By: Jane Hauser
Director of Advertising & Outreach, NESCA
I had the prospect to interview Dr. Alison Burns, a pediatric neuropsychologist who joined NESCA earlier this 12 months. I discovered quite a bit about Dr. Burns, each personally and professionally in my interview. I invite you to study extra about her, her method to pediatric neuropsychological analysis, and her experience in ADHD and concussion, amongst different domains.
You returned to the workforce this 12 months after having youngsters. How was your expertise returning to work, and the way was NESCA instrumental in doing so?
After I had my second and ultimate little one, I needed to take a extra prolonged parental depart to actually absorb that valuable early childhood time earlier than returning to the workforce. All through my trip of the workforce, I accomplished persevering with training lessons and remained concerned with a analysis mission from my time at Kids’s Nationwide in Washington DC. Due to the wonderful helps at NESCA, it was a clean transition again to work! I had the assist of Dr. Moira Creedon, who served as a mentor for the primary six months. Along with the bigger collaborative group of colleagues, I had somebody I might go to with any particular questions I had.
Why did NESCA really feel like one of the best match for you?
I knew that I needed to affix a group observe as a result of I needed the flexibility to seek the advice of and collaborate with colleagues, notably when working with extra advanced sufferers. It was vital to me to affix a workforce that’s multidisciplinary because the distinctive views that different disciplines at NESCA provide permit me to suppose extra holistically a few affected person’s profile and wishes. NESCA has a tradition {of professional} improvement and encourages clinicians to proceed to study by way of persevering with training which match with my core perception within the significance of staying up to the mark with new evidence-based analysis.
I used to be additionally on the lookout for a observe that understood household stability, as a result of though I’m working, I’m nonetheless the first caregiver for our kids, notably throughout these morning and afterschool shifts. I knew I would wish some flexibility, and everybody I met at NESCA actually understood what it’s wish to be a working mother and the load that comes with that position. At NESCA, I could make my work schedule match my household’s wants.
What varieties of points do you get pleasure from determining and unraveling for households?
My favourite inhabitants of youngsters to work with is those that have or are exhibiting indicators of ADHD. I skilled at Kids’s Nationwide with Gerard Gioia, Ph.D., who’s an professional within the discipline of government functioning. It was an enormous focus of my coaching, and I had the chance to guage many youngsters with ADHD all through my post-doctoral coaching. It’s an important inhabitants to evaluate as a result of typically occasions youngsters are recognized with ADHD based mostly on a symptom guidelines alone. Nonetheless, there are numerous different issues that trigger signs of ADHD similar to anxiousness/melancholy, studying issues, or language difficulties simply to call a number of. This overlap in signs can result in a misdiagnosis which is problematic as interventions for these issues are wildly completely different. It’s vital to tease aside these signs by way of a complete analysis so youngsters obtain the right interventions and helps.
You’ve talked concerning the significance of behavioral commentary throughout evaluations? What makes that so vital?
Check scores, or knowledge, can solely inform me a lot. Actually watching a baby and understanding how and why they carried out a sure method provides essential info that effective tunes my understanding of a kid’s neuropsychological profile. Whereas it is very important think about an individual’s historical past and present signs from medical interviews, questionnaire knowledge from a wide range of sources, and direct testing scores, I feel behavioral observations permit us to “look underneath the hood” so to talk. Seeing how a baby works and thinks typically gives me with glorious perception that helps me develop very focused and particular suggestions for that particular person.
You have been beforehand a part of a hospital-based multidisciplinary workforce. Are you able to clarify how your expertise with that workforce helps you in your work at NESCA?
I accomplished my internship and postdoctoral fellowship at Kids’s Nationwide and had the chance to be a member of two multidisciplinary medical specialties (i.e., epilepsy and hematology/oncology). To date at NESCA, I’ve had the chance to work with one little one who’s post-chemotherapy, and it was rewarding to have the ability to assist that affected person with an understanding of the neuropsychological dangers that chemotherapy can pose. It’s such an exquisite, distinctive inhabitants to work with. The resilience of kid most cancers survivors is simply exceptional.
As well as, I labored with a variety of medical suppliers throughout my different coaching alternatives, together with therapists, psychiatrists, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, bodily therapists, behavioral well being specialists, and first care physicians. This expertise taught me the significance of working with all suppliers who could also be related to a given affected person with a purpose to present probably the most built-in care.
My coaching in a youngsters’s hospital additionally taught me how vital it’s to rule out any medical explanations for the challenges we might even see within the people we consider. For instance, whereas I used to be a post-doc, I used to be evaluating a baby who got here to our ADHD clinic for a common ADHD analysis. I observed some issues that had me involved about the potential for absence seizures. After additional testing, it was decided that this little one was truly experiencing absence seizures and never ADHD. Fortunately, we have been capable of refer them to the epilepsy workforce to get the right therapy.
How did you achieve experience in evaluating college students with concussions and supporting those that have lingering results from concussion?
That specialty got here out of my internship and post-doctoral fellowship at Kids’s Nationwide. I used to be lucky to have been capable of work with among the main consultants within the discipline of concussion, each clinically and in analysis pursuits. I’m a part of a “sports activities household,” so it was a pure match for me. It’s additionally a booming space of analysis that was so fascinating to me. Throughout my fellowship, I noticed sufferers who had suffered a concussion not too long ago (typically round per week after damage), following them serially by way of to the purpose of restoration. I offered them with steerage about the right way to safely return to high school and bodily actions, adapting the plan every week as their restoration progressed. Some youngsters took for much longer to recuperate from their concussion and had ongoing struggles and unfavourable impacts lengthy after the damage. In doing a full neuropsychological analysis with these youngsters, we have been capable of think about the complete scope of their wants and whether or not they wanted a 504 plan or IEP in place.
It’s turn into an more and more vital inhabitants to consider as a result of it’s not simply youngsters who play sports activities that get concussions. It may very well be something from a baby who falls on ice or runs into playground tools. It’s not unusual to study {that a} affected person being seen for an analysis has a historical past of concussion in some unspecified time in the future of their childhood. Having this coaching and experience helps to tease aside what could also be associated to concussion and what’s almost certainly unrelated to concussion.
Concerning the Writer
Dr. Burns conducts complete evaluations of school-aged youngsters, adolescents, and younger adults with a wide range of developmental, studying, and emotional difficulties. She has experience within the analysis of people following a concussion/gentle traumatic mind damage and notably enjoys working with people with consideration (ADHD) and government functioning (EF) difficulties. Dr. Burns is keen about serving to people and their households higher perceive their areas of power and weak point and gives tailor-made therapy suggestions based mostly upon that distinctive profile to make the analysis most useful for every consumer.
To guide a session with Dr. Burns or one in all our many different professional neuropsychologists, full NESCA’s on-line consumption type.
NESCA is a pediatric neuropsychology observe and integrative therapy heart with workplaces in Newton, Plainville, and Hingham, Massachusetts; Londonderry, New Hampshire; the better Burlington, Vermont area; and Brooklyn, New York (teaching companies solely) serving shoppers from infancy by way of younger maturity and their households. For extra info, please electronic mail data@nesca-newton.com or name 617-658-9800.
