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Chat Areas: I personally do not use chat areas much, but I know many individuals who use them frequently. Because they are occurring in real time, they are more spontaneous but harder to monitor or censor. In some chat areas it is expected that one's on-line identity is different from one's identity ITRW (in the real world) If you use these, exercise caution and monitor children who go on-line, and don't let it become a substitute for real social contact. Instant messaging has become a common way for older children and adolescents to talk to each other. One can often

Bulletin Boards: People leave messages on bulletin boards and one can read the listings at any time. These are often devoted to particular themes and have someone monitoring to make sure that individuals stay on topic. A listserve is a bulletin board that is limited to certain individuals and a specific topic. Individuals who sign up for these, receive messages from others on the list and can either be contribute their own input or be "lurkers" (those who listen but do not contribute.) There are several ADHD-related listserves. To get on a listserve for parents of ADHD children, send e-mail to add-parents-request@mv.mv.com and write "subscribe add-parents" in the body of the letter. The Add-Parents support listserve is a very active list and sometimes gets way off topic. However, a parent new to ADHD can get a wealth of information and support from other parents. For a listserve for adults with ADHD, send e-mail to listserv@sjuvm.stjohns.edu In the body of the letter put "subscribe addult your name"

Web Pages: These are sites containing printed or graphic material continuously posted on the World Wide Web by an individual or an organization. A Personal Web Page is a site devoted to hobbies and interests of an individual or a family. Companies, schools and organizations may have web pages for advertising or for dissemination of information. The way web sites are linked makes it easier for those with intuitive, non-linear thinking, to navigate and find information. It can be stimulating and exciting to hop from topic to topic and continent to continent in seconds. Because of the rapid (if you have a fast modem) gratification, one can stay interested. Some may become so absorbed that they need to set a timer to limit sessions.

How to Do Research on the Web: The web can be a good source of information on ADHD. To search for such information, one would first go to a Search Engine such as Altavista http://www.altavista.digital.com or Web Crawler www.webcrawler.com/ or Hotbot www.hotbot.com Webcrawler and Altavista are nice because they can do a natural language search. One simply enters "What are the causes of ADHD?" The search engine would then list sites with articles about the causes of ADHD. If you then wanted to narrow the search to neurological causes, on Altavista, you press the "refine" button and enter keywords such as neurological. Hotbot is less selective but gives longer lists.

If you wanted to get more technical articles on ADHD from the medical or educational literature, there are three large indexes to consider. The National Library of Medicine, gives access to free searches of the Index Medicus, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/syntax.html a large number of internationally known medical journals. ERIC www.aspensys.com/eric/ is a large index of educational journals. http://www.cec.sped.org/ericec.htm is devoted to issues related to disabilities and gifted education.

ERIC and Medline use a search method which uses Boolean Search Operators. Basic information on this type of search. http://help.hotbot.com/faq/advanced.html# (Feature #10) would be enough for most searches. For those who wish to do powerful or complex searches, the National Library of Medicine has a page, "Syntax of Complex Boolean Expression" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/syntax.html For more detail on how to do medical/technical Internet searches see the related web article at http://www.ncpamd.com/webtools.htm#