What is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD or ADD,
and does my child have it?

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) are really two very different diagnoses first of all. One describes both an inability to maintain attention and an inability to sit still -- ADHD. Hyperactivity roughly describes a child that fidgets, but fidgets much more than other children and unusually without any apparent reason for his behavior. ADD on the other hand, is a disorder where a child is unable to maintain his attention. He will often be distracted easily, and again is much more easily distracted than other children his same age. You may notice I keep referring to male children, and this is because the occurrence of these disorders is much higher in male children. It is very rare that girls are diagnosed with ADHD or ADD.

Now, determining whether or not your child has either of these disorders is a tricky business. Often lay persons will say "Oh he has ADHD" when they observe a boy who is disruptive. But, the fact of the matter is that there is a variety of explanations for disruptive behavior -- one of which is ADHD or ADD. Other causes may be difficulties at home, where the parents may be fighting and the child does not know what to do with his feelings about this. He then may act them out elsewhere such as at school or at child care. Another reason the child may be disruptive is that a learning disability is emerging, where the child is "acting out", being disruptive, because he is having a very difficult time doing the work at school. Third, the boy may be depressed as often boys tend to act out their depression by becoming aggressive or are unable to sit still. Last, at least for the purposes here, the child may be dealing with some form of abuse, and therefore this boy is like the child who becomes disruptive at school because of troubles at home -- he simply does not know how to contain the feelings he is having.

As there are at least four possibilities why young boys become disruptive, we advise parents to seek out professional help in making the determination of ADHD or ADD since these are truly rare diagnoses and making such a diagnosis is often difficult.