Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Getting assessed and diagnosed
Carry the rough proportions into every ADHD assessment. Executive function difficulty in the great majority, coordination difficulty in around half, dyslexia in something like a quarter to two fifths. A workup that never asks about handwriting, sport or reading is not finished.
The behaviour problem you were called about is often the visible end of an unidentified reading or coordination difficulty. Ask what PE is like, what handwriting is like, how long homework takes compared with the rest of the class. Then send the child for the specific assessment rather than adding another impression to your own notes.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'you can ask those who have knowledge if you do not know' (Quran 16:43). Sending a child on to someone trained in reading or movement is that instruction taken quite literally.
وَمَآ أَرۡسَلۡنَا مِن قَبۡلِكَ إِلَّا رِجَالࣰ ا نُّوحِيٓ إِلَيۡهِمۡۖ فَسۡـَٔلُوٓاْ أَهۡلَ ٱلذِّكۡرِ إِن كُنتُمۡ لَا تَعۡلَمُونَ
[Prophet], all the messengers We sent before you were simply men to whom We had given the Revelation: you [people] can ask those who have knowledge if you do not know
Qur’an 16:43read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Co-occurrence is the norm rather than the exception. A cross sectional national survey of United States children with a parent reported ADHD diagnosis found most had at least one other mental health or developmental condition. It rested on parent report rather than direct assessment, and figures quoted in training vary between clinics and samples, so treat particular percentages as a prompt to look rather than as fixed numbers.
Larson K, Russ SA, Kahn RS, Halfon N. (2011). Patterns of comorbidity, functioning, and service use for US children with ADHD, 2007.. Pediatrics doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
If several things usually travel together, looking for only one of them leaves most of the picture undescribed.
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
Ask for a number first, then go hunting for exceptions. How is today on a scale of one to ten, and when was it last higher than that?
The age by which symptoms have to have shown up is a number people agreed on, not a line in nature. It moved from seven to twelve when the manual was revised.
If someone is about to send off a saliva kit to fill in the family history they never had, have a conversation first. These tests hand back more than health information, and they hand it back with nobody in the room.