DATE: Wednesday, November 12, 1997          TAG: 9711120475

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL  

SOURCE: BY PAT DOOLEY, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   98 lines

CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: ***************************************************************** CLARIFICATION A story Wednesday should have noted that the hospital school program of Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters was an organizer of Thursday's second annual Chronic Illness Conference at the Waterside Marriott. Correction published, Friday, November, 14, 1997, p.a2 ***************************************************************** NORFOLK WORKSHOP TO ADDRESS CHILDREN'S ATTENTION DISORDERS

When Janice Myers calls her four children to the dinner table, 6-year-old Hunter might simply turn and walk away, more enthralled by what he sees on television.

It's not that Hunter doesn't want dinner. It's not that he wants to disobey his mom.

It's just that the Great Bridge first-grader is easily distracted.

Since preschool, Hunter's teachers have suggested he be tested for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Kids with ADHD are impulsive, inattentive, overactive, easily distracted.

But Hunter doesn't have the disorder. He has a rarer condition his teachers are less likely to suspect. Called Williams Syndrome, symptoms include elfin-like facial features, slow growth, heart problems and mental retardation or developmental delay.

Hunter has a normal IQ, but has trouble learning, his mother says.

``In school, they may be reading a story, and he wants to talk about `I got new shoes today,' '' she says.

Hunter, who is in classes for learning disabled children, does not need medication. He simply needs someone to redirect him when he drifts.

Children like Hunter - who exhibit behavior problems in school - sometimes leave their parents feeling confused, harried, frustrated.

Overcoming such problems will be the subject of a Chronic Illness Conference from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday at the Waterside Marriott in Norfolk.

Specialists from Norfolk's Eastern Virginia Medical School, the Center for Pediatric Research, Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters and the Virginia Department of Health will discuss the types of illnesses that affect behavior in children, and how to help those children succeed. The program is open to the public; admission is $40 at the door.

The keynote address, ``What To Do When It's Not ADHD: Behavior Problems and the School,'' will be delivered by Dr. Mark Sands, assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans.

Many problems in children can mimic ADHD, Sands says. The causes may be behavioral, physical, emotional, developmental or mental.

With bipolar disorder, for example, a child may exhibit extreme irritability or moodiness, but not the cyclic ups and downs characteristically seen in adults.

A child with a learning disorder may have difficulty staying on task, so he fidgets or daydreams.

Prenatal exposure to cocaine, alcohol or other drugs may cause a child to be overactive or impulsive. So can asthma medication.

Sometimes, other conditions occur along with ADHD. Studies show that one in two children diagnosed with the disorder ``also has something else going on,'' Sands says.

The parent of a child diagnosed with ADHD who does not see his child getting better should consider that possibility, he says.

Talk to your children and observe them. What goes on inside a children may be different from what they express.

In obsessive-compulsive disorder, for example, children may try to hide the rituals they perform over and over.

``The symptoms may seem so strange to children, they don't tell people,'' Sands says. ``Children are people-pleasers.''

It can be helpful for parents to learn the stages of child development to know what isn't normal.

``Most children with behavior problems probably do not have major psychiatric problems,'' Sands notes.

Parents can minimize behavior problems by providing a united front, Sands says. If Mom and Dad are on different sides of an issue, little Billy or Susie is likely to play one off the other.

Children also need consistency, to know that the rules are the same every day.

Janice Myers, who also has an 8-year-old daughter with ADHD and an anxiety disorder, keeps her family's routine as routine as possible, even though she works long hours as a real estate agent.

A full-time nanny helps Myers make sure her kids' dinner is at 6, and bedtime at 8:30. ``If anything is off, it all goes out of whack,'' she says.

When it does, it can help to know how to communicate, to reinforce positive behaviors and extinguish negative ones.

``Let your children know they are good,'' Sands says. If they learn to work for your positive attention they'll likely feel better about themselves.

And so will you. MEMO: For more information on the conference, call 668-7500. ILLUSTRATION: Dr. Mark Sands, an assistant professor of psychiatry

and pediatrics, is the seminar's keynote speaker.

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