Known as the "Dean of ADHD" by his colleagues, Paul H. Wender, MD, is a pioneer in identifying and treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. A researcher and clinician who has treated patients with ADHD for many years, he offers insights into the progression of ADHD, as well as dietary, drug, and psychological treatments. He is the author of the classic handbook on the subject, ADHD: Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Children and Adults.
Wender has been involved in the study of ADHD for over thirty years and wrote the first monograph on the disorder in 1971 (Minimal Brain Dysfunction in Children). In this monograph, he advanced the hypotheses that the disorder was genetic in origin and was mediated by decreased activity in dopaminergic systems in the brain. Because he found education of the parents of ADHD children played a substantial role in treatment, he described the symptoms, the causes, and the management of children with ADHD in a book published in 1974, The Hyperactive Child. The 4th edition, ADHD in Children and Adults, was published in 2000 and contains information for ADHD adults about how accurate diagnosis can be made and how ADHD in adults is best treated. He and his colleagues discovered that ADHD in adults was a recognizable disorder. They initiated studies of ADHD in adults beginning in 1976 and have conducted extensive research in this area since that time. He wrote the first monograph on ADHD in adults (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Adults) in 1995.
Wender is a lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a senior consultant in the Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program at McLean Hospital. McLean is the largest psychiatric teaching facility of Harvard Medical School, and an affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Utah School of Medicine
Wender obtained his undergraduate degree at Harvard, his medical degree at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and trained in child, adolescent, and adult psychiatry at Harvard, John Hopkins, and St. Elizabeth Hospital. He has been heavily involved in psychiatric research for the last 38 years.