (EdD? Something like that). The person must have experience doing this testing with others. Hopefully, she has experience with adolescents and/or young adults, because the quality of a report to a second grade teacher is a little different from the quality of a report to the Board of Bar Examiners. The psychologist puts together an extensive report that includes self-report, evidence of a history of ADHD symptoms before age 7, all kinds of results from her battery of tests, a summary, a list of appropriate accommodations given your level of disability, and a list of recommendations for coping with your particular difficulties.
I went to an educational psychologist and the fairly grueling battery of tests was two days long. I was a neuroscience major in college with exposure to these stupid cognitive tests and I still found that they really pushed me to the edge. I walked in there confident that I was functioning at a normal college student level, but when I got the report back a few weeks later in addtion to all sorts of other surprising results--- apparently I had the reading comprehension of someone who was in 11th grade. That was pretty upsetting. After getting all this crap from people all my life about how smart and insightful but underachieving I was, suddenly my cognitive abilities were mapped out in a 20 page report. Gosh, that was weird. I often wished I had never read it. It's possible I was better off when I believed I could do anything.
Anyway, back to law school advice... the two most useful accommodations you can get out of this are extended time for exams and a notetaker for your really dry classes. I didn't use the notetaker all that much, but it made me feel better to have someone else getting stuff down because it's actually pretty hard to get complete thoughts down in a socratic class. The discussion keeps veering off as the students creatively tailor the question into something they can answer.
Ok, I have written a small memoir. Time to stop and get back to work. One more very important tidbit for your 2L and 3L years. If you have organizational and motivational challenges, never take multiple paper-based classes (seminars). No matter how exciting the topics are. I might as well jump off a bridge now, I am so screwed. And it's really embarrassing trying to explain to law professors why I'm completely missing deadlines. I'm like the law school martian-- in a land full of competitive biglawfirm-bound intellectuals, I end up sounding all idealistic and non-academic. The only reason why no one has called me lazy yet is because I'm so damn earnest. I wish I either cared more or cared less.
AlmostDone