Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Getting assessed and diagnosed
An ADHD diagnosis usually arrives with two extra words attached: which presentation it is, and how severe. Both are descriptions of what gets in your way, not a grade you were awarded.
Inattentive, hyperactive and impulsive, or the two together, and then mild, moderate or severe. Mild means you met the threshold and the effect on daily life sits at the lower end, which is a real finding rather than a hint that you are making a fuss. The wording matters most because it is what a school, a GP or a workplace reads when deciding what to put in place, so it is worth understanding the sentence you have been handed.
Qur’an and Sunnah
He taught Adam all the names of things (Quran 2:31). Naming what is in front of you is presented there as a gift, which is a kinder way to hold a diagnosis than as a verdict.
وَعَلَّمَ ءَادَمَ ٱلۡأَسۡمَآءَ كُلَّهَا ثُمَّ عَرَضَهُمۡ عَلَى ٱلۡمَلَٰٓئِكَةِ فَقَالَ أَنۢبِـُٔونِي بِأَسۡمَآءِ هَٰٓؤُلَآءِ إِن كُنتُمۡ صَٰدِقِينَ
He taught Adam all the names [of things], then He showed them to the angels and said, ‘Tell me the names of these if you truly [think you can].’
Qur’an 2:31read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A review of systematic reviews puts ADHD at roughly 2 to 7 percent of children worldwide, near 5 percent on average, with a further 5 percent sitting just under the diagnostic threshold. That second group is the reason severity wording exists at all: the difficulty runs along a continuum and the line has to be drawn somewhere. Prevalence estimates move about a good deal between studies and settings, so read the figures as a rough map rather than a headcount.
Sayal K, Prasad V, Daley D, Ford T, Coghill D. (2018). ADHD in children and young people: prevalence, care pathways, and service provision.. The lancet. Psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A label you understand is one you can use, instead of one that quietly follows you about.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Before handing anyone a new system, make sure they can say back why it should work better than what they are doing now. A strategy with no reason attached gets dropped the first time it is inconvenient.
One man put his lamps on a timer so the room would go dark at eleven and send him to bed. It worked for a few nights. Then he simply carried on in the dark. A cue can tell you the time. It cannot make you stand up.
With gambling machines the pull may be the lights and the noise as much as the chance of winning. That changes what you actually need to stay away from.