Children with ADHD find it hard to concentrate, are overly active and act without thinking. If your child has ADHD, it's important to get treatment. Otherwise, ADHD may affect how your child develops and create problems at home and at school.

But with the right treatment, your child's behavior can improve dramatically.

You may hear ADHD called different things. Doctors used to call it attention deficit disorder or ADD for short. Children could have ADD on its own or with hyperactivity (being overly active). In 1987, this term was replaced with ADHD. But some doctors still use the old name.

You may also hear ADHD called hyperkinetic disorder, or HKD for short. The term HKD is usually used when your child's symptoms are severe and your child has all three signs of ADHD: inattention, overactivity and impulsiveness. Doctors sometimes call this combined type ADHD.

If your child has ADHD, bear in mind that it's nobody's fault. Nothing you or your child has done has caused the condition.

You may feel as if your child is behaving badly on purpose. But being strict with a child who has ADHD is unlikely to make things better.

Many parents of children with ADHD offer this advice: "Don't try to cope with your child's problems on your own."

To understand what happens in ADHD, it's useful to know something about normal behavior. Our brain controls how we behave.

The front part of the brain is called the frontal lobe. It sits just behind the forehead and is the brain's control center. It collects information from other parts of the brain and helps decide how we react to this information.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Bradley JD, Golden CJ.
Biological contributions to the presentation and understanding of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a review.
Clinical Psychology Review. 2001; 21: 907-929.

 

 

 

 

 

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Source:
Mercugliano M.
What is attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder?
Pediatric Clinics of North America. 1999; 46: 831-843.

 

 

 

 

 

²

Doctors aren't sure exactly what goes wrong in ADHD. But they think that the behavior problems are linked to the way that the front part of the brain works.

A child with ADHD is unable to process information in the same way that other children are. This means that for a child with ADHD:

This is why the child finds it impossible to organize daily tasks and to see activities through to the finish.

For instance, a child without ADHD can sit happily in a room playing with a toy while the television is on, two adults talk and a car honks in the background. A child with ADHD will probably find this impossible. This child's brain is unable to deal with all the different sights and sounds, and decide which is important. The child gets confused and can't concentrate.

Unfortunately, there are no tests that show whether the front part of a child's brain is working normally. So doctors have to rely on what children, parents and teachers say in order to diagnose ADHD.

ADHD is nobody's fault. Nothing you or your child has done has caused it. Too much television, too much sugar or poor schools do not cause ADHD.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Hill P, Taylor E.
An auditable protocol for treating attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Archives of Disease in Childhood. 2001; 84: 404-409.

 

 

 

 

 

³

The truth is, nobody knows exactly what causes ADHD. It is probably caused by a combination of many different things.

Many parents wonder if ADHD could be linked to what their child eats. There is not enough good research to be sure whether changing your child's diet can improve the symptoms of ADHD. But there is some evidence that children with ADHD may not be eating enough essential fatty acids.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network.
Attention deficit and hyperkinetic disorders in children and young people.
Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network clinical guideline 52. 2001. Available at: http://www.sign.ac.uk (accessed 2 October 2008).

 

 

 

 

 

⁴ These are found in foods such as meat, fish and eggs. But studies have shown that changing what children eat does not improve their symptoms. There is also some evidence that, in a small number of children, ADHD may be linked to an allergy to food additives, such as artificial colors and preservatives.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Bradley JD, Golden CJ.
Biological contributions to the presentation and understanding of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a review.
Clinical Psychology Review. 2001; 21: 907-929.

 

 

 

 

 

¹ To learn more, see Vitamin and mineral supplements, and special diets.

Although researchers don't know what causes ADHD, they have found certain risk factors for the condition. Risk factors are things that may make it more likely that a child will have the condition. But, so far, there is no solid evidence that these things actually cause ADHD. We know only that they seem to happen more often in children who have the condition. To learn more, see Risk factors for ADHD.

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