These days it has been a hot topic about the misdiagnosis of ADHD. Especially parents are worried about the incoming problems about their child being misdiagnosed with ADHD. A rough estimate says that in every elementary classroom there are 1 to 3 students with ADHD. Teachers and parents face these problems everyday at home and on the playground. But is this estimate wright? Or is the estimate too high and a reason for misdiagnosis of ADHD?
There has risen a trend in our society that every child that is having troubles with concentrating, paying attention or is causing troubles probably has ADHD. Only a few decades ago we did not even heard of this disorder and now almost 3% of every child beneath 17 is diagnosed with it. There are a few reasons why this diagnosis is so easily given. First. there is indeed an increase in this disorder. Next to that there is a very good treatment for it that works. And third, we are not capable enough to rise our children in this rapidly changing environment.
Although it is well treatable, this should not be a good reason to give so many young children medication. With every drug there are risks involved so we should avoid this whenever possible. One possible solution in this is better education and diagnosing by the professionals. There are many related disorders to ADHD that are mostly diagnosed as ADHD. It is very hard to see the difference if you are not working with these children everyday.
There are some disorder very closely related to ADHD but are not the same.
Depression in Childhood: Unable to concentrate, problems remembering things and attention problems are also seen in depression. Depression in childhood is often misdiagnosed.
Autism: There are some forms of autism that are related to ADHD. Asperger for instance sometimes looks a like. However, where someone with ADHD is distracted by exterior stimuli, a person with Asperger is distracted by interior stimuli.
Dyslexia: A person with dyslexia has problems with reading and writing which could be diagnosed as attention problems. They often get frustrated because they are not able to do their homework and they don’t know why.
Syndrome of Tourette: These two disorders are closely related to each other and have a few symptoms that are the same. They are also closely related to each other.
Auditory Processing Disorder: These children have problems with understanding what is said. because of this they will not listen to what you are saying and this could look like ADHD although it is not.
There are only a few related disorders that could easily cause a misdiagnosis of ADHD. Because there are so many related disorders, it is very important to do more research to the matter and let professionals do the diagnosis.
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