I am a clinical child psychologist who has spent over 25 years specializing in the assessment and management of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents. I’m particularly interested in group-based parent training to address the common behavioral and emotional problems of school-aged children with ADHD.
I have always been interested in understanding others and helping them to better themselves. As a young graduate student, I had the good fortune to work with a supervisor who had retired from a long career as a schoolteacher before going back to graduate school to earn her doctorate in psychology. She had a particular interest in children with ADHD, and her passion to help them to become "their better self" was infectious. I spent the rest of my graduate training, as well as my subsequent career as a psychologist, focused on understanding the challenges experienced by individuals with ADHD in order to help them become "their better self."
In my practice, I tell the parents of the children I see that they are the ultimate experts about their child — I'm only an expert in ADHD. By combining our expertise, we can work together to help their child to be more successful in their daily life.
In addition to my clinical practice, I’m involved in a number of research areas. My colleagues and I are seeking to measure the impact of group-based behavioral parent training on the functional impairments of children with ADHD. We’re developing and disseminating group-based behavioral parent training specifically designed to reduce the negative impacts of ADHD in preschooler and school-aged children. We are also applying quality improvement methods to the delivery of services for families of children with ADHD.
I obtained both my master’s and doctorate degrees in clinical psychology from Kent State University, where I also met and married my wife of more than three decades, Brenda. We have two adult children, Benjamin and Deanna.