What Is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?

ADHD, what is it exactly? Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a developmental disorder usually causing inattention, distractibility, impulsivity, and hyperactivity in children starting before the age of seven. ADHD is a chronic disorder that occurs in 3-5% of children worldwide.

The controversy surrounding ADHD has been around since the 70's. Some people don't even believe that ADHD is an actual disorder; others believe it has a genetic or physiological basis. Even more controversy surrounds the treatment for ADHD. Treatments include behavior modifications, life-style changes, counseling and stimulant medication.

Now a days anytime a child is hyper parents think it is ADHD. Between 2-16% of kids in school are diagnosed with ADHD and given medication for this disorder. Many kids however are usually misdiagnosed. Many symptoms of ADHD can be attributed to other disorders, many of which can accompany ADHD. Because such combinations of disorders appear together, this can complicate diagnosis. There are five behavioral symptoms that have been attributed to ADHD, but are actually not symptoms of ADHD directly. Many of these symptoms are misdiagnosed as ADHD when in actuality they are their own disorder and should be treated as such. The five problems are Anxiety, depression, disruptive behavior, learning disabilities, and sensory integration disorder.

1. Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by feelings of worry, apprehension, and fear. Anxiety can be triggered by a person, a place, or even by a feeling. The stimulus can even be unidentifiable outwardly to other people. It's harder to diagnose kids that have anxiety largely due to the fact that kids articulate their feelings much less than adults do. Kids with anxiety usually appear preoccupied or zoned out. This is due to their internal thoughts of worry. Kids with anxiety don't know how to handle or express their anxiety and perceive their threats as uncontrollable and unavoidable.

2. Depression is a mood disorder characterized by feelings of sadness, helplessness, and hopelessness that can result in an aversion to activity. Depression can impair thinking skills, memory, cognitive flexibility, and attention. People who suffer from depression usually seem out of it. They have trouble focusing, become irritable, and have a lack of interest or initiation. Depression has no one single cause. Family history, pessimistic personality, trauma and stress, physical conditions, and other psychological disorders can all be associated with depression. For others depression had not specific trigger or cause. Since children have more difficulty expressing their emotions, it's important to determine depression in children through the evaluation of the child's behavior in several contexts.

3. Disruptive Behavior is where a child will not settle down and becomes troublesome or disorderly. Especially in a school setting this can become a problem where the disruptive student doesn't allow the other students to learn. In some cases kids can be disruptive intentionally, to show off, be funny or look cool. However children that have disruptive behaviors usually feel frustrated and are rebelling against authority to bring attention upon them. These types of kids have not developed adequate self-control, which causes them to act out and ultimately cause distractions for other classmates.

4. Learning disabilities is a classification of disorders where a person has difficulty learning. These disorders have affected the brain's ability to receive and process information therefore making it terribly difficult for the person to learn. Because we do not know what causes this problem within the brain learning disabilities are impossible to cure. However, there are other ways to get around learning disabilities. Intervention and support are the most important options available to someone who have a learning disability. Learning disabilities in children can cause inattentiveness, disruptive behavior, anxiety and depression. There are many learning disabilities such as reading, writing, math disorders, visual perception, auditory processing, nonverbal, dyslexia etc.

5. Sensory Integration Disorder (SID) is a neurological disorder where the person is unable to coordinate sensory information as it comes through the senses. When present in a child, the child may appear inattentive or quite the opposite as hyperactive. This is caused by the child being oversensitive or under sensitive to the sensory stimuli surrounding him/her. A child with a sensory integration disorder may be distressed by loud noises, bright lights, rough textures, or smells; or conversely, may need to handle things, hang upside-down, or shout boisterously.

As you can tell from the descriptions of the each of these disorders, many of the symptoms are the same or very similar. Many of these disorders accompany each other and therefore the person may be dealing with several different disorders at the same time. Because many of these disorders are now affecting children as well its important to evaluate and diagnose properly. This way we can properly treat for the correct disorder and stop over-medicating of our children, which can cause them harm in their future.

http://www.universalhealthinfo.com
http://www.universalhealthinfo.com/ADHD.html

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Identifying Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in the Classroom: Eight Things Teachers Should

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the phrase that is used to describe children who have significant problems with high levels of distractibility or inattention, impulsiveness, and often with excessive motor activity levels. There may be deficits in attention and impulse control without hyperactivity being present. In fact, recent studies indicate that as many as 40% of the ADD kids may not be hyperactive. Research shows that there are several things happening in the brain of the ADHD child which causes the disorder. The main problem is that certain parts of the Central Nervous System are under-stimulated, while others may be over-stimulated. In some hyperactive kids there is also an uneven flow of blood in the brain, with some parts of the brain getting too much blood flow, and other centers not getting as much. Certain medications, or other forms of treatment can be used to address these problems. Often the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder child has special educational needs, though not always. Most Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder kids can be successful in the regular classroom with some help. Teachers can find over 500 classroom interventions to help children be successful in school at http://www.ADDinSchool.com. As a teacher ask yourself these questions: 1. Can the child pay attention in class? Some ADHD kids can pay attention for a while, but typically can't sustain it, unless they are really interested in the topic. Other ADHD kids cannot pay attention to just one thing at a time, such as not being able to pay attention to just you when you are trying to teach them something. There are many different aspects to "attention," and the ADHD child would have a deficit in at least one aspect of it. 2. Is the child impulsive? Does he call out in class? Does he bother other kids with his impulsivity? These kids often cannot stop and think before they act, and they rarely think of the consequences of their actions first. Impulsivity tends to hurt peer relationships, especially in junior high school years. 3. Does he have trouble staying in his seat when he's supposed to? How is he on the playground? Can he wait in line, or does he run ahead of the rest of the class? Does he get in fights often? 4. Can he wait? Emotionally, these children often cannot delay gratification. 5. Is he calm? They are constantly looking for clues as to how they are doing. They may display a wide range of moods, which are often on the extremes: they act too sad, too angry, too excited, too whatever. 6. Is the child working at grade level? Is he working at his potential? Does he/she stay on task well? Does he fidget a lot? Does he have poor handwriting? Most ADHD kids have trouble staying on task, staying seated, and many have terrible handwriting.

7. Does he have difficulty with rhythm? Or the use of his time? Does he lack awareness about "personal space" and what is appropriate regarding touching others? Does he seem unable to read facial expressions and know their meanings? Many children with ADHD also have Sensory Integration Dysfunctions (as many as 10% to 20% of all children might have some degree of Sensory Integration Dysfunction). SID is simply the ineffective processing of information received through the senses. As a result these children have problems with learning, development, and behavior. 8. Does he seem to be immature developmentally, educationally, or socially? It has been suggested by research that children and teens with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder may lag 20% to 40% behind children without ADHD developmentally. In other words, a ten year old with ADHD may behave, or learn, as you would expect a seven year old to behave or learn. A fifteen year old with ADHD may behave, or learn, as you would expect a ten year old to behave, or learn. There is a lot to learn about ADHD. Both teachers and parents can learn more by visiting the ADHD Information Library's family of web sites, beginning with ADDinSchool.com for hundreds of classroom interventions to help our children succeed in school.

Douglas Cowan, Psy.D., is a family therapist who has been working with ADHD children and their families since 1986. He is the clinical director of the ADHD Information Library's family of seven web sites, including http://www.newideas.net, helping over 350,000 parents and teachers learn more about ADHD each year. Dr. Cowan also serves on the Medical Advisory Board of VAXA International of Tampa, FL., is President of the Board of Directors for KAXL 88.3 FM in central California, and is President of NewIdeas.net Incorporated.

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