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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Getting assessed and diagnosed
A simple grid helps: names down the side, then relation, what they were like, what was ever diagnosed, what was ever treated. The picture comes out weighted rather than vague, and the next clinician who opens your notes can see what you saw. Go back a further generation whenever the family still holds the stories, because they usually do.
'God will raise up, by many degrees, those of you who believe and those who have been given knowledge' (Quran 58:11). Careful knowledge is honoured here, and careful is most of what this part of the work asks for.
المجادلة
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓاْ إِذَا قِيلَ لَكُمۡ تَفَسَّحُواْ فِي ٱلۡمَجَٰلِسِ فَٱفۡسَحُواْ يَفۡسَحِ ٱللَّهُ لَكُمۡۖ وَإِذَا قِيلَ ٱنشُزُواْ فَٱنشُزُواْ يَرۡفَعِ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ مِنكُمۡ وَٱلَّذِينَ أُوتُواْ ٱلۡعِلۡمَ دَرَجَٰتࣲۚ وَٱللَّهُ بِمَا تَعۡمَلُونَ خَبِيرࣱ
You who believe, if you are told to make room for one another in your assemblies, then do so, and God will make room for you, and if you are told to rise up, do so: God will raise up, by many degrees, those of you who believe and those who have been given knowledge: He is fully aware of what you do
Qur’an 58:11read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Expect the pattern to look different in the women of the family. A review of gender differences in ADHD concluded that males and females with the condition are more alike than different, but that girls are more often diagnosed with the inattentive presentation, which is quieter and easier to miss than visible hyperactivity. So an aunt remembered as dreamy and disorganised may belong in the same grid as a brother who was thrown out of class.
Rucklidge JJ. (2010). Gender differences in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.. The Psychiatric clinics of North America doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
How closely someone is related is part of the information, so notes that leave it out throw half the picture away.
Before intensive work ends, turn what you have learned about a child's thinking into things a teacher can actually do on a Tuesday morning. That translation is what decides whether any of the gains survive going back to school.
If someone was adopted, or simply does not know their family history, say early and plainly that this is not a problem. It helps to have and it is not needed.
Attention and impulse problems that appear for the first time in middle age or later are not ADHD arriving late. They need a doctor to look, not a prescription.