Is it Immaturity or ADHD?
On Slate web site they posted an article by Brian Palmer, How to Diagnose a Toddler with ADHD. The article discusses new guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics urging parents and doctors to lookout for signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children as young as four-years old. Previous guidelines set the minimum age at six.
The author explains, "ADHD diagnostic methods are notoriously controversial for children of any age. Doctors have to rely on reports from parents with no experience recognizing symptoms, and the impressions of various teachers. (Few children exhibit ADHD symptoms in a doctor’s office.) There are several different questionnaires and scoring scales that require mothers and fathers to speculate on how often their child talks too much: Never, sometimes, often, or very often. Doctors in the United States and abroad can’t even agree on a single definition of the disease."
The article poses the question: Don't all little kids have short attention spans? Preschoolers aren’t particularly focused in general—so how could you tell if one had ADHD? What do you think?
Click here to see the entire article.
