This is perhaps the #1 question about Adult ADHD. To answer it, in part: I offer this adapted excerpt from my book, Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.?.
This post includes the current DSM criteria for ADHD as well as the criteria proposed by Dr. Russell Barkley and colleagues for the upcoming DSM revision (you know it’s “not just for kids” when one diagnostic point involves driving!).
Please use the handy links above and below (see the “share” tool) to spread the word about how an evaluation for ADHD should be performed.
The Adult ADHD Diagnose-o-Meter
There is no single test to evaluate for ADHD. No computer test. No fill-in- the-blank test. No blood test or genetic test. These practical facts are commonly wielded by the anti-psychiatry fringe element as proof that ADHD does not exist. A-hem, just for the record, neither can you measure headaches, backaches, or many other maladies with a quiz, a blood test, or a genetic test.
More importantly, “You also cannot measure a person’s pain or suffering in life by clinical tests,” notes psychologist Thomas E. Brown, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and associate director of the Yale Clinic for Attention and Related Disorders.
It’s important to remember that ADHD symptoms essentially represent an extreme on a normal continuum of behavior that varies in the population, much like IQ, weight, or height. That’s why its diagnosis is not a cut-and-dried matter. To ascertain if a person is “over the line” on this continuum, the evaluating professional must gauge the severity of the symptoms and impairment. Read the rest of this entry »
. It did change my life, my husband’s life, and our marriage. And it set me on a path to help others change their lives by creating more awareness of Adult ADHD.
, was published, one of my top priorities was making the book available in public libraries. (I don’t know about your library system, but ours seems to go out of its way to stock books by the ADHD dissenters and deniers.) I’m grateful that fans of the book share this goal, as explained in this recent note from Jack in Canada, and hope you will join us:
no. In fact, a recently discovered medical text from 1798 describes, in some detail, disorders of attention, including the observation that some are likely hereditary.
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