Did you look for other causes?

[charliegirl]

Did you look for things that could cause your child's behavior before you took him or her to be diagnosed? Did the person who diagnosed them look for other possibilities?

I'd really love to hear what steps people took before getting the correct diagnosis for their child, especially things you considered other than ADHD.

I'd also like to know what one thing over all else you consider to be the "red flag" that something was wrong and when you first started noticing it. How long were you aware of it before you admitted there might really be something about your child that wasn't what most people would consider normal?

[misty]

This is a great question! With us I never even noticed anything wrong with my child. I never even thought of ADHD. We only got her tested because of her troubles in math. Her teacher thought she might have an LD (which she does). When they tested her they told me she also had inattentive ADHD. Now her psych thinks she may never have had ADHD at all & instead has NVLD.. All I know is meds don't help her & she gets along fine except for a few small issues & of course her math classes. Before we had her tested the 1st time, we tried visual perception training, which did seem to help a bit.

[squirrelgirl]

When ds was 3, it became apparent that his energy was more than typical toddler activity. Constant donkey kicks, jumping up and down while in conversation, spinning around, and up and down at table time.

I realized that he had chewed the paint off a Target hooded sweater zipper and thought there might be a correlation between lead intake and hyperactivity. Tested for lead, but came back negative.

Monitored the busy energy for quite some time. Went to a child psychologist during kindergarten year. Diagnosed with ADHD (predominantly hyperactive/impulsive). Placed on medication.

[charliegirl]

Thanks! For me it was when my son started kindergarten and went from being an information sponge who impressed his pre-k teachers with all the stuff he knew to being unable to learn anything in a real school setting. He ended up being ADHD, predominantly inattentive.

I hope others post here. I really think it will help people who just don't know what their child is dealing with have an idea of what to look at for clues and compare what they are seeing with what we saw and what diagnosis they ended up with.

[sapphyre]

Because DS is my first child, and I was the first of my local friends and family to have children, I had no idea that his behaviour was out of the ordinary.

His pre-school teacher said he was one of the ones who was 'young for his age', oddly, the characteristics of the group at the Christmas play was that 4 - 5 were in boxes so they couldn't move around too much...

He was in a multi-year-level class his first year of school K/1/2, and he fidgeted a lot, and he was badly bullied. He hardly learnt anything and was anxious, we changed schools at the end of the year.

His new school was wonderful. Reading Recovery got him to be one of the top readers, but his teacher called me in and said something wasn't right; she was having trouble teaching my son, and we wanted to find out why. He was assessed as having a normal IQ, but we had an Individual Learning Plan, and we started to have a paediatrician keep an eye on him.

6 months later, the paediatrician decided he had ADHD, and we tried medication which made a huge difference... even converting his new teacher to the belief that some kids do need medication (she'd been in the other camp). Rather than singing, fidgeting, distracting all the other kids by patting them on the head, when medicated he'd do his work and be happy with his achievements!

After reading "Take charge of ADHD" by Russell Barkley, it was obvious my son had ADHD. And yep, diagnosed my hubby, too ;D

[jj]

With my niece we all noticed she could not sit still for anything and this was the moment she started to walk. My sister constantlly had to watch her as she'd disappear out the door the minute your head was turned. I knew nothing about ADHD then. It was only after my sister told me she was DX'd with ADHD that I started my search on the internet. I honestly don't know exactly when she was DX'd as my sister kept it to herself for sometime.

Also, I'd like to mention, this was also the time I realized my sister had to be ADHD as well.

Nothing else, to my knowledge, was considered as possible causes prior to the DX. At my suggestion, my sis tried omega's but my sister didn't follow through. My niece was on and off different meds, mostly off, but is now on anti-depressants. And she turns 17 next month. I can't believe it! I think when I first started doing my internet search she was 9.

And a matter of fact, my niece and sis are visiting me at this very moment and currently are tucked away in bed. She is really maturing so the outward signs of ADHD are almost completely gone. But she still struggles with schooling and although on her best behavior here, is a real trial for my sis.

[jill]

My girl was always very active used to call her octobaby for her hands tried to touch everything. At someones house I would be embarrassed and not be able to talk much too busy following the child saying no a dozen times. I did notice she had trouble sleeping too was a night owl as a baby. It was daycare that suggested screening which I did and of course she fell between the cracks and I kept on researching possiblities. In Kindergarden is when I was approached by the school for screening for ADHD then I had my own screening done. I can still remember the school psychologist telling me "it looks like it may be ADHD" thus why I took things into my own hands. My psychologist screened for more than the ADHD

[katiekat]

My situation is a little different beings Sean is my step-son and I did not meet him until he was 4. Having worked in special ed. for years I noticed right away that there were issues. I learned from my husband that early intervention had been involved at the request of his day care center from age 18 months-3 yrs. Reading over their reports now I see they worked on a lot of sensory stuff with him but he was never given any diagnosis. He was very aggressive and pretty much non-compliant with anything they asked of him at day care. My husband told me he was an extremely difficult baby who never slept until about 3 yrs old. He had been "kicked out" of multiple day care centers for violence against other kids. The violence was a HUGE red flag for me although there were many other concerns I had that were not typical of a child his age. He never slept, cried uncontrollably for hours and had frequent nightmares. I first began looking for a DX when I picked him up from day care for the first time ever and was accosted by the director who let me know how out of control his behavior was and how far behind the other kids his age he was. My husband had no clue as to what was going on with him as a single father and really no contact with other kids. The 1st psych we saw diagnosed him with ADHD and Bipolar because of the strong medical history(bio mom and grandmother). My biggest fight was with school to get him the help he needed and we ended up having to pay to have him privately evaluated. It was then discovered that he had several LDs. He is currently on medication for the BP and it has helped a bit but we still have many issues with behavior that we deal with on a regualr basis.

[jill]

Nette never slept through the night until she was 3. It was also more difficult potty training her for she knew the deal but did it when she wanted to age 3 1/2, walking 14 months.