By Kendra Bobowick

(Editor’s note: In the interest of privacy, only first names have been used in this story.)

Teachers told Teresa that her son Alexander was leaving his seat at school, but she did not know how bad his disruptions had been “until later,” she said.

He was plagued by many problems attributed to ADHD (attention deficiency hyperactivity disorder).

“Textures bothered him, sounds bothered him,” Teresa said. Complications also emerged in his schoolwork. “I could see he was bright, but at school he couldn’t write his name,” she said.

Sitting in a small and private room, Teresa paused as she considered how much to say about the earlier years with her older son Alexander, now 10½.

Continuing, she said, “It was hard for him to keep emotional control. He cried in school and in public.”

Alexander had started on medications and traditional behavioral therapy for his ADHD when he was in second grade. For the last year, however, he has intermittently been seeing Clinical Neuropsychologist Jonathan F. Michaelis, PhD, of Newington. Partly due to Teresa’s assistance, Dr Michaelis has recently opened a second office — AMS (Attention Modification Systems) Solutions LLC in Newtown. Teresa’s younger son Tyler, who has also showed signs of ADHD, has also benefited from neurotherapy. 

“[Alexander] is now on a bare, bare fraction of the medications he used to be,” Teresa said.

The medications and traditional treatment Alexander had received from age 7 were meant to improve his behavior, she said, but she was not in favor of using them.

“With meds you do get results but it doesn’t fix the problem,” Teresa said. “They wash in and wash out and you may be better on Tuesday but you need meds again on Wednesday.”

Considering her sons’ paths leading to neurotherapy, she said, “It’s making their brains stronger and it’s permanent and a better solution of you ask me.”

Teresa remembers back to Alexander’s years in kindergarten and first grade saying, “We hoped he would outgrow it, but…”

“Tyler couldn’t learn his letters properly and is now reading above grade level,” Teresa said.

Looking back on the past couple of years, Teresa can now say that Dr Michaelis “fixed my kids.”

Her outlook was previously much darker. She described troubling visions of the future when considering her sons’ troubles.

With ADHD in her family, she said, “I knew enough.” Her uncles “can’t keep a job, can’t keep a marriage together, have limited friendships, so I had a window into [my sons’] adult lives.”

Thinking about her children, she said, “That wasn’t the life I wanted for my kids.”

Reflecting on the responsibility she feels toward her children she said, “Any child needs to go into the world with the best tool kit adults can provide.”

Teresa had heard about neurotherapy in an advertisement, and pursued one lead that she described as “extremely expensive.” She did see improvements, however.

“I saw enough progress to know it worked,” she said.

She then learned of Dr Michaelis’s neurotherapy center in Newington, and brought Alexander to see him.

Her sons’ therapy has had far reaching effects. “I feel like I’ve got my life back,” Teresa said.

She had made many adjustments since her sons’ ADHD emerged.

 “I stopped working outside the home because of it,” she said. “I couldn’t just send them off to school and have it feel OK.” Remembering her frustration she said, “I didn’t know what the answers were.”

She said, “Everything was one hassle after another from the time we got up to the time we got to bed.”

During the mornings before school she said, “It was back upstairs to put his clothes back on right side out, things like that.”

Homework assignments were a struggle. “I would stand over him every night,” she said. “I learned from other parents that this is a nightly fight in the household.”

She believes a worst-case scenario awaited her sons without effective treatment.

Observing Alexander, she saw “a lot of anxiousness and low self-esteem, so if you keep trying and keep failing, the only thing left is to not care,” she said.

Comparing her current life to the past, she said, “I feel great. I now have the kids I thought I was going to have.”

She first noticed the neurotherapy taking effect, saying, “There was more emotional control, no crying in public…a greater quality to family life.”

Offering a closer view of the difference Alexander’s improvements made to her, Teresa said, “He could never wait for anything and one time he said to me, ‘It’s okay mom, I can wait.’ And I almost drove off the road.”

Speaking briefly with Stephanie, a teen with ADHD who is working with Dr Michaelis, Teresa said, “The main thing is, if there is a solution people should know about it.”

Stephanie agreed, saying much of her anxiety and apprehension about school and driving, for example, were now under control. Stephanie had spent years being misdiagnosed and is now aware of her ADHD. She chose to enroll in the neurotherapy after admitting that she would not take her pills (accompanying behavioral treatment). She later learned about Dr Michaelis.

Teresa said, “Teens may know something is wrong, but don’t know that it can be better. And of they know it can be better with pills, they may not know it can be better without.”

AMS Executive Director Ann Scalisi shared one explanation for how improvements affect patients.

“One adult said, ‘I’ve been trying to explain what makes me feel better and I can actually say, it makes my brain quieter,’” she said. Ms Scalisi said the woman had a lot of anxiety before entering neurotherapy.

“There were a lot of thoughts going through her head about a lot of things,” she said. Ms Scalisi said the woman continued, “‘Now I feel more calm and serene and my brain is not screaming at me.’”

Children have also provided stark descriptions of how they feel with ADHD.

She said, “The kids will spend hours and hours trying to do their homework and will say their brain hurts, they give themselves a headache or put themselves to sleep.”

ADHD is “too much activity,” Ms Scalisi said. Children become overwhelmed in places such as shopping malls.

“The kids have melt-downs…their brains should ignore things [like tags on clothing or the amount of noise in a shopping mall] but they don’t,” she said.

Common complaints are about socks being too tight, or shoes hurting, she said. The child also does not understand how to act in public in personal situations and will talk too loud, stand too close, or touch too much, she explained.

“In social situations they don’t have [mental connections] telling them not to do these things and this can run right into adulthood as well.”