Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed disorders in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry. Although the child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may seem like a spoiled child with a willpower problem among his family and relatives, this is not the case. ADHD is essentially a chemical problem in the brain’s management systems.
Children with ADHD are often seen as unruly, restless assertive, incapable of adequate control of their words and bodies, and therefore needing more detention from teachers and parents compared to other children of the same age. Sentences such as ‘my child is 7 years old, but he acts like a 3-year-old’, ‘I am afraid to go out with him as a guest’, ‘it takes hours for us to do homework’, ‘the teacher says that he does not listen to the lesson, and that he is constantly disturbing his friends’ are the problems we hear frequently from the mother of a child with ADHD.
Studies on ADHD treatment generally include school age and adolescence drug treatments and behavioral methods. It is more appropriate to follow up with behavioral treatments until the school age period due to the diagnostic difficulties and the limited number of comprehensive studies on treatment approaches related to pre-school children.
ADHD diagnosis is a clinical diagnosis. Since there may be other diseases that can cause attention deficit (such as vitamin deficiency and anemia), there is no blood test or imaging method to diagnose ADHD, although blood tests are helpful. As a result of the clinician’s observation, the information received from the family and the teacher, the diagnosis is made and the necessary treatment is started.
