Russell Barkley Ph.D | |
---|---|
Born | Newburgh, New York. United States | December 27, 1949
Nationality | USA |
Education | Wayne Community College (A.A.) UNC Chapel Hill (B.A., Psychology) Bowling Green State University (M.A., Ph.D. Clinical Psychology) [1] |
Occupation(s) | Professor, clinical neuropsychologist, author |
Years active | 1977–present |
Organization | Guilford Press |
Known for | ADHD research |
Notable work |
|
Title | Former president of the Section on Clinical Child Psychology (the former Division 12) of the American Psychological Association (APA), and of the International Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology.[2] |
Parent(s) | Donald Stuart Barkley Mildred Minerva (née Terbush) Barkley |
Awards | Awards from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Psychologist |
Website | www |
Russell Alan Barkley (born December 27, 1949) is a retired American clinical neuropsychologist who was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the VCU Medical Center until 2022 and president of Division 12 of the American Psychological Association (APA) and of the International Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology (ISRCAP)[3][4][5]. Involved in research since 1973 and a licensed psychologist since 1977, he is an expert on attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and has devoted much of his scientific career to studying ADHD and related fields like childhood defiance.[6] He proposed the renaming of sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) to concentration deficit disorder (CDD) and later cognitive disengagement syndrome (CDS).[7][8]
Besides his clinical work, he is also an expert in the neuropsychology of executive function and self-regulation. He is board certified in three clinical specialties: clinical neuropsychology, clinical psychology, and clinical child and adolescent psychology.[4][9]
Russell Alan Barkley was born in Newburgh, New York. He was one of five children, born to US Air Force Colonel Donald Stuart Barkley (27 February 1916 – 15 June 1999) and Mildred Minerva née Terbush (10 September 1914 – 25 April 2008). Barkley served in the United States Air Force from 1968 to 1972, including a tour of duty in Vietnam.[10] He had a fraternal twin brother, Ronald Foster Barkley,[11][12] who was killed in a car crash on 24 July 2006. Barkley attributes his brother's history of dangerous and reckless behavior, including not wearing a seat belt and speeding at the time of his crash, to untreated ADHD.[13] Ronald was several times over the legal alcohol limit, speeding and not wearing a seat belt at the time of his fatal crash.[14]
Barkley earned an Associate of Arts from Wayne Community College in Goldsboro, North Carolina in June 1972, and a BA in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[15] He earned an MA and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.[16] From July 1976 to 1977, Barkley was an intern at the University of Oregon Health Sciences Center in Portland, Oregon.[15][17]
In 1977, Barkley began his professional career at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Milwaukee Children's Hospital, where in 1978, he founded the Neuropsychology Service and served as its chief until 1985. He then moved to the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he served as Director of Psychology from 1985 to 2000. Barkley was professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.[18][19][20] In 2005, he joined the State University of New York Upstate Medical University (SUNY) in Syracuse, New York, where he was a consultant and research professor of psychiatry.[21][22] He taught at the Medical University of South Carolina from 2003 to 2016 and then moved to Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia, where he taught in the Department of Psychiatry until 2020.[4][5][23][non-primary source needed]
Until 2022, he served as president of the Section on Clinical Child Psychology (Division 12) of the American Psychological Association (APA) and of the International Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology (ISRCAP).[3][4][5] He is a fellow of the APA.[24][25]
Barkley led the first International Consensus Statement on ADHD.[26] He is known for his research contributions[27][28][29][30][31] including multiple papers from his longitudinal study in Milwaukee, Wisconsin;[32][33] the persistence of ADHD into adulthood;[34][35][36] his development of a theory of ADHD as a disorder of executive functioning and self-regulation;[37][38] establishing the nature of emotional dysregulation in ADHD;[39] early research on family interaction patterns in ADHD children;[40] his more recent studies on the nature of ADHD in adults;[41] early intervention for children at risk for ADHD;[42] training parents to manage ADHD and defiant behavior;[43] and the nature of cognitive disengagement syndrome.[44]
He has given more than 800 invited lectures in more than 30 countries during his career, as part of his effort to disseminate science.[45][46][47] Barkley edited ''The ADHD Report'', a newsletter for clinicians and parents, until its 30th and final volume in 2022.[48] Barkley has performed his forever last invited public lecture at the Centro Archimede Medical Centre, where he discussed ADHD, CDS and related topics, in Italy, September 30 2023.[49][50]
Besides his books, he has published six clinical rating scales related to ADHD, executive functioning, and impairment.[4][5] One of Barkley's rating scales for adult ADHD evaluates CDS,[51] a distinct syndrome from ADHD.[52]
Barkley believes between 5-7% of people have ADHD.[53]
In 1978, Barkley wrote that "Stimulant drug studies based primarily on measures of teacher opinion have frequently concluded that these drugs improve the achievement of hyperkinetic children. However, a review of those studies using more objective measures of academic performance revealed few positive short-term or long-term drug effects on these measures. What few improvements have been noted can be readily attributed to better attention during testing. The major effect of the stimulants appears to be an improvement in classroom manageability rather than academic performance".[54] In 1991, Barkley noted that "Psychostimulant medications (e.g., Ritalin) are highly effective treatments for the symptomatic management of children with ADHD as they can enhance significantly their attention span, impulse control, academic performance, and peer relationships".[54]
In response to critics who point to countries with lower rates of diagnoses and medication of children for ADHD, Barkley said, "So what? We do not let the rest of the world set our standards of care when we do more research on childhood disorders--specifically ADHD--than other countries combined?".[55]
Barkley believes that drugs such as Adderall, Ritalin and Concerta should be downgraded to schedule III.[56]
During an interview in 2001, Barkley said that "All of the research we have indicates that these drugs are some of the safest that we employ in the field of psychiatry and psychology. That's not to say that we know everything about them. But we know a lot more than we know about cough medicines and Tylenol and aspirins and other things that children swill whenever they come down with a common cold. Nobody asks those questions about those over-the-counter medications, yet we know substantially less about them".[57]
Barkley has compared “ADHD” to a physical handicap, with Ritalin being the equivalent of a wheelchair.[58] On 16 November 1998 he said that "Ritalin will be ranked as one of the leading developments in this century for helping individuals".[59] In 1999 Barkley said "Once convinced of an ADHD diagnosis there is no compelling reason (For someone diagnosed with ADHD) to avoid Ritalin".[60]
He has been a paid consultant, for pharmaceutical companies including Eli Lilly, McNeil, Janssen-Orth, Janssen-Cilag, Novartis, Shire, Takeda pharmaceuticals, and Theravance.[61][62][63][64][need quotation to verify][65][need quotation to verify][66][need quotation to verify][67]