How Is ADHD Diagnosed In Children

The key to the diagnosis of ADHD in children is the comprehensive assessment of the child suffering from ADHD. However, only a medical professional who have taken proper training should do the diagnosis. It is recommended that this professional should be a child or adolescent psychiatrist or a pediatrician who has the knowledge of ADHD. This is because this is not a simple diagnosis wherein a test will detect the presence of ADHD, rather a physical and mental assessment of a child that needs to be done carefully in detail to get the most accurate information about the child’s behavior.

A specialist will obtain the necessary information from the child’ parents and school reports.

Questions to the Parents

A specialist will ask certain questions regarding your child. Listed below are the topics on which parents will be questioned.

• Child’s medical past, including even mental health problems
• Family history of ADHD and mental health problems
• Child’s development and temperament
• About ADHD symptoms and the time when you started observing them in your child
• Other problems that the child might have
• Relationship with your child (also of your partner)
• Parenting problems, if any

In rare cases, parents will need to examine their child’s behavior through a rating scale. This scale is similar to a questionnaire to detect the severity of symptoms.

Information from the Child’s School

After obtaining information from the parents, the specialist will need information from your child’s school teachers. The information will be collected about:

• Class behavior
• Academic achievements
• Relationships with other students
• Reaction to discipline and authority

Similar to parents, the teachers might be asked to use the rating scales to evaluate the behavior of your child.

Going Ahead with the Assessment

The specialist might need to assess your child to seek whether he/she is suffering from a physical disease that is the cause of the symptoms or making them severe. The other purpose of the assessment is to examine the mental state and find out the minute details required for identifying effective, but suitable medication. Gathering such details also aids the specialist to identify the need of other assessment, for instance, by a speech therapist or hearing expert.

Another type of mental examination might be conducted wherein the child’s mental abilities are assessed. This type of assessment is known as ‘psychometric’ assessment and measures certain mental abilities such as IQ, speech, and reading ability. More tests can also be conducted that measure attention, impulsiveness, depression, autism, learning disability, and dyspraxia (affects co-ordination). These tests are required because they can tend to hide the presence of ADHD symptoms in your child.

Rules for Diagnosing

During the process of diagnosis, the medical experts need to follow two unique sets of criteria. These are ICD-10 and DSM-IV-TR. However, there is no direct method of indicating that a person has ADHD. Therefore, although the two criteria are required for the diagnosis, the specialist must give his/her medical opinion.

ICD-10

ICD-10 refers to a collection of criteria laid down by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for diagnosing hyperkinetic disorder (ADHD is much more than this).

DSM-IV

The American Psychiatric Association has laid down the DSM-IV-TR criteria to diagnose different types of ADHD, such as hyperkinetic disorder (a severe one).

ICD-10 versus DSM-IV

Table 1.1 lists the differences between ICD-10 and DSM-IV

Fewer children who exhibit severe symptoms are diagnosed with ICD-10. This would indicate that these children who are diagnosed as having ADHD are not provided with the treatment. While, some experts are of the opinion that a broad range of people are diagnosed with DSM-IV.

Age of Diagnosis

It is quite difficult to diagnose ADHD in pre-school children, because they are commonly active, which cannot be counted as abnormal behavior.

Children at primary school are suitable for the diagnosis of ADHD. The diagnosis is done between the age periods of 5-11 years. During this period, the symptoms of ADHD are apparent and clear, as the rules and routine of a school make the symptoms come out very easily, which can be noticed immediately.

If a young child exhibits extreme hyperactiveness, this can be a green signal of a medical condition already persisting and negatively affect his/her development, for example, autism.

But remember, even teenagers and adults can have ADHD that needs diagnosis.

After Diagnosis

The first step after diagnosing a person as having ADHD is to devise a treatment plan. This might include medicines to be given, educational methods, behavioral therapy, and psychotherapy.

After assessing your child, the specialist will work with you, your child, and his/her teachers prior to initiating the treatment. During this period, he/she might give a score for different characteristics of your child’s behavior. This rating/assessment acts as a base or a parameter based on which the specialist can determine how much your child has improved in the near future due to the treatment. Actually, for each characteristic of the behavior, a target is specified by the specialist for you child. To measure the effectives of the treatment, the child is again scored on each aspect and this is compared with the figure/grade your child had scored before the treatment. For instance, you might be asked how many times your child beats his/her younger sister.

During the treatment, your child will be monitored regularly to:

• Measure the effectiveness of the treatment for the important symptoms
• Identify how much dose of a medicine is suitable
• Detect any side-effects of the medicines given
• Determine how well your child is integrating emotionally, educationally, and socially

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