Natural supplements for treating ADD child symptoms and attention deficit disorder in children.

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) is the umbrella disorder, encompassing three sub-groups. These three groups are defined as follows:

• ADD Inattentive Type
  A main characteristic of inattentive behavior is the inability to concentrate and focus. This lack of attention may only be noticed when a child enters the challenging environment of school. This is not classified as ADHD, as hyperactivity is not present.
  
  
• ADD Hyperactive/Impulsive Type
  A child with hyperactive and impulsive behavior is commonly ‘all over the place’ and very active (both mentally and physically), making hasty decisions at any moment. This is classified as ADHD as hyperactivity is present.
  
  
• ADD Combined Type
  ADD child symptoms of inattentive type are combined with the symptoms of hyperactive/impulsive type. This is the most common form of ADD. A child with more than six ADD combined type symptoms should have a comprehensive evaluation. This is classified as ADHD, as hyperactivity is present.

Close

A diagnosis of ADD is only applied to children who consistently display certain characteristic behaviors over a period of time. Given that children diagnosed with ADD are often treated with high-schedule drugs, it is important that the process of diagnosing ADD is comprehensive.

This requires several steps and involves gathering a multitude of information from multiple sources. Generally, the child's pattern of behavior is compared against a set of criteria and characteristics of the disorder.

Health care professionals and psychologists often ask questions such as the following:

• How is your child doing in school?
• Are there any problems with learning that you or your child's teachers have seen?
• Is your child happy in school?
• Is your child having problems completing class work or homework?
• Are you concerned with any behavior problems in school, at home, or when your child is playing with friends?
• Your health professional/psychologist will want to know how you handle different situations and may want to observe you interacting with your child.
• In addition to looking at your child's behavior, they may do a physical examination. A full medical history will be needed to put your child's behavior in context and screen for other conditions that may affect their behavior. Your health care professional/psychologist will also talk to your child about how he/she acts and feels.

As a parent, you will more than likely be asked to provide crucial information about your child's life at home, behavior in school, and in other social settings.

Your health care professional/psychologist will want to know what symptoms your child is showing, how long the symptoms have occurred, and how the behavior affects your child and your family.

You may need to fill in checklists or rating scales about your child's behavior. In addition, sharing your family health history can offer important clues about your child's condition.

For an accurate diagnosis, your healthcare professional/ psychologist will need to get information about your child directly from your child's classroom teacher or another school professional.

Children 6 to 12 years of age spend many of their waking hours at school. For this reason, it is important that your child's teacher provide relevant information.

Your child's teacher may write a report or discuss the following with your health care professional or child psychologist:

• Your child's behavior in the classroom
• Your child's learning patterns
• Any school records that report a problem in the past
• How long the symptoms have been a problem
• How the symptoms are affecting your child's progress at school
• Ways the classroom program is being adapted to help your child
• Whether other conditions may be affecting the symptoms

In addition, your health care professional/psychologist may want to see report cards and samples of your child's schoolwork. Other caregivers may also provide important information about your child's behavior. Former teachers, religious leaders or coaches may have valuable input.

If your child is home-schooled, it is especially important to assess their behavior in settings outside of the home. Your child probably does not behave the same way at home as he does in other settings.

Direct information about the way your child acts in more than one setting is required. It is important to consider other possible causes of your child's symptoms in these settings.

In some cases, other mental health care professionals may also be involved in gathering information for the diagnosis. Ideally, the diagnosis should be made by a professional in your area with training in ADD treatments or in the diagnosis of mental disorders.

Child psychologists, developmental/behavioral pediatricians, or behavioral neurologists are those most often trained in differential diagnosis. Clinical social workers may also have such training.

Psychometric tests are available to test neurological, intellectual, and emotional development problems. These tests may only be administered and interpreted by clinical and educational psychologists who are trained and licensed in the use of this category of test.

Most of these tests involve learning and problem-solving tasks that help define the particular areas that are most disabling. Clinical or educational psychologists will perform a battery of tests over a number of sessions.

These psychometric tests may include tests of intellectual functioning, memory, attention, concentration, planning and organizational skills. In addition, scholastic tests and tests to screen for emotional problems, learning disabilities, hearing and vision dysfunction may be used.

Currently psychometric testing by a qualified psychologist is arguably the most comprehensive and accurate diagnostic procedure available to correctly diagnose attention deficit disorder in children.

Together with a good heath history and information from multiple collateral sources, such an assessment can help to rule out other possible causes of the problem and can also be very important in deciding on a treatment plan.

Close

It is important to realize that ADD is not a physical ailment like a broken arm or chicken pox. ADD does not have clear physical signs that can be seen in an x-ray or show up on a lab test.

It can only be identified by looking for certain characteristic behaviors, and these behaviors vary from child to child. Symptoms of ADD typically occur in early childhood, but may also be developed later in life.

The symptoms of ADD in children are often quite different from those of ADD in adults. However, the biggest indicator of ADD in children is usually inattention that is inappropriate for the age and not caused by any other environmental, psychological, or physical factors.

This means that a child with a primary diagnosis of depression, for example, should not be diagnosed with or treated for ADD.

The following symptoms are common indicators of ADD in children:

• Difficulty keeping attention on work or play activities at school and at home
• Losing or forgetting things like toys, pencils, books, or tools needed for a task
• Avoids or dislikes activities that require sitting still or a sustained effort