Psychoeducational Assessments Edmonton | What Are ADHD Assessments?
Hi there. My name’s Dr. Kelly Clark, and I was wanting to talk about ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Years ago, ADHD was called Attention Deficit Disorder and there was a hyperactive side as well to it, but nowadays it’s just all under one category of ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But there’s three subtypes I know, and I’m gonna get into details about what ADHD is, what are some of the characteristics of it, because it’s, it is quite a well talked about issue these days.
A lot of people are wondering if they have ADHD. It’s prominent on TikTok, so I thought I would discuss that a little bit. So, what is ADHD? ADHD is neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by excessive inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. And pervasive meaning that it should be in multiple contexts. You should not just exer experience that just at work, but you should see in your personal life in other contexts that you might be noticing a performance difference.
And it should also seem to have an inappropriate or an age inappropriate discourse. In other words, as as a child is developing ADHD or is clearly presenting with ADHD, they should be functioning at a different level than most kids around them. So when I say a neurodevelopmental disorder, I mean exactly that, that it is a developmental condition. So it is a, is condition related to the brain. And a lot of the hypotheses out there is that there’s an underproduction of brain chemical, typically dopamine responsible for paying attention.
So for people who struggle with, with ADHD, they have difficulties with paying attention. They can be impulsive and they can be hyperactive. So one of the things that, that is also confusing is that it impairs functioning. And so for most people with ADHD, they’re struggling in context, like early school. So often parents will wonder, well, my, my child is having a difficulty in school.
Keep a close eye on your kid’s behaviour
Also, we notice some things at home. So I’m gonna talk a little bit about what, what some of the behaviors are. But again, the parents should notice it at home. The the school should notice it at school. And as kids get older and turn into adolescence, it has a, it has a, a functional expression, a little bit different, but still the basic criteria are similar right into right into adulthood, even though, again, there is, there’s more hyperactive features when they’re young.
And, and the inattention tends to be more of the issue as, as people get older. Another thing is that about 20% of people diagnosed with ADHD before the age of 12 seem to or can grow out of it. So there’s a large population that still retain the ADHD. So more about ADHD. What does it look like?
I’m gonna give a little bit of resources at the end. I’ll, I’ll talk about potential checklists. You know, if you’re somebody listening to this and you wanted to see if you have ADHD, I can talk about some of the resources available in addition to seeing somebody like myself or your physician or a psychiatrist. So what are the characteristics of ADHD on the inattention side you should present with before the age of 16, six or more of the inattentive subtypes before consideration is, is given to the inattentive side of ADHD.
So things like having difficulties, paying attention getting easily distracted, forgetfulness. So often oftentimes parents with kids with ADHD are thinking that you know, or, or even listening to instructions, they’ll wonder if they’ve got a hearing issue because they’ll tell them something and then they’ll forget it.
So it is both a listening issue. They’ll think that, Hey, I just told you this, and they’ll go downstairs and, you know, maybe to pick up clothes and, and get a toy that they asked them, but they’ll forget the second one. So they struggle with listening to instruction spoken, and they’ll make careless mistakes in them. They’ll also be very forgetful. Where did, where did I you know, put my pen? Or where did I put my homework? I can’t find this or that mom or dad.
And the same kind of behaviors are, are illustrated and observed into adolescence and adulthood as well. So this tend tendency to be forgetful. Losing keys, misplacing things a lot. Those are some of the characters of being inattentive. Other features are having difficulty sustaining focus in attention on taska require mental effort.
Can’t keep attention in school
So there’s a clear one in school. So kids that can only focus, you know, and they’re, say they’re seven years old, and the student next to him or her at seven years old can focus for, say, a good five minutes. But your child, or the child that is presenting with inattention can only focus momentarily, maybe a, you know, even a minute or seconds at a time, depending on the severity. And they’re off task, and they can’t focus and sustain attention. So the ability to sustain attention, avoiding tasks that require sustained mental effort.
So activities that require a lot of mental effort, you’ll notice that, you know, as an adult or an adolescent or as a kid, they’ll avoid it, they’ll procrastinate. So procrastination is a common theme with people with ADHD, and they have a difficulty sustaining and also maintaining effort on things that require a lot of mental effort.
Procasination can be a sign
So they’ll avoid them leaving oftentimes things like homework to the last minute. So we’ll see that kind of presentation as well. Difficulties with organization, again, related to inattention. So the ability to be able to focus and organize things in a, in a brain that’s struggling with paying attention. Well, you can imagine organization requires the ability to focus on several pieces at the, at the same time, or, or at least pay attention to ’em in a situation. So kids and adults that struggle with, with organization often is because they’re distracted.
They’re, they’re thinking about, oh, yeah, I’ve gotta go and clean up my room. But then another thought pops into their mind, so they get distracted and they can’t keep focused on the idea. And that contributes to disorganization. So often you’ll see the room’s a mess or, or things cluttered, or their life just seems to be, you know, chaotic.
These kinds of activities are characteristic of, of kids and adults and adolescents with ADHD. Those are the inten also having difficulties interpreting instructions or they’ll missteps altogether if they’re spoken to, to the person or another one, as I said earlier, listening to people so that the people that are kind of like zoning out. What’d you say? You know, often oftentimes people who are married will complain about that with their partner. I’m not talking about that while they’re watching tv.
I am talking about listening to people as a tendency, as a characteristic that they, again and again, show that they struggle with listening to people, and they zone out, oh, what’d you say? And they’re missing details. They’ll need things repeated to them constantly. And so there’s a lot of kind of corollary behaviors that I can talk about with ADHD as well.
Different behaviours
But these are what we call the behaviors in the Diagno Diagnostic Statistical Manual fifth Edition that psychologists, psychiatrists and medical experts use to make diagnoses of inattention, ADHD. So the next characteristic of ADHD is the impulsive side of it. And so with impulsivity, we’re seeing people that cut people off while they’re speaking. So all of us have probably run into the, to the individual that while you’re speaking, they cut you off, they interrupt you, and it’s a bit annoying, right?
So often, you know, kids and adults that have ADHD, they don’t mean to be, but they can frustrate those around them because they are impulsively cutting them off or interrupting. Another behavior that happens is patience. They don’t have patience to wait their turn, waiting in lines, drive them, drives them nuts, waiting in a long car line in, in your vehicle, getting really impatient, because again, that impulsive, it’s hard for them to to keep that, that emotional regulation when, when it’s demanded.
The other thing is blurting out answers before questions have been completed. So the individual you might ask, Hey, what’d you do this weekend? Before you get weekend out? They go, oh, I went to the store. You know, so again, kind of blurting out answers, not letting you finish your, your sentence. Those are some of the impulsive characteristics of the hyperactive side. Now, again, with the hyperactive and impulsive side, I’m gonna talk about the three types of, of ADHD.
Even adults can still suffer from ADHD
But the hyperactive and impulsive, we should have six or more of those behaviors up to age 16 after 17, you five or more. And that, that characterizes that. There’s clearly an issue going on. So the hyperactive features are, you know, restlessness, you know, this, this kind of this excessive energy in their body. This, this boundlessness this, this you know, you’re feeling this, this energized energy in your, in your body.
Another characteristic of the hyperactive side is, is fidgetiness or you can’t sit still. So, you know, if I had the hyperactive side, I’d be moving in my chair, I’d be bouncing my leg, I’d be tapping my pen, I’d be playing with things. And, you know, those fidget toys that they give to kids will often, they’ll do that to help their, their hyper hyperactive features kind of attenuate a bit, cuz they can focus on that.
Some side effects of ADHD
So the hyperactive side is, is fidgety can’t sit still has a tendency to get up and move around when remaining is seated. So just, you know, we’ll, we’ll walk outta the chair. If you’re a, a child and you have hyperactive features, just cannot sit still. And they, they get up and walk around without the teacher’s permission. As an adult, you might notice it can’t sit through a movie.
It’s really, you feel that, that energy and you’ve gotta fidget and move around. So those are a lot of the features of the, of the hyperactive side. Also talking too much. So we’ve all run into people that talk too much, and we’re looking at our watches as, as they’re going on, and they’re, some of them are not aware that they’re actually creating an inconvenience or it’s uncomfortable for you. People with ADHD and the hyperactive features, they’re just not aware.
They just talk a lot and they, they don’t pick up on the signals often that it’s, it’s creating some discomfort for the person they’re talking to. So, excessive talking restlessness these kind of features and, and difficulties remaining seated, getting up and moving around. Those are some of the hyperactive features of, of the ADHD. Now, when we’re talking about ADHD, someone might say, well, I don’t have any of those hyperactive or impulsive features.
Three subtypes of ADHD
So there’s three subtypes. One is the ADHD, and we would go ADHD, inattentive type if they meet criteria just for lacking focus, can’t pay attention, can’t sustain attention, as I talked about in the beginning. So those people would have ADHD, inattentive type of the type that just go, well, you know, actually I can focus really good in school, but my leg is always bouncing. I feel like getting up and moving around, and it’s hard for me. I’m very restless and I’m always on the go.
That’s a, that’s another criteria often on the go for hyperactive. Always gotta be doing something. So with those individuals that lots of energy, always doing something, cutting people off while they’re speaking. They can have ADHD, hyperactive type or presentation. And then there’s the combined type, which is both inattentive and hyperactive and impulsive features. So you can have ADHD, combined presentation, inattentive presentation, and the hyperactive presentation now to talk about how it’s diagnosed.
The ADHD Assessment is not invasive
Typically, people like myself, like psychologists, physicians, psychiatrists will be the people that will do interviews and they will make a diagnosis of ADHD as present. Now, there’s no blood test for it. It’s all based on behavior. And so the, a detailed history, most people with ADHD should have had it before should have had symptoms before the age of 12.
And so, you know, a, a long history of, of how they functioned the individual as they’re growing up functioned into adolescence and into adulthood or if they’re a child you know, a history of, of how they’re behaving in the classroom should be also checked out. And compared. So there’s no blood test. We take a history and we look at multiple behaviors as, as they gave you the checklist. In addition, there are psychometric evaluations or measures that I would use as well.
Physicians use checklists and these things, usually it’s in multiple settings. So at school, if it’s a child a school-aged child, so it would be in school or else you know, if it was at work, you’d get maybe an employer to fill that out if the person’s comfortable, or you’d get a wife or a husband or a romantic partner to fill out the inventory as well as self-report. So we have multiple pieces of information looking at different contexts the person’s functioning in to make a determination if there’s ADHD.
So that’s a quick synopsis of how somebody like myself diagnoses, ADHD, as I said, you could you could go online if you’re curious about that, and without me going into detail about that, I will say that you can take a look at drkellyclarke.com and contact me there and I can talk about free inventories that you could take a look at if you’re curious and or, you know further assessment with myself.
If you would like to have a determination if you present with ADHD. In addition, a quick comment on on how to treat a hd. The standard, the gold standard still to this day is medication. Because again, the idea is that there is an underproduction of the neurochemical helping us to, to pay attention. So often medications in the form of psycho stimulants, but there’s lots of different brands or kinds of medication best to talk to your physician about that.
In addition, there are compensatory strategies. So even if you, you’re somebody who’s not into medication ADHD individuals start to learn to be able to cope and compensate for their challenges with ADHD. And those are strategies that, again, someone like myself can help to to teach and inform you know, as well as the ones that the person has already learned in their lifetime. And there’s other treatment that is, you know, less proven in the research like biofeedback which has, has shown some, some benefit to individuals.
Be sure to contact for any question or assessments
But that’s a quick synopsis on ADHD, how to diagnose, and some of the treatments that are out there. For more information, visit drkellyclarke.com. Thank you.