What does it take to get a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder? Researchers are finding new ways to make a diagnosis.

It does not take much from what I can see. Anything is linked to an illness now and of course the first thing they say is that you need pills for it. As an adult you can choose to believe a false diagnosis and take medication eventhough you don't need it but to do that to a child is totally evil!

Nancy, thank you for your thoughtful comments. You seem to have strong feelings about this subject.

You are right, sometimes people just jump to a diagnosis without really doing the work that should go into getting a valid diagnosis. Actually Nancy, since there is no one test for ADD at this moment in time, it takes a bit of work (about 6 months worth of testing and visits to the psychologist) to get a diagnosis. ADD isn't really an illness, it is a brain difference. There has been some research showing that the person with ADD has a different brain chemistry, and the brain is actually constructed differently. Currently, there are not usable tests for this.

ADD can look like other problems that people have, so it is important to see a competent medical professional who knows a lot about ADD to get a valid diagnosis. Otherwise, you could get a false diagnosis.

For people who actually have a valid diagnosis, the best treatment is multi-modal. That means medication, therapy, and lifestyle changes all work together to improve the negative symptoms of ADD.

Here is a link to an article about medication:

Medication Myths and ADD

I know that this is a real disease and that people who are affected by it has to take medication. It's just that this disease and almost every diseases are overdiagnosed just to put people on medication. They are also inventing diseases just to get more people to take medication. Being lazy is a disease apparently (learned that when i was on Care2...left on July 21 2012 so that was before that). Just like when you read about people saying that they cry a lot (example Dear Abby on Yahoo) there's going to be lots of people who would say go see a doctor and asks for an antidepressant so it's not just doctors, people have accepted that you need to take a medication for everything.

I have had many doctors and nurses trying to convince me to take antidepressants lately. I say if you are functional (which i am) you don't need any of these pills to live.

If I had a child and a doctor would tell me that he or she has ADD or something else like that I would go see at least another doctor to be sure.

Hi Connie, I am sure you have your 24/7 antennae out and would soon be professionally, accurately and politically correctly commenting upon Nancy's unintentional misdiagnosis, er I mean misusage of the inflammatory term DISEASE in relationship to ADD/ADHD. As you previously stated it is not an illness; when properly diagnosed it is NAD (NOT A DISEASE) but rather is a mental/neurobehavioral disorder as it is linked to differences in brain chemistry compared to the 'normal' population. What do you think about the forthcoming DSM-V's making it easier to assign a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD (like symptomatically occurring before the age of 12 and not 7)and what are the potential ramifications?

Misdiagnosis? I am not a doctor! And why is the word disease inflammatory?

Disease, illness, whatever! I said that I know it is real so what does it matter how I call it? I hope you get like that when you hear about innocent kids wrongly diagnosed with ADD then being fed medication wrongly by their parents.

Nancy and Edward, when our oldest son was a child, we resisted having him take medication for the reasons that many parents resist this. We were worried about side effects, the possibility of our son becoming part of a drug culture, stigma associated with taking drugs at school...the list goes on. When he was in the fifth grade, we saw the effects that not taking drugs to help him focus were having on his class work and social skills. After more than six months of working with various medical professionals, he did have a diagnosis and got the help he needed. It made a huge difference in his life.

Some children are not helped by drugs; others are better when they get the proper dose of the drug that works for them. I agree that drugs should not be given willy-nilly to kids. However, as a professional educator working with kids over many years, I have known far more children who had serious symptoms of ADD, AND a diagnosis, who had to get by with no medications. This was because their parents and/or doctors did not believe in medication. I have known very few kids who did not have ADD and were given medication.

Edward. to address your question-
I think that raising the age to give a diagnosis is a good thing. Some kids have real, but subtle symptoms. The brighter children will be often find ways to cope in the lower grades. However, they find out in high school, especially if they are taking a demanding course load that necessitates the use of executive function, that all of their strategies won't work without balanced brain chemistry.

I imagine there will be hundreds, if not thousands of magazine and newspaper articles that tell the world how wrong-headed that this change will be. That's too bad.

Connie you both did the right thing for your son. You both made sure that this is what he had before giving him medication. Now it seems that parents are just happy to give something to their kids so they stop making noise, moving too much and asking questions. Many parents even go as far as mentioning ADD to doctors until one agrees to prescribe pills for these children, it's sickening.

Nancy, I am certain that what you say does happen. However, it does not happen a lot. The popular press enjoys controversy. They write many, many articles about this. When I said, "I have known very few kids who did not have ADD and were given medication," I really should have said that I have personally NEVER known a kid who did not have ADD who was given medicine for ADD.

Kids with ADD who are genuinely hyperactive do not just make noise, move too much and ask questions. Their level of hyperactivity far exceeds the high end of normal in these areas. Parents that I have known who were seeking medication for children were not doing so to make things more convenient for the parents, they were trying to find relief for their children.

Children who have serious negative symptoms of ADD cannot concentrate to learn in school. This puts them behind their peers educationally. They lack the skills to learn advanced materials. Plus, their peers get irritated when class is disrupted. Truly, the other children get bothered more than teachers. What parents are looking for is relief for their children.

Years ago I was in charge of Cub Scouts from our pack at summer camp. I was so concerned that I would forget to take a child with ADD to get his noon meds. Not to worry! When the medication wore off, this pleasant, active, chatty child, would go completely out of control. He was mortified about his behavior. He realized that he was behaving badly, even though we recognized that he was not trying to be out of control. When his noon medication kicked in, he was back to being a normal kid. I NEVER forgot his medication. It was too painful for him to be without medication. His behavior set him apart from his peers when he didn't have meds.

In some areas of the country, studies have shown that there may be over-diagnosis. This is not true of the area where I live. Here is a research-based article that addresses the question of diagnosis.

Is ADD Over or Under Diagnosed

I do not follow the media because I do not trust them so I never get my informations through them.

When I was talking about kids who make too much noise, move too much and ask many questions I was talking about the many parents who use these excuses to get their kids medication so they have peace and not have their kids in their way, I was not talking about the real symptoms of ADD.

Overmedication and overdiagnosis is a huge problem everywhere on Earth and it's not just with ADD. Everything now is either called an addiction or a disease or an illness or an handicap and of course there's either always a pill for that or it's coming.

If there is no problem of overdiagnosis and overmedication where you live you and the other people living there are very lucky.

I just wish that every parents would do like you and your husband or partner (dont know if youre married) did with your son, we need a permit for almost everything but not for having children and if there's something that should require a permit it should be to have children!