Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults (Yale University Press Health & Wellness) Paperback – October 1, 2006

I am a teacher and trainer of adults who raised both a son and a daughter with severe ADD to adulthood. I learned to recognize and deal with the distinct ways ADD, ADHD and oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD) presents in boys vs. girls, in my adult students and children, and ultimately, in myself. It is unfortunate that I could not start out with the knowledge I acquired over time. Books that were available when my children were small were not terribly comprehensive or authoritative, since the very reality of ADD and ADHD were still in question. In fact, the head of pediatrics in one major hospital in my area denied the legitimacy of this diagnosis. After reading "Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults", I gave it to my adult son, who is naturally quite resistant to my advice, to gently nudge him toward some of the accommodations I myself have learned, with hopes that they will allow him to leverage his talents to be more successful in life. This book has much to offer in this area, and is one of very few that does. I recommend it.

As a psychiatrist that specializes in treating adult ADHD this is the one book I recommend to my patients (the ones that read books anyway). Brown is one of the leading researchers in ADHD and this book makes that research understandable to ordinary people. He describes symptoms in categories that actually make sense and stays away from academic jargon that discussions of executive functioning frequently involve. He debunks the nonsense and myths and gives you the truth straight up. He is also not afraid to recommend medication as the well-proven, most effective way to treat ADHD. It is nice to hear a psychologist who can not prescribe medications openly acknowledging and advocating for the use of medication (by the way - not all ADHD medications are stimulants). On his website he has a description of his model of ADHD (he prefers the older term ADD) that is about 1 1/2 pages long that I print out and go over with my patients who have been newly diagnosed - I tell them to buy the book if they want more details.

This is not the first book I’d recommend to laypeople: it’s dense with references to the latest peer-reviewed medical studies, carefully-evaluated statistics about the prevalence of ADD in modern life, focuses less on individual case studies and is generally a more clinically-oriented work than Edward Hallowell’s Distraction series, Sari Solden’s Women with Attention Deficit Disorder, Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo’s You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?! or Kathleen Nadeau’s ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life. Which means it may be the perfect first resource for a skeptic who refuses to acknowledge the validity of ADD, or someone with the scientific background to find this orientation more approachable. I would always give it to medical professionals involved in an ADD-abled person’s care if the provider isn’t familiar with ADD.Lauren Williams, Certified Professional Organizer, Owner, Casual Uncluttering LLC, Woodinville, WA, USA

As someone who deals with the challenges of of ADHD (diagnosed at the age of 53, thus I fall into the Adult ADHD category), I was very happy to find an audiobook and a kindle edition on this topic that I strongly resonated with, that I understand and can share with others. I either find a book but not the audio or kindle, the audio, but not the kindle edition, or the kindle/ebook and no audio and if I found the audio and kindle, the audio was not an unabridged version.Considering the audience they are talking about and trying to reach, anyone believing they have information to share should keep in mind that ADDers utilizes more than more way of processing information. Thus if one is going to write a book about ADDers with the goal of helping ADDers, should have the information available in all the popular forms of media.A Book -- hardcover or softbackUnabridged audio versionKindle and ebook

I just want to thank Dr. Brown for his years of research and his untiring effort to put such a technically complex and comprehensive work into words that we parents can understand. This treatment of ADD contains a lot of topics to digest, but if parents just keep reading they will be aptly rewarded by a better understanding and clearer empathy for their ADD child. Dr Brown's treatment of the basis of ADD in the brain and his cataloging of coexisting conditions is extremely clear and valuable.

This is probably the most helpful ADD/ADHD book I have read (about 15 total). It is written very clearly and comprehensively for the non-medical reader. Brown's later book covers about the same material but is very scientific and intended for the medical reader. I make these comments as a retired psychiatrist with ADD, who self diagnosed himself at about age 70, 4 years after retirement! More parents, teachers and doctors need to know about this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book cover to cover. Very informative on executive function deficits and ADHD/ADD. Would recommend to those who are interested in the topic.

I would have given it 5 stars if there was differentiation made between the hyperactive type and 'innattentive' , more examples seemed to be for the former.