October 21, 2011: East Brunswick NJ
The Department of Children and Families and the New Jersey Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect had a statewide child maltreatment prevention conference today and I had great fun doing today’s presentation:
“Differential Diagnosis of Inattention, Hyperactivity and Impulsivity in At-Risk Children” with our clinical team, Alla Gordina, MD, FAAP and Lydia Shifrin, LCSW.
We had a terrific crowd, who asked great questions and gave excellent feedback.
Presentation Highlights:
Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is one of the most common and the most controversial neurobehavioral disorders in children diagnosed today
Core symptoms of ADHD include Inattention, Impulsivity and Hyperactivity
Some ADHD statistics:
- Approximately 9.5% or 5.4 million children 4-17 years of age have ever been diagnosed with ADHD, as of 2007.
- The percentage of children with a parent-reported ADHD diagnosis increased by 22% between 2003 and 2007.
- Rates of ADHD diagnosis increased an average of 3% per year from 1997 to 2006 and an average of 5.5% per year from 2003 to 2007.
- Boys (13.2%) were more likely than girls (5.6%) to have ever been diagnosed with ADHD.
- The highest rates of parent-reported ADHD diagnosis were noted among children covered by Medicaid and multiracial children.
However, numerous medical, psychiatric, neurological, psychological, speech-language and other disorders are frequently misdiagnosed as ADHD
NEARLY 1 MILLION CHILDREN ARE MISDIAGNOSED WITH ADHD
“Since ADHD is an underlying neurological problem where incidence rates should not change dramatically from one birth date to the next, these results suggest that age relative to peers in class, and the resulting differences in behavior, directly affects a child’s probability of being diagnosed with and treated for ADHD.” (Elder, 2010). Journal of Health Economics
Disorders frequently misdiagnosed as AD/HD :
- Respiratory Disorders (e.g., adenoid hypertrophy, asthma, allergic rhinitis)
- Metabolic /Endocrine Disorders (e.g., diabetes, hypo/hyperthyroidism)
- Hematological Disorders (e.g., anemia)
- Immunological Disorders (acquired and congenital immune problems)
- Cardiac Disorders (e.g., congenital and acquired heart disease, syncopy)
- Digestive Disorders (e.g., irritable bowel syndrome, GERD, etc)
- Neurological Disorders (e.g., Traumatic Brain Injuries, Tumors, Encephalopathy, etc)
- Sleep Disorders
- Genetic Disorders (e.g., FASD, Fragile X Syndrome)
- Toxin Exposure (e.g., Lead, Mercury, Drug Exposure)
- Infections and Infestations (e.g., yeast overgrowth , intestinal worms/parasites)
- Mental Health Disorders (e.g., anxiety, mood disorders, adjustment disorders)
- Mental Retardation
- Sensory Processing Disorders (vision, hearing, auditory, tactile)
- Language Processing Disorders
- Auditory processing Disorders
My presentation focused on explaining that having select language based difficulties can cause the child to act as inattentive, hyperactive and impulsive without actually having ADHD
My examples included:
- Traumatic Brain Injury
- Severe Language Delay
- Auditory Processing Disorders
- Social Pragmatic Language Deficits
Relevance and Implications for Adoption Professionals:
- Multidisciplinary approach to identification, differential diagnosis, and management of disorders with “AD/HD” symptoms is NEEDED
- One individual assessment (e.g., psychological) CANNOT reliably determine accurate diagnosis, especially when the diagnostic criteria is based on generalized symptomology
- Refer adopted children with behavioral, listening, sensory, and any unusual deficits for multidisciplinary assessments which include in depth assessment of language abilities before making a conclusive diagnosis
- Children who receive one assessment ONLY are at risk of misdiagnosis, misidentification, and are delayed in getting appropriate intervention services