What makes you feel that your child might have ADHD? Is it that your child has seriously low attention span or is very depressive or aggressive even when it is not his/her age to be so? Has the performance in school suddenly gone down the expected line? Has your child lost self-confidence and stability? If your answer to the above questions is yes, your suspicion might be right!

ADHD is a long-term medical disorder that might continue to prevail even in adulthood. This might create difficulties at college and workplace too. According to a research, 60 percent of victims carry ADHD even in adulthood. However, despite this fact, some children do come out of it before they enter their adulthood.

The first step is to consult your GP in case you suspect that your child is the victim of ADHD. Next, are the school and medical specialists who would help in diagnosing ADHD.

Visiting the GP

When you first visit your GP and tell him/her about your suspicion, he/she will do the following:

• Enquire about the medical history of your child and family, because ADHD can be hereditary.
• Ask about your child’s behavior at home and school and about his/hers low performance in school.
• Question about any disorders in the past and its medications along with side effects, if any.
• Assess the child’s hearing and sight either at the clinic or by referring specialists for these to be done. This will let the GP ignore those problems/behaviors caused by not hearing or seeing properly.
• Find out symptoms of autism, epilepsy, intellectual disability, or depression.

The referral of a medical specialist is dependent on the local health authority. Usually, the GP refers a community pediatrician or a specialist of the ADHD team. In some cases, other specialists that can be involved are:

• Psychologist
• Psychiatrist
• Pediatrician (especially skilled in dealing with behavioral problems)
• Occupational therapist
• Speech and language therapist

Visiting the School

Do not be surprised if I tell you that child’s school has already realized that there is some problem with the child. Yes! Before you notice, sometimes, the teacher might call you and ask you to visit him/her to discuss about the problems. Not only this, the school will also ask you to get the child medically checked before referring your child for the verification for a statement of special educational needs. Practically, the medical and educational referrals take place simultaneously.

Visiting a Medical Specialist

Once you get a referral, you need to take time from that specialist for the appointment and assessments. This waiting is dependent on the how busy the specialist is and the area in which his/her clinic is to judge the amount of patients. Sometimes, this waiting can be so long that you need to wait until a year. Actually, this waiting time can be between three months to a year. Such a long waiting time is usually for speech and language, occupational health, and mental health specialists.
However, you need not be in a state of despair. Even though your child name is far beyond in the long waiting list, you can ask whether the specialist can provide advice or certain tips on managing the child’s behavior that can be implemented before your child is diagnosed.

One more hope is to get an early appointment, if you can manage to obtain a cancelled session of some other patient.

Lastly, you can ask your GP or school to recommend private specialists where there is more possibility of short queues. However, such specialists charge more comparatively for the assessment.

Assessing Your Child

A child having ADHD will never exhibit a consistent behavior. This means that if your child with ADHD behaves properly in a specific situation today, it is not wise to think that he/she will be the same the next time. So, due to such uncertainty, the specialist will first ask you about your child’s behavior in different situations and what you did to tackle with it.

According to the type of specialist and the behavior you describe, the assessments would differ. Listed below are some of the assessments that a specialist can undertake.

• Analysis
  This involves observing your child and his/her reactions in a school, home, or at the specialist’s clinic.
• Observation
  This involves going through the written proofs such as teachers’ comments and home diary of the child’s behavior. In this, a brief history of the child’s problems, situations faced, factors that triggered the behavior, behaviors exhibited, effects on the child is recorded.
• Physical Tests
  If the referral is for an occupational therapist, he/she tests your child’s skills or talent to do something. This involves testing gross motor skills such as catching a flying ring or skipping and fine motor skills such as writing or creating a chain of gems.
• Written or Oral Tests
  This is especially undertaken by a speech and language therapist who verifies how well your child can express on what he/she has heard and understood.
• IQ Test
  This is the most common test taken by an educational psychologist to check the intellectual ability of a child.

Diagnosis

The specialist along with the GP basically performs the diagnosis, as it is difficult for a GP alone to detect ADHD. The reason for this is that ADHD has symptoms similar to other disorders. So, the referred specialist plays an important role in confirming that the symptoms are due to ADHD. Further, he/she will also detect:

• The type of ADHD
  It can be a combination of hyperactive, impulsive, and inattentive; primarily hyperactive; or primarily inattentive.
• The intensity of ADHD
  It can be mild, moderate, or severe.
• Other Disorders that Tend to Exist with ADHD
  This can include conduct disorder, anxiety, depression, and learning difficulties.

Treatment for ADHD

The treatment is based on the individual, its age, the type of ADHD he/she has, and other medical conditions he/she is suffering from. Listed below are the treatments for ADHD.

• Psychologist counseling for child and parents.
• Behavior management therapies.
• Cognitive behavior therapy.
• Simple tricks to learn how to deal with social problems such as bullying.
• Plan to boost self-confidence and self-esteem of the child.
• Personal help by the school.
• Medication (for children above six, except for severe cases). Mostly, these medications function by acting on the brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. This results in increased concentration level and better behavior.

Questions to the Specialist

Listed below are a few common questions that you might ask the specialists.

• If there is counseling, where and when it will be?
• What will be my role in the strategy of bringing my child back to normal?
• What role does the class teacher have to play during the treatment?
• Who will review the treatment plan, where it will be reviewed, and who will be present?
• What if the plan does not work?
• Until when will the medication need to be taken?
• What about the side effects and how to handle them?
• Will the medicine need to be given in the school? If yes, how the school will support this?

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