Question: Hi! I'm so glad you decided to do this, and it came at the best time for me. I've been doing a lot of research on my own, mostly listening to conferences and reading books from specialists such as yourself. I do have some questions.
  
  1) Is there a push for renaming ADD to EFDD or did I misunderstand? Where could I find more information about this initiative if there is one?
  
  2) What would you recommend to someone in a 3rd world country, say Mexico, if psychiatrists still talk about ADD as a condition only displayed in kids who misbehave and fail their classes? How could one get a diagnosis if the professionals on the subject are not updated on their topic and don't even know about the relation between ADD and EFs?
  
  3) Do you have colleagues or know of experts/institutions that are working in Mexico to advance research/awareness of ADD?
Answer: I don't know anyone currently working on research or clinical practice on adult ADHD in Mexico.  There may be good people there but if they do not publish they would not be visible to me.  As for changing ADHD to EFDD, while I would love that to happen I am not making such a push nor is anyone else, even though we want ADHD to be understood as a broader problem with EF and self-regulation.  The reason is a legal and political one.  It has taken so long to get the term ADHD into various laws and regulations and entitlements, such as IDEA, ADA, Social Security, etc. at the federal and state levels that if you change the name, it won't be in those laws and so those protections, entitlements, and other services will not be available to someone with that new diagnosis until the laws get changed to reflect the new term which can take decades.    It's a practical issue, not a scientific or theoretical one but its incredibly important to those with ADHD that they not get disenfranchised by a name change.  We worked too hard to get this far to lose it all over a change in terms.
content: Q: Hi! I'm so glad you decided to do this, and it came at the best time for me. I've been doing a lot of research on my own, mostly listening to conferences and reading books from specialists such as yourself. I do have some questions.
  
  1) Is there a push for renaming ADD to EFDD or did I misunderstand? Where could I find more information about this initiative if there is one?
  
  2) What would you recommend to someone in a 3rd world country, say Mexico, if psychiatrists still talk about ADD as a condition only displayed in kids who misbehave and fail their classes? How could one get a diagnosis if the professionals on the subject are not updated on their topic and don't even know about the relation between ADD and EFs?
  
  3) Do you have colleagues or know of experts/institutions that are working in Mexico to advance research/awareness of ADD?
   Ans: I don't know anyone currently working on research or clinical practice on adult ADHD in Mexico.  There may be good people there but if they do not publish they would not be visible to me.  As for changing ADHD to EFDD, while I would love that to happen I am not making such a push nor is anyone else, even though we want ADHD to be understood as a broader problem with EF and self-regulation.  The reason is a legal and political one.  It has taken so long to get the term ADHD into various laws and regulations and entitlements, such as IDEA, ADA, Social Security, etc. at the federal and state levels that if you change the name, it won't be in those laws and so those protections, entitlements, and other services will not be available to someone with that new diagnosis until the laws get changed to reflect the new term which can take decades.    It's a practical issue, not a scientific or theoretical one but its incredibly important to those with ADHD that they not get disenfranchised by a name change.  We worked too hard to get this far to lose it all over a change in terms.