Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Getting assessed and diagnosed
When you need a date, hand people events rather than months. Was that before or after the holiday? Same year as the move?
Asking whether something happened between October and January invites a guess. Asking whether it was before or after a wedding, a house move or a stay in hospital usually produces a real answer, because that is how memory is filed. Sketching a rough timeline of the person's life first and then hanging the difficulties on it gives you a far more accurate history, and it is much less tiring for them.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make mistakes (Quran 2:286). The prayer takes forgetting for granted, so it makes sense to build questions that work around it.
لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا وُسۡعَهَاۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتۡ وَعَلَيۡهَا مَا ٱكۡتَسَبَتۡۗ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذۡنَآ إِن نَّسِينَآ أَوۡ أَخۡطَأۡنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحۡمِلۡ عَلَيۡنَآ إِصۡرࣰ ا كَمَا حَمَلۡتَهُۥ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦۖ وَٱعۡفُ عَنَّا وَٱغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَٱرۡحَمۡنَآۚ أَنتَ مَوۡلَىٰنَا فَٱنصُرۡنَا عَلَى ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلۡكَٰفِرِينَ
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear: each gains whatever good it has done, and suffers its bad- ‘ Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make mistakes. Lord, do not burden us as You burdened those before us. Lord, do not burden us with more than we have strength to bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Protector, so help us against the disbelievers.’
Qur’an 2:286read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A scientometric analysis of more than 28,000 ADHD papers shows a field dominated by treatment and risk factor research, which gives a sense of where the evidence is thick and where it is thin. Interviewing craft sits in one of the thin places. Take this one as practical experience worth borrowing rather than as something with a trial behind it.
Cortese S, Sabé M, Chen C, Perroud N, Solmi M. (2022). Half a century of research on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A scientometric study.. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Memory stores events rather than calendar squares, so questions built from events get better answers.
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
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.
Two referrals turn up again and again. A young child being asked to leave a school for behaviour, with no developmental or cognitive information anywhere in the file. And a parent saying something is wrong while the school says everything is fine. Both are describing adult frustration rather than a formulation.
Very sweet, very salty, very fatty food acts on the reward system in a way that has more in common with a drug than with dinner. Reaching for it when you are flat is self-medication, not greed.