Children with the condition often can't concentrate in school, get bad grades and have difficulty getting along with peers because of their impulsivity. A recent study found that teens with the disorder who are not treated with drugs are at risk for substance abuse. Barkley and other critics don't dispute that those with ADHD have differences in their brain-wave patterns. People with ADD tend to produce an abundance of slow brain waves and show less fast-wave activity. Slow waves are associated with being daydreamy, tuned out and distracted.
Faster waves are indicative of being calm, alert, focused and thinking intensely.
Lynda Thompson, a psychologist who runs the ADD Centre near Toronto, has been offering neurofeedback for six years. In an article published last year in Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, a peer-reviewed professional journal, Thompson reported on the results of 111 people, most of them children, who went through 40 sessions of neurofeedback at her center. A comparison of before and after results showed a decrease in slow wave activity, a drop in inattentiveness and impulsivity as measured by an objective test, and a 12-point increase, on average, in IQ score, she said. Then he had two one-hour sessions a week for 20 weeks. Each time, an electrode on his head monitored his brain-wave activity.