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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › What ADHD actually is
Referral usually follows disruption rather than difficulty, so anything that keeps a child quiet also keeps her unassessed. The point it finally shows is often the year when the grades stop matching what everyone can see she is capable of. If you are looking at a girl who is drifting, tired, disorganised and apologetic rather than disruptive, ask the question anyway.
We know what his soul whispers to him: We are closer to him than his jugular vein (Quran 50:16). What nobody in the classroom could see was never hidden from God.
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وَلَقَدۡ خَلَقۡنَا ٱلۡإِنسَٰنَ وَنَعۡلَمُ مَا تُوَسۡوِسُ بِهِۦ نَفۡسُهُۥۖ وَنَحۡنُ أَقۡرَبُ إِلَيۡهِ مِنۡ حَبۡلِ ٱلۡوَرِيدِ
We created man––We know what his soul whispers to him: We are closer to him than his jugular vein––
Qur’an 50:16read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A review of gender differences reports that girls diagnosed with ADHD are more often of the predominantly inattentive presentation than boys, which helps explain why the quieter ones go unnoticed. A later research review sets out how far females have been understudied and which forces have limited awareness in girls and women. Both describe the state of the literature rather than measuring what happens in one school.
Rucklidge JJ. (2010). Gender differences in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.. The Psychiatric clinics of North America doi
Hinshaw SP, Nguyen PT, O'Grady SM, Rosenthal EA. (2022). Annual Research Review: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in girls and women: underrepresentation, longitudinal processes, and key directions.. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Adults refer the children who interrupt them, not the ones who are struggling quietly.
Eating and body image are part of this for more people than you would think. Forgetting meals all day and then eating without stopping in the evening is a very ordinary ADHD pattern rather than a separate failing.
Before you decide who in front of you looks like ADHD, notice the picture you are already carrying. The loud boy gets sent for assessment and the quiet, drifting girl often does not.
Making a child repeat a year rarely fixes what went wrong. The same lessons without different support tend to produce the same result, plus the sting of being the oldest in the room.