diagnoses

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While the study below was pub­lished a few years ago, it makes an impor­tant point that I think is worth revisiting.

In the study, pub­lished in the Jour­nal of Devel­op­men­tal and Behav­ioral Pedi­atrics, my col­leagues and I looked at how fre­quent­ly teacher rat­ings of inat­ten­tive symp­toms per­sist in chil­dren from one grade to the next. We felt this was an impor­tant issue to exam­ine because recog­ni­tion that ADHD is often a chron­ic con­di­tion can obscure the fact that atten­tion prob­lems do not always reflect an endur­ing child char­ac­ter­is­tic, and that impor­tant changes are pos­si­ble when chil­dren move to a new classroom.

As you will see below, clin­i­cal­ly-ele­vat­ed atten­tion prob­lems as per­ceived by teach­ers are less sta­ble than you may have imag­ined. [Read more…] about Study shows why chil­dren with ADHD should be reeval­u­at­ed each year: Atten­tion prob­lems per­ceived by teach­ers are far less sta­ble than we imagine