We will not be seeing our pediatrician for this. She is a wonderful doctor but does not specialize in ADHD. We are planning to see a Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrician who does a comprehensive developmental assessment. They will look at motor development, learning and behavior styles, handwriting, physical development, neurological development, and language development. The idea is to assess the whole child and not look for one diagnosis. They attempt to rule out other possible causes of the ADHD symptoms, but at the same time diagnose ADHD (or other learning or developmental difficulties) if warranted.
I was just curious if anyone else used a different practioner than this for an assessment. Artana recommends a psychiatrist. I'm just not sure which one makes more sense. I feel certain we are dealing with ADHD. I'm quite familiar with it, and DS fits the bill. The thing that's really been throwing us off is that we didn't want to confuse typical gifted behavior with ADHD since ds has not been in a challenging enough educational environment...until now-and we're still seeing the same behaviors. Now that it's affecting his ability to complete assignments and progress at school, we have to do something.
That's exactly what I want for my DS and will be requesting a referral to one today at his apt. I don't want a simple yes it's adhd diagnosis I want to rule out other things that could be mistaken as adhd (like being underchallenged, etc). We've noted that school days are when he is worse at home so I really think being underchallenged at school may play a big part in this behavior as well.
Our ped is great but I want an overall that I know isn't something they do in the ped office.
