ADHD Reimagined: Executive Functions from the Inside Out with Jeff Copper

In this episode, I welcome back my friend and colleague, Jeff Copper, an ADHD and attention coach, to dive into a revolutionary approach he's developed for understanding ADHD. Jeff introduces his new tool, the "Attention Scope," designed to help individuals with ADHD and neurodivergent traits by bringing a new level of awareness to executive functioning. Through simulations and metaphors, Jeff walks us through how Attention Scope reveals the mechanics behind executive functions, empowering users to see their cognitive challenges and strengths from a fresh perspective. This method could be a game-changer for those seeking practical, data-driven strategies to improve their daily lives.

Jeff Copper is an expert attention coach and authority on ADD/ADHD, holding an MBA and various coaching certifications. He founded DIG Coaching Practice, Attention Talk Radio, and Attention Talk Video, coaching individuals and entrepreneurs with ADD/ADHD to enhance their personal and business outcomes. Leveraging his personal experience with attention management challenges, Jeff developed the Anatomy of Attention construct and employs unique methods, including Cognitive Ergonomics and his proprietary AttentionScope®, to help clients identify natural solutions to overcome attention-related obstacles. Jeff integrates Dr. Russell Barkley’s Executive Functioning Construct into his coaching, focusing on objective problem assessment and personalized strategy development. With a background from Indiana University and the University of Tampa, Jeff is deeply involved in the ADD/ADHD coaching community, holding memberships and accolades from several professional organizations. In 2023, he was honored with the Excellence in Coaching Award by the ADHD Coaches Organization. Jeff lives in Tampa, Florida.

Episode Highlights:
[0:59] – Welcoming Jeff back and introducing his new intervention tool, the Attention Scope.
[4:24] – Jeff explains how Attention Scope uses simulations to reveal executive function impairments.
[8:19] – The role of emotional regulation and self-awareness in ADHD coaching.[11:30] – Understanding executive functions in a tangible way through real-life tasks.
[16:37] – Why methodical thinking requires different strategies than insightful thinking.
[21:20] – Jeff discusses how Attention Scope is conceptually different from traditional ADHD approaches.
[28:45] – Addressing executive dysfunction through guided questioning as a low-cost accommodation.
[32:16] – How cognitive ergonomics benefits individuals by teaching them to advocate for the accommodations they need.
[39:56] – Where to learn more about Attention Scope and how it may help individuals with or without ADHD.

Connect with Jeff Cooper:

DIG Coaching – Learn more about Jeff Copper’s work and the Attention Scope tool.
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dig.coaching/ 

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Transcript

Jeff Copper: 0:00

ADHD, it's more of a thinking impairment. Do this in order to get to the outcome. With this program is designed to identify the individual executive function and how they work, individually and collectively, and to accommodate the process of thinking to get to the outcome, not to get your brain to do what we want it to to get to an outcome. So it's a completely change in how we go about solving the problem. It's about what accommodation that we can do to fit it to your brain, little things like that, where you begin to realize how much ADHD is a thinking and impairment, then you begin to realize accommodations, like just having somebody ask you questions actually helps a person, not everybody with ADHD think through some things. Having somebody do that stuff can make it cognitively easier, as opposed to when thinking is really, really difficult, there's an urge to go escape, to do something else, because it's difficult. So again, the program is designed to help people to kind of see that from the inside out and begin to problem solve.

Brooke Schnittman: 0:59

Welcome to successful with ADHD. I'm Brooke Schmidt, let's get started. Hi everybody, and welcome back to another episode of successful with ADHD. Today, I want to re welcome my friend and colleague, Jeff copper. He is an ADHD and attention coach, and he has a lot of letters next to his name, MBA, PCC, PCAC, CPCC, ACG. I don't even know what half of these stand for, but I'm sure he'll explain that to us, and after this episode, he might even have some more letters next to his name. Today we're going to be talking about fitting the task to your brain and ADHD intervention. So we're actually going to be talking for those of you who've listened to Jeff episodes on successful with ADHD in the past, you'll hear that he shared a lot of tools and a lot of insight on the ADHD brain, about boredom, and tools to strategize on that, and today we're going to discuss a new tool that he has created and is sharing with the ADHD and neurodivergent space. And just a little bit more about Jeff. He is the founder of dig coaching, and he's the host and founder of attention talk radio and attention talk. Video. Jeff coaches individuals and entrepreneurs with ADHD symptoms who are seeking to improve their personal and business results. Welcome back, Jeff. Thank you so much. Brooke, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you letting me come on and talk about this today. It's honor absolutely and so without further ado, I'm gonna open up the floor to you. Both you and I are ADHD coaches. We've been in the biz for a while, and now you have this tool. It's called a lens. How it's called a lens? A lens? Yeah, a lens. Tell me a little bit more about it. And yeah, how does it work with or without coaching? Sure. Well, a few things. First, number one, book your thought leader in this space. And allow me to come on here. I really appreciate it. I do want explain a new intervention, and I want to explain it. I want to explain what it is and how it works. And I wouldn't like everybody else. You can judge it on its own merit. If you don't think it makes any sense, that's fine, but I just want to explain I've got a new intervention for ADHD, a new way of looking at it. I want to explain the background behind it and why it may or may not make sense. I also disclaimer on this. I have found this program to be exceptionally helpful. It has cut my coaching time by 70% however, it is not for everybody. I'm not walking out trying to say this is a panacea. The people that struggle with emotions or struggle with Objective observations, the ones that can't override their feelings, this probably is not going to be make any sense to you, but if you have an a very engineering type mindset and you're okay with making object of observations, it can be really, really helpful. So that's that's all the disclaimers. And I just want to make sure I'm I want to share this to people to judge it on its own merit. So before Jeff, sorry, before you continue on, I just want to break that down for a second. So for people who are struggling with emotional regulation, they need to get that in check first before doing something like this. Or is this out of the question? Look at

Jeff Copper: 4:25

like this. The program will help prove to them why making a phone call isn't easy. Okay, if I go through the program and I help them understand what's going on, but they still judge a phone call to be easy, even though they're not making it. That's a situation where their beliefs and their emotions are overriding the object of fact. The fact is, you're putting off on, putting it off by definition, it's hard if you can't, if you can't, if you can't see that and accept it, the person's not going to be able to apply the model and understand it, because their emotions are overriding. And the ability to make Objective observations. Does that make sense? Sure, that's that's a key distinction, that people think they're objective, but it's really important. So what I'd like to do is kind of explain in an abstract way, in a tangible way, what this is really all about. Years ago, people would get sick, and there's really nothing we could do, right? Right. We didn't know what we were looking for, and we couldn't see it well. Along Came to the microscope that became a lens to make observations, and we figured out that if we paid attention to viruses and germs, those were the drivers of illnesses. So once we had defined what we were looking for and we had a lens to view it, we can now problem solve. Okay, so if there's a bacterial infection, oh, we can give it penicillin. In any other field of engineering, you've got to have some type of definition of what you're paying attention to, and you've got to have some type of lens in order to observe what you've defined. What I've done is I've taken Dr BARC model of executive function, and you and I have talked about that before. I've come on and done a couple of conversations I think we did on one working memory and some other ones. I believe that that model has repeatable patterns and can be explained. It explains itself. If you really understand it, you understand the individual components, you'll understand how they conflict with each other, how they interact, and it can give you some really kind of amazing insights. The problem historically has been, how do you see it? How do you see the individual executive functions? What I've developed is something called attention scope. Attention scope is a collection of metaphors and simulated experiences that I put people in to bring tangibility for them to recognize each executive function individually and collectively. So you and I did an interview a while back on working memory, and I gave I asked you to repeat six words back to me in alphabetical order. And that's a simulation, because when people define working memory, they have an idea of it. But in that exercise, I gave it to you, so I had to load that into your mind, and you had to manipulate it in order to get it in alphabetical order. And I don't remember it specifically with you, but most people with ADT have difficulty with that. Sure, I did. When I put people in that thing, I'm like, This is what we're talking about. You're having difficulty with it. And you'll notice is that this is an impairment. ADHD is really an impairment, like behavior is changeable, like impairments require accommodation, so my eyesight is impaired. If I wear the glasses I can see. So at the end of the day, the program that I've developed is called cognitive ergonomics from the inside out, and it's basically a training program to teach people to use the definitions of Dr Barclays model and attention scope in order for them to make objective factual observations so that they can problem solve like an engineer would. In the engineering world, there's this thing called Six Sigma. It's a problem solving methodology. There's the five whys the fish bone diagram, et cetera. But it's a methodology where you sit down and you define what the problem is, you define what the root cause is, and then you problem solve towards that goal.

Brooke Schnittman: 8:19

So does someone who does this, or who's a candidate for it? Is it someone who would have strong metacognitive skills ahead of time,

Jeff Copper: 8:31

that it would be helpful? But we're going to put you in simulations in order to kind of help you pay attention to what to notice, and I'll give you an example here in a second. So it's an observational training program. Again. What's unique about it, that's different, is we've defined what to look for, not emotions and not observable, but behavior. But we've defined the executive functions. We've given you a lens in order to see it. We put you in experiences. So for example, one of the things that we do is, I'll have somebody prepare a meal, consume a meal, and clean up a meal using their less dominant hand. Now, in that simulation, let me pause here for a second. The program you have to have specialized training in order to use the tension scope, which I'm going to come back to in a second, when I give that to people, people are like, wow, that was really awkward, or I was really, really frustrated. Now, those are emotional observations from that experience. The purpose of it is, when you did it, did you notice that you had to be self aware, yeah, like every moment of the exercise? Did you notice that you got frustrated. You had to down regulate your emotions, because this was not something that's normal. Did you notice that you had to restrain yourself to override your urge to use the dominant hand? Did you notice that you had to use your visual imagery, because when you were cutting with the knife left handed, which is not something you were doing. And you're trying to visualize it right, and you're trying to do on your left hand. And so that you were doing that, did you notice maybe that you were having to think to yourself about what you were doing? And did you notice the cognitive strain that was taking place because you were having to do a lot more thinking? And did you notice maybe that you forgot different things at different times the way, because the cognitive load was high, the simulation is designed to say, did you see self awareness? Did you see the emotional regulation? Did you see self restraint? Did you see visual imagery? So the idea is, I put people in that experience, and what's fun is most people, not everybody, will end up they had a good plan, but they start to shortcut it as time goes on. If you take a look at that's add behavior you're trying to get out of it. And so by putting people in these particular simulations, we don't talk about executive functions collectively, like a lot of executive functions, coaches are going to teach skills do this in order to get to the outcome. What this program is designed is to identify the individual executive function and how they work, individually and collectively, and to accommodate the process of thinking to get to the outcome, not to get your brain to do what we want it to, to get to an outcome. So it's really a it's a completely change in how we go about solving the problem. It's not about doing it this way. It's about what accommodation that we can do to fit it to your brain.

Brooke Schnittman: 11:31

Gotcha. So for the person who's going through that simulation, and they're noticing it was hard for them to cut with their left hand, you're asking. You're probing them with the questions. They're noticing this. They're noticing that. Now, what are they doing with that? Are they now taking those executive dysfunctions, so to say, and comparing that to how they're functioning in the real world? So

Jeff Copper: 11:58

first of all, we have to define what to look at. So what we said was executive functions. You don't know what it is, but now I'm putting your experience so you can begin to recognize them individually, like now that you know what they are. As we go through and we we break each one down, and we go through the mechanics of each one. So we just talked about that's a general one. One of the simulations we do is on working memory. Is the six words and there's, there's a bunch of others. So now we've broken all down in the components, individually and collectively. Then what we do is we start to take a look at how certain executive functions actually conflict with each other. Okay, to be self aware, you've got to regulate your emotions. To regulate your emotions, you got to be self aware. One of the problems is self awareness is you have to be vulnerable. You have to see yourself as you are. The thing about emotional regulation is when you feel threatened, you reflexively fight back. So when I can explain to somebody is that your problem with self awareness is you don't want to see yourself because it's threatening to you. Some people are like, they don't get it. But other people, when I can make the conflict vivid, and they can see it playing out in their day, they're actually able to pause and see that happen and recognize that they're fighting it. And that's what's kind of getting in the way. Because, again, the the nature of the two of them is they actually conflict. There's a lot of people out there who know a lot about ADHD, but they still suffer. You know, Brooke, I know you've worked a lot of people, even yourself, the people that survive, that thrive, are the ones that own their ADHD, like it's an impairment. I need to do the accommodation. There's that piece of it. So part of the model also helps people begin to understand what works like 100% all the time, and often what works is something that people don't want to emotionally admit to. So we'll help them begin to see what works from an accommodation perspective. And I know this is getting kind of complicated, but we'll also begin to when the person can see their emotional reaction when they're trying to be self awareness. What we took was a feeling that was intangible, and now they can see it kind of playing out in their head. And for the people that are more, oh, my God, I get this mechanically, they now have taken the emotion out of it, and they're seeing it as an objective, mechanical thing, not an emotional, subjective thing. And for the ones that have that mindset, they're they activate often just on the knowledge of knowing the inner workings of the interplay of the executive functions. Does this make some sense? Sure,

Brooke Schnittman: 14:32

yeah. So it's the awareness piece that's helping them to activate their potential. Essentially, like, what move do i It's like a chess game, right? So now I know all the pieces, the potential moves in my brain. Now what do I do with that? So

Jeff Copper: 14:45

one of the things that the model bears out, that's that's fascinating, is ADHD is far more of a thinking pyramid than was most people want to recognize and admit. And the challenge of ADHD anything that's multifaceted and. Ambiguous is the definition of something that's difficult for people with ADHD. If it's multifaceted and ambiguous, sure, when I gave you those six words on the other thing and said, repeat it back to me in alphabetical order, that wasn't it was multifaceted, but not very and it wasn't as ambiguous, and that was a bit of a challenge. So as the multifaceted goes up and the ambiguity goes up, the more intense it becomes. So what the model begins to people with ADHD are really as intelligent as anybody else, however, they need accommodations for the thinking process, whether they're talking out loud or having somebody ask them questions. And so when we can begin to isolate this and define with specificity what thinking is. And by the way, we do different things with thoughts. We're not talking about worrying, we're not talking about emoting, we're not talking about learning, we're not talking about judging, we're not talking about contemplative thinking. The impairment is strictly when it comes to problem solving. We define methodical thinking, trial and error thinking and insightful thinking. When you understand those different components, and you understand like time, you'll understand why the Pomodoro Technique is really good for methodical thinking, but it's the wrong thing for use to use for insightful thinking. So by breaking this down, the situational variables of what you've got going on in your own brain is you're no longer guessing. You're actually learning to derive your own equation, if you will, like a tip or a trick is like, here's the Pythagorean Theorem. It's a great equation, but you might be applying it to the wrong problem. The program allows you to derive an equation that makes sense for you and your situation.

Brooke Schnittman: 16:37

Sure. So can you give us an example of a person situation going through the program, and you know how they came out on the other side from it?

Jeff Copper: 16:49

Oh, wow. Okay, um, there's what I call booting up over the working memory. Right when you sit down and you sit at a computer, you've got to boot it up. The operating system needs to kind of come up and all the tools come up in order for you to do that. When you're going to sit down and do a task that that's cognitively, there's a boot up process that goes on in your head. There's the loading of that information. It's very effortful. Okay? What people with ADHD will say, I'm having a hard time getting in the flow. Once I'm in the flow, I'm good. I'm having a hard time. This is what we're talking about. This is the boot up process by by acknowledging it's booting up and it's effortful, takes time. Number one, there's a few things that happens. Number one, now that you realize what it is, cognitively, you begin to plan that as a part of any task, like if you're if you're not acknowledging that that piece of it, and you're not planning for it or scheduling it, you're ignoring part of the equation. Now that you know that it's there, you're naturally now planning for it. Also, when you're doing something like that, and you're booting up in the process, and you get into the flow, understand that if you get interrupted, it's like your computer got unplugged. You literally, if you get distracted, you have to come back and you have to start all over again. And by metaphorically, explaining that what's going on, and you've got a cognitive project. Number one, you need to plan for the boot up. And number two, you need to make sure that you got run away where you're not going to get interrupted, so that you can get started and not be interrupted. Okay. Now, as an aside, there's different components of this. When you understand the booting up process, the issue really is you can boot up or you begin to watch your own behavior and say, Oh, when did I get into the flow real quickly, because there's situational variables when it works that enables you to do that. So for me, when I'm coaching clients, every client's different project, and I'll have a conversation with somebody last week, and if I don't do anything the following week, I won't really have a clue, because it's too effortful for me to understand what's going on, whereas if I dictate a stream of consciousness after my last call. Now it's not organized, it's just my thoughts in that moment, and I listen to it before they call hearing myself talk about my own thoughts is like taking my my I don't have to boot all the way up. It's just taking it out of hibernation.

Brooke Schnittman: 19:12

It's like a screenshot of that picture of what happened previously.

Jeff Copper: 19:17

Yeah, by understanding the boot up process and understand what's going on and understand your own behavior, you can begin to say, Okay, here's the shortcuts that I can go through to make this quicker. Or a lot of this program was a lot of heavy thinking, and I would literally call up my assistants and I'd say, Listen, I'm going to talk about what I've been doing. I'm talking about what I hope to accomplish today. And by verbalizing that that would help me get into the flow. So one, by defining that element of the boot up process of working memory, understanding what it is, and then looking for the successes in my life where I got there quicker, I can begin to understand what my recipe is in order to get that so it's not a guess. I'm actually looking. My own instinctive behavior in order to understand what works.

Brooke Schnittman: 20:04

You're looking at data. Yeah, exactly. You're

Jeff Copper: 20:06

looking at the data, okay, but I'm giving. I'm giving the definitions. Are bringing the tangibility to it so that you can look at the data, not the emotions to solve the problem. Yeah.

Brooke Schnittman: 20:18

So I am all about different scopes, different tools, whatever you would like to call it, right, like therapy, medication, coaching, potentially the attention scope. And I would love to get my hands on it and check it out. It sounds wonderful. So, so if we were to add this to our toolbox, right, for someone who wants to look at the data, someone who wants to be reflective so they can cut down the time to do something because they know what it takes to get into that flow state or to get into a productive workflow. How does this compare for the people who don't know, who haven't been coached, or who haven't gone through the attention scope. How does it compare? I know with coaching, we look to move the client forward, right? But how does it compare to coaching in the sense of reflection? Just so for people can can like so I'm trying to understand that too. One of the

Jeff Copper: 21:20

challenges of understanding this is you're looking like metaphorically, it's like you're the people that are listening this. Metaphorically, it's like you're looking through the lens, and you understand the world to be flat. I now have a tool that can help you see that it's actually round. The challenge of this is it's it's so conceptually different. You're listening to the words and you're trying to relate it to a flat world. And it's not. It's actually a completely

Brooke Schnittman: 21:48

different paradigm. So it's apples and oranges. I

Jeff Copper: 21:51

say it's an engineering approach because, as I mentioned at the beginning, it's like nobody's actually been able to define executive functions in a way we know what we were looking at, and nobody had a tool to bring tangibility so that we could actually see it. We now have those two technologies that we've never had before. And by the way, systems engineering is a field of engineering like mechanical engineering or chemical engineering or bio it's a field within Industrial Systems Engineering, there's a subfield called ergonomics. Ergonomics is about fitting the job to the person. So physical ergonomics were pretty advanced, so we have chairs that we adjust for the heightened situation of the person. There isn't an area called cognitive ergonomics, but it's from the outside in. People are guessing what happens to happen. What's different about this is this is falling under the field of cognitive ergonomics, but the individual could never participate before because they didn't know what to look at. So in a sense, I'm also saying that this is a new field of engineering that we've never had before because we've never had the technology to make observations, to make factual observations. And the program is not called ADHD ergonomics. It's cognitive ergonomics from the inside out. It's not something that would work very well for schizophrenic or maybe some autism stuff like that, but this will work for neurotypicals just as well as is for ADHD the same executive functions, or executive functions, it applies both ways. I'd like to get it into the neurotypical world at a point in time, but it's easier for me to go to the Add world for proof of concept, because they're the ones that's in need, and it can apply to more. So going back to the original question, I've had therapists go through this, coaches go through that, parents and stuff, and it's really helping you understand more about what you can see from a mechanical place. And the coaches that have done it have said, you know, it's really helped me ask more powerful questions, because I if I'm asking a person a question and they're changing the subject, they're recognizing is that the person is escaping the question because it's cognitively difficult, like, sure, and part of ADH, part of this is you can begin to recognize is when more people will give you, like, I'm going to go do this, and you can begin to recognize is that actually, let me tell a story, see if I can do this. I mentor coaching a bunch of other coaches, and I'm coaching one individual in particular about how this person needs to ask for the coaching topic earlier in the call, we had covered it before we're covering it again. And I said, Well, how are you going to remember to do that? And the person said, I'm going to put a post it on my computer. I let the conversation change for a minute or two, and I came back and I said, let's come back here. I said, Can you give me a real answer to that question, instead of an emotional response? And she she was like, What do you mean? I said, that was an emotional response. There was no thinking involved. She said, what I said, would you say? I want to put a post it on my my. Computer to remind me. I said, How many post its Do you have? I don't know, like 20. I said, Do you ever look at them? Uh, light bulbs went off in that moment, and here's here's the subtlety is reflexively. She said, I'm going to put a post it on the computer. If you understand, ADHD, it's more of a thinking impairment. She didn't actually sit there and think, Is that actually going to work? She didn't sit and kind of go through the thinking process to realize that it probably wasn't going to be something that was going to happen. She said it. It got her out of it. But she didn't do the kind of deep thinking that she needed to do, to say, Does this really work

Brooke Schnittman: 25:38

and but she didn't have the questions in between that time to think differently, like maybe the post it in the past has worked. Of course, if you have 20 post its on your computer, you're probably not going to know which one to look at or avoid them, but, but

Jeff Copper: 25:55

yeah, but the point of it was, is she put it up there and she didn't think about her behavior and stuff. Has that ever really worked in the past? Has it gone to a deeper level now? This is the this is this. This is what the model can begin to explain. Is that you can put something on your to do list, that's okay, but that's not where the impairment is. The impairment is actually thinking through what you got to do on the list. So for example, and a guy who coach one time, like, I need to send my mom a Mother's Day card. Okay, now again, I'm going to say cued recall is an accommodation cued recall. And what I said is really knowing that the person didn't think through this. I said, Where are you going to get the card? A store. What store? Uh, now they're thinking, Hallmark store, really? Where's that? Uh, it's down the road. When do you go buy it? Well, actually, I go the other direction. Well, how far away is it? It's 10 minutes. Oh, so you gotta go out of your way 20 minutes to get the card. You have stamp? Yeah, where in my office where I guess I don't have a stamp? Oh, when are you gonna How are you gonna get a stamp? Now notice I'm just asking questions. What I'm actually doing is I'm cueing them to answer the questions. I'm actually making thinking easier by me asking. This doesn't look like an accommodation, but me asking the question is actually helping them to think through the individual steps that they need in order to go get the card. The model helps begin to understand how having somebody ask you questions is actually an accommodation. So when you understand it, you can sit there and say, I'm having a hard time with this task. Can you ask me questions about what's doing? Because that will help me think through what I need to do, because people get overwhelmed when they put the list, but it's actually thinking through everything that they need to do in order to get that done. And the model helps people bring tangibility to it so they can see it. So with with the post it issue, she put the post it, but she didn't think, am I do I actually go and look at it on a realistic bed. She didn't think through the execution of that. Then we started talking about what she was really going to do, and it got to be a little bit more difficult, and she actually came up with something. So this is a very subtlety, and people kind of go, Oh my God, but it literally, it illuminates little things like that, where you begin to realize how much ADHD is a thinking impairment, then you begin to realize accommodations like just having somebody ask you questions actually helps a person, not everybody, with ADHD, think through some things. Having somebody do that stuff can make it cognitively easier, as opposed to when thinking is really, really difficult, there's an urge to go escape, to do something else, because it's difficult. So again, the program is designed to help people to kind of see that from the inside out and begin to problem solve

Brooke Schnittman: 28:45

so they see it so they don't necessarily, after finishing the program, need someone to ask them the questions because they have the thinking and the forethought to problem solve themselves. Is that correct?

Jeff Copper: 29:02

It might be like, Hey, I recognize Hey, Brooke. Do you got a couple minutes I need to to send a birthday card. Can you ask me questions about what I need to do in order to send it? Like they can just go to a stranger and like, this is a very simplified version of it, but they'll know is, oh, I'm having a problem with this task. I know an accommodation would have somebody ask me questions. I can go reach out to them and say, ask me. You have to be careful. You have to understand, don't ask people to give you opinion, but you're I just need somebody to ask me questions, because when they do that, that makes the thinking easier. So if I got something I'm procrastinating on, that's that I'm putting off. Sometimes, just having somebody ask you questions can make it 1000 times easier, because by them asking the questions and queuing you. They're leading you through thinking. So as a coach book, you know, a lot of times you're asking people questions and you're they're actually thinking their way through it while you're on the phone, because you're queuing them, you're the accommodation. Now, sometimes you're asking insightful questions, but I know there's people that that come on every once a while where you're kind of not coaching. Just ask. In them, the questions, and they're getting there on their own. Other times you're asking probing questions for them to get the self awareness what's going on. But literally, a lot of times it's just as simple as the person realize, I just need to have somebody ask questions. In that realm, there's, there's lots of other spin offs with Gotcha.

Brooke Schnittman: 30:13

So that's one of the spin offs to it to help with the executive function of potentially like working memory or initiation. So that is something that someone can walk away with and say, Okay, this accommodation is something that I need in life when I get stuck. And

Jeff Copper: 30:33

let's just take this. This is what the model does, is having somebody ask you questions as an accommodation is not some, it's not mainstream. It's not, you don't see that on the list of accommodations. But again, it's cognitive ergonomics, as we're going through this, and people begin to understand it and say, My My working memory is impaired, as an accommodation I need, like my eyesight is impaired. If I get glasses, I need somebody to ask me questions. So now they get that the model will help them understand it in a black and white and like, I get that now you can go advocate, because I know that it works by asking somebody just to ask me questions. And so earlier, we talked about this being a tool. It's really an observational training program, because radiologists who look at CAT scans, MRIs X rays, ultrasounds, they have to go through specialized training to become proficient at reading those images. The program is a training program to teach you to become proficient at using attention scope to recognize Dr Barclays model in order to be able to problem solve. Now, when I originally did it with the first couple pilots, I thought was just going to explain it. But what's fascinating to me, just with the knowledge of what's happening, people start to activate in the sixth of a 14 call series, just off of understanding it, they're actually then seeing their own world, and without coaching and without prompting, they're actually beginning to apply some of that stuff to their real world. So that tangibility takes the emotions out, and that's what kind of makes it fun.

Brooke Schnittman: 32:03

So is there any sort of sample that people can try this out, modulation of it so people can get a feel for what this might look like. Well,

Jeff Copper: 32:17

actually, part of the training program is, I'm changing your conceptual understanding of how you even approach ADHD. You're coming at it from, oh, I have a microscope. I'm looking for viruses and bacteria. You got to understand what you're looking for when that happens, except for if you want to go make the meal exercise and go through that, I'm simulating it. It's, it's not like, it's a crystal clear picture, but I'm putting you in experience, and you can begin to see the executive functions I've I've defined as we begin to make them tangible. And you understand, you see how functionally something works, you can begin to, like, be, see what's possible, like, if you weren't guessing at what works. And you could actually say, oh, I can pinpoint if I have the ability just to talk out loud to somebody, because non verbal working memory is an executive function as an accommodation. Many people with ADHD have to say the words. They don't say the words. They're not thinking the words. So if they're talking out loud to somebody else, then often they'll problem solve on their own. So by understanding that and realizing that there's a cognitive reason that we prove Dr BARC model, and that's the accommodation. And you begin to see that you've been doing it your entire life. Oh, I just have to do it the way that I've instinctively been doing it. Yes. So that's another way that like talking out loud. People with ADH that talk a lot, they weren't talked to talk a lot. They've done it because they're rewarded with higher levels of performance. We're just saying this is the model. This would explain why you do that. I can't, I can't get you not to do it. But now that you know it, you need to ask for permission, or actually ask for those accommodations to have that in your world, because it's just like an accommodation, like the glasses and for some, for some that get that the program is black and white enough where it gives them the validity and they feel comfortable to ask for the accommodations when they were more self conscious about it before, because they felt it the program, we kind of prove it so it changes the emotions around it. That's what

Brooke Schnittman: 34:19

I was going to ask you, because the person I would think needs the confidence to then ask, but you're saying it does change the emotions while you're going through it.

Jeff Copper: 34:27

So if I'm working with somebody and I'm like, you notice that you talk a lot, or you notice is that you think better when somebody's asking you questions. Well, go, go implement it. Don't take my word for it. Go do it. If you do it and it works, as my mom said, Success solves a lot of problems if the model explains it and you apply it and it works people how that works again, it gives you that confidence to ask for what's necessary for you to to actually go do that. The program also begins to give you a language when you're going to a neurotypical to say, Yeah, I don't really advocate a. Disclosing ADHD, but if you say I have a working memory problem, I can think a lot better. If somebody's just asking me questions, that's what I need. Then we've explained it to you with Dr Barclays model. You understand what's going on. We've given you the language to explain it to other people and then ask what you're looking for in a non ADHD way, it can be really powerful to take the pressure off. Oh, I get it. I understand that it works. I can just ask it this way and natural form and it again. That's the power of it.

Brooke Schnittman: 35:28

Yeah, it's like a low cost accommodation, is what people call it. You don't have to disclose that you have ADHD, but you're, you're using language to help you with some of the dysfunction, if

Jeff Copper: 35:42

I may. I want to go back to the beginning of it. I appreciate you. Let me come on for some of you are going, oh my god, this is wow for the engineers. And I'm talking about six sitting there going, Oh my God. But the bottom line is, I wanted the opportunity to explain this so people can judge it on its own merit. I'm saying it's not for everybody, but for those that think they get it, it can be powerful. Yeah,

Brooke Schnittman: 36:00

it sounds it So Jeff, if someone is interested in this, and just to clarify, is this only for adults, or is it for students as well? Definitely

Jeff Copper: 36:10

adults for younger students, I'd say 16 and under no, because they're like, forgive me. But you know when you're going through puberty, you know, as I I was upset with my 14 year old son one time, and I'm like, I'm like, I was kind of yelling him, and I realized, like, he's going through puberty. He's got hormones, and he's going through this metaphors, this, he's he's intoxicated. I'm trying to talk to a drunk right now, like their sense of warp. So it's not really good if you got a mature 19 or 20 year old, or maybe late College, where they're have enough self awareness and they're like, like, they they actually want and understand that they need help. It would work. The rest of it probably not. It can help with the parent, understand what's going on, and it can help with the parent in a school system better understand accommodations that their kid might need and give them language to go talk to the school. It doesn't mean that the experts at the school are going to adopt it, because saying My son needs somebody asking him questions is not a normal accommodations. Again, we're discovering accommodations with this model that are non existent, but we are able to do but

Brooke Schnittman: 37:19

you know what? Teachers, teachers are taught to ask questions using Bloom's Taxonomy, but,

Jeff Copper: 37:25

and forgive me, because I that was probably a bad one in as much as I don't know, but the walking in and saying, I might my son needs a certain period of time where they're sitting down and do that, maybe that's happening, but there's like even one of the big impairments with that's in schools is what I call toggling When. When I was in school, I would read stuff on like a book that was highlighted. I didn't have to read all the other words. I just what was highlighted was the target. I would read that, and my eyes would look over at my notes, and I would try to reconcile the two. In the world today, highlighting is hard, so you're reading all this other stuff and trying to filter and grab what you've got, then you've got to click on another tab or browser or PowerPoint or whatever, and you're holding this information, and you're starting to scroll, looking for what you're doing. Now, when I gave you the six words and asked you repeat it back in alphabetical order, I think you forgot one or two cognitively going from one screen and scrolling down to the other is a cognitive load and an impairment. And a lot of times, students are being asked to use tools that are cognitively more taxing and to be able to walk in and articulate that and said, No, my son needs a printer for these types of things. Are some other things that we start to kind of come in where you begin to understand or like when I was a kid, when I look at a book or I look at the font, I can assess the workload by the physical characteristics of it. I can't do that with a link. And so a lot of times with schools, there's links and stuff all over, but it's not quantified in a way that the person can digest it. So you click on some of those links and it's overwhelming, and sometimes it's relatively short. Well, the overwhelming ones that are wild, like, I don't want to go there because I don't want to feel that. By understanding that emotional reaction that they're having, you can begin to work do work arounds in order to deal with somebody so that they can that have a better idea what the workload looks like. Again, this is foreign type stuff for a lot of people that are listening. But, you know, in the workplace, people have multiple screens. I've seen more and more in schools where they got, you know, iPads and stuff like that, but the mere device that they're having sometimes is the impairment, not the tip, trick or strategy, because of the tax working memory. And so a lot of times, the program will help parents get a language in order to be able to walk in and not guess, have a better idea of watching their kid and knowing what works.

Brooke Schnittman: 39:46

Sure. So I want to call you the Doctor of attention coming up with this scope. And if someone wants to learn more about the attention scope, where would they go? If they go

Jeff Copper: 39:57

to my website, dig coaching.com, and look at services. If. A drop down with cognitive ergonomics. If you go on that page, there's a there's a white paper that you can take a look at, and then there's also a webinar that I did with a PowerPoint informational session that goes more methodically, kind of through the program. I would encourage them to go check that out first, because, again, I don't want anybody signing up for this unless you actually think that this makes a lot of sense. If you don't, then don't, but I would encourage them to go check those things out, and then they can take a look at the program to see if it makes some sense, and if, if you don't think this makes any sense in the world, that that's there's no problem. But I'm just excited because it's a completely different way to take a look at ADHD, and I'm just trying to educate people that there's a new alternative, and I'm just grateful that you gave me the opportunity to try to share that with the

Brooke Schnittman: 40:43

Oh my gosh. Of course, I'm all about helping the neurodivergent community. And in this scope that you've come up with, it's not only helping the neurodivergent community, it sounds like it could help pretty much anybody. The fact that you've created this new thing is awesome, just to add that in and create that lens for people in a way that they have not been able to see their executive functions before.

Jeff Copper: 41:11

It's kind of exciting. So anyway, I appreciate it absolutely

Brooke Schnittman: 41:15

Well, Jeff, thank you so much again for coming on successful with ADHD. And for those of you who want to learn more about Jeff copper, please go to dig di G coaching with the g.com and Jeff, you're worldwide, right? Oh, yes, yes, wonderful. Well, thanks again. And I'm sure this will not be the last time Jeff is on successful with ADHD. And we can't wait to hear more about the attention scope and the cognitive ergonomics.

Unknown: 41:45

Thank you.

Brooke Schnittman: 41:46

Thanks for listening to this episode of successful with ADHD. I hope it helps you on your journey, and if you need any additional support for you or a loved one with ADHD, feel free to reach out to us at coaching with growth.com and all social media platforms at coaching with Brooke. And remember, it's Brooke with an E. Thanks again for listening. See you next time you