How Do You Know If Your Child Has ADD? by Jason Rickard

This is one of the biggest problems doctors, parents and children with ADD face. How do you know your child has ADD in order to take action to prevent it? Not the easiest of questions to answer because as of now there still seems no consistent method of detecting ADD in children, however there are signs to look out for.

First and foremost, one of the most important signs to look out for is if a child gets easily distracted. Up to a certain extent we all get distracted from the tasks that we do but kids with ADD especially have a problem of caring for themselves and taking hold of responsibility for themselves. For example, if a child has school work to finish and if they don’t get pushed by their parents to complete the work, they won’t attend to it.

Another easy way of detecting problems with distraction that could mean a child has ADD is by observing if the child displays carelessness. Easy to spot signs of carelessness could be frequently forgetting items in school or during outings.

One method used in clinics by doctors is to test if the child can follow instructions properly. Usually children with ADD have a hard time following and keeping up with specific instructions and directions given by others.

Keep in mind that the above are not really symptoms of ADD, they are simply a few points to be aware of so if a child displays these on a frequent basis it could mean that they have ADD. There are exceptions however where kids may seem fine one day and display an array of the above behaviors other days. Doctors themselves can only guess whether a child has ADD or not through display of the above signs, then again a guess remains a guess and cannot be a hundred percent true.

Recent research done in the Brunel University in London has some researchers on a brink of unlocking a way to detect ADD in children through eye tests. This is done by having the child follow a spot of light on a computer screen for thirty seconds. The tests have been claimed to be 93% accurate in identifying kids with ADD and those who didn’t suffer from the disorder.

Health professionals are hoping that such a test will succeed in identifying ADD at an early stage in a child’s life in order to help prevent the disorder getting worse later on.