Misdiagnosis Of Attention Deficit Disorder - Add Essays

Misdiagnosis Of Attention Deficit Disorder - Add What exactly is ADD? This is a question that has remained unanswered for a very long time. ADD, also known as attention deficit disorder, has to do with the brain. This disorder was at one time thought to be related to brain damage. Nowadays however, it is actually quite common. It is reported that about 40 percent of the student body of an average school is ADD. Scientists think that this is at least one student per classroom in a school. ADD has really been recognized over the past twenty years. This is when most of the research about it has been done. When someone has been diagnosed as having ADD it does not mean that they are lazy, stupid, or crazy. It only means that they have a difficult time trying to pay attention to a subject in which they have little or no interest. This is why ADD is usually first noticed in school. Before much research was done, ADD was not even called ADD. It had a different name. It was called Hyperknetics. This was really just a fancy term for saying that a child is easily distracted, and also very hyper. This was back in the days when doctors also thought that Hyperknesis was caused by some sort of brain damage. This was potentially true however; there were a few rare cases in which some brain damage actually occurred in a child. The brain damage only happened naturally, like when the child was being developed. ADD is something that an individual person is born with, and not something that is developed over time. Many Doctors and specialists have discovered over time that there is more than type of ADD. Doctors now recognize three distinct types of ADD, normal ADD, ADHD, and residual ADD. The second, ADHD is normal ADD coupled with a hyperactive tendency. The third type, residual ADD is the type of ADD that most commonly affects older children and adults. Hyperactivity is not usually associated with residual ADD. When it comes to ADD most people will associate it with the child being hyper or out of control. This can be the case some of the time, but hyperactivity isn't always the problem. There are actually quite a few kids who have an attention problem, but can appear perfectly normal and calm on the outside. Next, we will go into some of the symptoms of ADD. These symptoms are as follows, 1. inattentiveness or distractibility, 2. Impulsivity, 3. difficulty delaying gratification, 4. hyperactivity, 5. arousal, 6. noncompliance, 7. social problems, and 8. disorganization. These are the main symptoms that doctors and specialists have used to characterize and diagnose ADD. Now we have to break it down. Most of the kids who have ADD without an element of hyperactivity, will probably only display symptoms one, six, and eight. In the book All About the Attention Deficit Disorder gives a great breakdown of all of the different characteristics of ADD and determines into which category they fall. The most important, or core symptom as they call it, is number one. This is inattention or distractibility. This is the first sign that is looked for when someone is going to be diagnosed with ADD. Next are symptoms two through five, these are the symptoms that define the personality of a person with ADD. Items six through eight were saved to be the symptoms that follow the others due to them actually being the results of the others. These are the main symptoms that doctors diagnose people with. There will however, be others along the way. According to the book All About the Attention deficit disorder, An ADD child has an attention span for which his or her age is too short. Unless the task is very interesting to them, the child will always say that it is boring. This is the reason ADD mostly takes place in schools. Many doctors, and the previously mentioned book have said that nine times out of ten if you ask an ADD child what he or she mostly dislikes about school the answer will be the work. Now don't get the wrong idea, most kids will say the reason why they dislike school is