The Problem with ADD/ADHD Assessments
The medical community uses the term “diagnosis drives treatment”. This means that a correct diagnosis must be made before a treatment is prescribed. This is quite straight forward with many medical problems (examples – throat infections, cancer, heart attacks, broken bones, abscess tooth, etc) as there are diagnostic tests that can definitively identify the problem (examples – blood tests, bacterial cultures, MRI, biopsies, X rays, etc).
The problem diagnosing ADD/ADHD (and many other problems in the brain) is that there are no “hard” biological markers that can be used to definitively diagnose it. The diagnosis is made by interpreting the observations of the child’s parents and teachers. The only professionals that are legally allowed to diagnose ADD/ADHD are medical doctors and some psychologists. These professions sometimes observe the child directly but more often than not they use the observations of others in making a diagnosis. This admittedly is a poor way to diagnose a problem and subsequently decide on a treatment plan but it is the usual way it is done.
My next posting will outline the preferred assessment procedures for ADD/ADHD.
“What parents need most are ideas because with ideas we get options.”
Rick Harper has been providing ideas to parents for over 40 years.