Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Getting assessed and diagnosed
When you read that some proportion of people with ADHD have a particular problem, the number tells you nothing until you know the figure for everybody else.
Twenty percent sounds alarming until you learn what the rate is in the general population. What matters is the multiple, how many times more likely, and that is the figure worth asking for. It cuts both ways: it stops a frightening statistic ruining your week, and it stops a real risk being waved off because the raw percentage looked small.
Qur’an and Sunnah
How can those who know be equal to those who do not know? (Quran 39:9). Knowing how to read a number written about you is a small piece of that, and it keeps you from being frightened by arithmetic.
أَمَّنۡ هُوَ قَٰنِتٌ ءَانَآءَ ٱلَّيۡلِ سَاجِدࣰ ا وَقَآئِمࣰ ا يَحۡذَرُ ٱلۡأٓخِرَةَ وَيَرۡجُواْ رَحۡمَةَ رَبِّهِۦۗ قُلۡ هَلۡ يَسۡتَوِي ٱلَّذِينَ يَعۡلَمُونَ وَٱلَّذِينَ لَا يَعۡلَمُونَۗ إِنَّمَا يَتَذَكَّرُ أُوْلُواْ ٱلۡأَلۡبَٰبِ
What about someone who worships devoutly during the night, bowing down, standing in prayer, ever mindful of the life to come, hoping for his Lord’s mercy? Say, ‘How can those who know be equal to those who do not know?’ Only those who have understanding will take heed
Qur’an 39:9read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A study of health system records found adult ADHD diagnoses rising sharply in the US, with rates differing between racial and ethnic groups. That illustrates why raw counts mislead: who gets diagnosed reflects access and referral patterns as well as who has the condition. It counts diagnoses in records, so it describes what services recorded rather than what exists in the population.
Chung W, Jiang SF, Paksarian D, Nikolaidis A, Castellanos FX, Merikangas KR, Milham MP. (2019). Trends in the Prevalence and Incidence of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Among Adults and Children of Different Racial and Ethnic Groups.. JAMA network open doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A number with nothing to compare it against cannot tell you whether anything is unusual.
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
Find out what they have tried before that did not work. It saves everybody from a plan that failed this person two years ago.
Ask for the most frightening moment of their life, then the next one down, then the next, until there is a scale running from one to a hundred. You get the ladder you needed, and they get something they did not expect: fear comes in sizes.
Run the assessment yourself and watch while they work. Under real effort you will see the small movements, the tics and the overflow that never appear in ordinary conversation, and none of it reaches you if a technician or an app does the testing.