What is ADHD/ADD?
Introduction
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a disability that causes difficulties for children, both in the way they behave and in the way they manage their thoughts.
Often, children with ADHD can have difficulty concentrating on many different tasks. Some children with ADHD may seem to be fidgety and restless, while others may appear distracted and forgetful. Because ADHD can have such a variety of symptoms, there are three types of the disability: Inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive, and combined type.
ADHD, predominantly inattentive type, used to be known as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Most children with this type of ADHD will tend to appear as though they aren’t listening to instructions, and aren’t paying attention to schoolwork. This is because they tend to have difficulty keeping their attention focused.
Many children with ADHD, predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type, will often appear restless. They may talk a lot, and may behave in ways that are inappropriate for a classroom – for example, they may stand up or run around when the class is expected to be sitting.
Children with the combined type of ADHD have difficulties both with attention and with hyperactivity/impulsivity.
Challenges and strengths
Children with ADHD may experience difficulty paying attention in many ways. Such a child may:
- Have difficulty getting organized
- Misunderstand directions
- Lose focus when trying to listen
- Forget information that they’ve read already
- Become easily distracted
- Appear drowsy
- Lose interest in tasks
Instead of trouble paying attention – or in addition to these challenges – a child with ADHD may have trouble with hyperactivity and impulsivity. Such a child may:
- Become easily irritated or frustrated
- Be overly sensitive to criticism
- Find it difficult to sit quietly
- Rush through tasks and schoolwork
- Interrupt others
- Blurt things out
Important strengths in children with ADHD may include:
- Variety of academic and non-academic interests
- Interest and motivation for hobbies and other activities
- Strong motor skills
Diagnosis
Currently, there is no test for ADHD; it is diagnosed clinically, based on a list of symptoms that the child has to have. While the symptoms of ADHD may seem to be things that all children do from time to time, ADHD is only diagnosed when the symptoms go above and beyond what usually happens in childhood.
According to the American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders (DSM-IV) – the tool that clinicians use to make a diagnosis – the child has to show “a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity and impulsivity that is more frequent and severe than is typically observed in individuals at a comparable level of development.”
Depending on the symptoms that the child has, a clinician will diagnose one of the specific types of ADHD.
Causes
Research into the causes of ADHD has suggested that it’s unlikely that there is one single cause of ADHD. Instead, it’s likely that ADHD can be influenced by genes, brain chemistry, and by the family and social environment.
ADHD is not caused by food dyes, poor nutrition, food additives, or sugar intake.