Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
If you are very familiar with all the symptoms of ADHD and are more interested in available treatments please scroll down to treatment heading.
The principal characteristics of ADHD are inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. These symptoms appear early in a child's life. Because many children may have these symptoms, but at a low level, or the symptoms may be caused by other issues, it is important that the child receive a thorough examination and appropriate diagnosis by a well-qualified professional, such as your family doctor of chiropractic, child's pediatrician, or a child psychologist.
Please note: Your family hypnotherapist does not ever diagnose any conditions, as labeling issues that client's have is not part of what we do.
Symptoms of ADHD will appear over the course of many months, often with the symptoms of impulsiveness and hyperactivity preceding those of inattention, which may not emerge for a year or more. Different symptoms may appear in different settings, depending on the demands the situation may pose for the child's self-control. A child who "can't sit still" or is otherwise disruptive will be noticeable in school, but the inattentive daydreamer may be overlooked. The impulsive child who acts before thinking may be considered just a "discipline problem," while the child who is passive or sluggish may be viewed as merely unmotivated. Yet both may have different types of ADHD. All children are sometimes restless, sometimes act without thinking, sometimes daydream the time away. When the child's hyperactivity, distractibility, poor concentration, or impulsivity begin to affect performance in school, social relationships with other children, or behavior at home, ADHD may be suspected. This is especially true when inattentiveness is the primary symptom.
People with ADHD may show several signs of being consistently inattentive. They may have a pattern of being hyperactive and impulsive far more than others of their age. Or they may show all three types of behavior. This means that there are three subtypes of ADHD recognized by professionals. These are the predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type (that does not show significant inattention); the predominantly inattentive type (that does not show significant hyperactive-impulsive behavior) sometimes called ADD and the combined type (that displays both inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms).
Hyperactivity-Impulsivity
Hyperactive children always seem to be "on the go" or constantly in motion. They dash around touching or playing with whatever is in sight, or talk incessantly. Sitting still at dinner or during a school lesson or story can be a difficult task. They squirm and fidget in their seats or roam around the room. Or they may wiggle their feet, touch everything, or noisily tap their pencil. Hyperactive teenagers or adults may feel internally restless. They often report needing to stay busy and may try to do several things at once.
Impulsive children seem unable to curb their immediate reactions or think before they act. They will often blurt out inappropriate comments, display their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for the later consequences of their conduct. Their impulsivity may make it hard for them to wait for things they want or to take their turn in games. They may grab a toy from another child or hit when they're upset. Even as teenagers or adults, they may impulsively choose to do things that have an immediate but small payoff rather than engage in activities that may take more effort yet provide much greater but delayed rewards.
Some signs of hyperactivity-impulsivity are:
- Feeling restless, often fidgeting with hands or feet, or squirming while seated
- Running, climbing, or leaving a seat in situations where sitting or quiet behavior is expected
- Blurting out answers before hearing the whole question
- Having difficulty waiting in line or taking turns.
Inattention
Children who are inattentive have a hard time keeping their minds on any one thing and may get bored with a task after only a few minutes. If they are doing something they really enjoy, they have no trouble paying attention. But focusing deliberate, conscious attention to organizing and completing a task or learning something new is difficult.
Homework is particularly hard for these children. They will forget to write down an assignment, or leave it at school. They will forget to bring a book home, or bring the wrong one. The homework, if finally finished, is full of errors and erasures. Homework is often accompanied by frustration for both parent and child.
The DSM-IV-TR gives these signs of inattention:
- Often becoming easily distracted by irrelevant sights and sounds
- Often failing to pay attention to details and making careless mistakes
- Rarely following instructions carefully and completely losing or forgetting things like toys, or pencils, books, and tools needed for a task
- Often skipping from one uncompleted activity to another.
Children diagnosed with the Predominantly Inattentive Type of ADHD are seldom impulsive or hyperactive, yet they have significant problems paying attention. They appear to be daydreaming, "spacey," easily confused, slow moving, and lethargic. They may have difficulty processing information as quickly and accurately as other children. When the teacher gives oral or even written instructions, this child has a hard time understanding what he or she is supposed to do and makes frequent mistakes. Yet the child may sit quietly, unobtrusively, and even appear to be working but not fully attending to or understanding the task and the instructions.
These children don't show significant problems with impulsivity and overactivity in the classroom, on the school ground, or at home. They may get along better with other children than the more impulsive and hyperactive types of ADHD, and they may not have the same sorts of social problems so common with the combined type of ADHD. So often their problems with inattention are overlooked. But they need help just as much as children with other types of ADHD, who cause more obvious problems in the classroom.
Is It Really ADHD?
Not everyone who is overly hyperactive, inattentive, or impulsive has the condition known as ADHD. Since most people sometimes blurt out things they didn't mean to say, or jump from one task to another, or become disorganized and forgetful, how can specialists tell if the problem is ADHD?
Because everyone shows some of these behaviors at times, the diagnosis requires that such behavior be demonstrated to a degree that is inappropriate for the person's age. The diagnostic guidelines also contain specific requirements for determining when the symptoms indicate ADHD. The behaviors must appear early in life, before age 7, and continue for at least 6 months. Above all, the behaviors must create a real handicap in at least two areas of a person's life such as in the schoolroom, on the playground, at home, in the community, or in social settings. So someone who shows some symptoms but whose schoolwork or friendships are not impaired by these behaviors would not be diagnosed with ADHD. Nor would a child who seems overly active on the playground but functions well elsewhere receive an ADHD diagnosis.
To assess whether a child has ADHD, specialists consider several critical questions: Are these behaviors excessive, long-term, and pervasive? That is, do they occur more often than in other children the same age? Are they a continuous problem, not just a response to a temporary situation? Do the behaviors occur in several settings or only in one specific place like the playground or in the schoolroom?
Some parents see signs of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity in their toddler long before the child enters school. The child may lose interest in playing a game or watching a TV show, or may run around completely out of control. But because children mature at different rates and are very different in personality, temperament, and energy levels, it's useful to get an expert's opinion of whether the behavior is appropriate for the child's age. Parents can ask their child's pediatrician, or a child psychologist or psychiatrist, to assess whether their toddler has an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or is, more likely at this age, just immature or unusually exuberant.
ADHD may be suspected by a parent or caretaker or may go unnoticed until the child runs into problems at school. Given that ADHD tends to affect functioning most strongly in school, sometimes the teacher is the first to recognize that a child is hyperactive or inattentive and may point it out to the parents and/or consult with the school psychologist. Because teachers work with many children, they come to know how "average" children behave in learning situations that require attention and self-control. However, teachers sometimes fail to notice the needs of children who may be more inattentive and passive yet who are quiet and cooperative, such as those with the predominantly inattentive form of ADHD.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Adults
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a highly publicized childhood disorder that affects approximately 3 percent to 5 percent of all children. What is much less well known is the probability that, of children who have ADHD, many will still have it as adults. Several studies done in recent years estimate that between 30 percent and 70 percent of children with ADHD continue to exhibit symptoms in the adult years.
The first studies on adults who were never diagnosed as children as having ADHD, but showed symptoms as adults, were done in the late 1970s by Drs. Paul Wender, Frederick Reimherr, and David Wood. These symptomatic adults were retrospectively diagnosed with ADHD after the researchers' interviews with their parents. The researchers developed clinical criteria for the diagnosis of adult ADHD (the Utah Criteria), which combined past history of ADHD with current evidence of ADHD behaviors. Other diagnostic assessments are now available; among them are the widely used Conners Rating Scale and the Brown Attention Deficit Disorder Scale.
Typically, adults with ADHD are unaware that they have this disorder—they often just feel that it's impossible to get organized, to stick to a job, to keep an appointment. The everyday tasks of getting up, getting dressed and ready for the day's work, getting to work on time, and being productive on the job can be major challenges for the ADHD adult.
Treatment
Nutrition
Nutrition can play a large roll in the cause of the symptoms of ADHD. I find it is very important to first address these nutritional causes by a highly qualified doctor. I highly recommend contacting Dr. Conan J. Shaw. Dr. Shaw has a great deal of experience with treating children diagnosed with ADHD.
Dr. Shaw is the Director of the Shaw Chiropractic and Nutrition Center in Cranberry Township, PA.
The number to the center is 724-778-3000 and can be reached by e-mail at Drshaw@zoominternet.net
Repressed and or Unresolved Emotional Issues
The symptoms of ADD/ADHD are simply ways of acting out that unconscious and un-resolved trauma.
Examples of these unresolved emotional issues are repressed anger, anxiety, fear, guilt, or trauma.
Getting to the roots of these issues on a subconscious level and working through them brings healing. This often involves coming to a point of deep understanding of the situations in life that where the causes of the symptoms. Quite often this involves deep releasing of repressed emotion and forgiveness work.
The result of the healing work is a complete and total absence of the prior symptoms know as ADD or ADHD. When all symptoms are resolved you have nothing left but a label of a disorder that no longer exists. This label can then be promptly removed. No one should have to go though life with a label attached to them, or suffer symptoms that can be easily treated.
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) often provides impressive results for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This is surprising to most people because conventional methods find these challenges so difficult to address that drugs are often required to "cover up" the problem. However, these issues become much easier to handle when you take aim at their true causes.
EFT ignores the conventional methods (e.g. re-wiring the brain, enhancing focus or drugs) and looks instead for unresolved emotional issues such as anger, anxiety, fear, guilt, or trauma. Once these issues are properly resolved (which is what EFT does best) the ADD symptoms tend to fade and the client leads a normal social and academic life. (Note: If you are using Ritalin or other drugs, please rely on your physician regarding their use.)
This approach is common sense to most people because ADD or ADHD clients almost invariably have anger, anxiety, fear, guilt, or trauma from either their current circumstances or their childhood. Often they feel like they "don't fit in" or "don't match up." In such cases, ADD or ADHD become symptoms of those underlying emotional causes.
I start looking for deeper issues such as current traumas in school or at work. If there is none, I look for past traumas which have been unresolved and which are manifesting themselves in the current situation. It is my experience that most anger, anxiety, rage, fears, guilt; etc comes from some un-resolved and unconscious trauma. The symptoms of ADD/ADHD are simply ways of acting out that unconscious and un-resolved trauma. The combination of Regression hypnotherapy and EFT is wonderful for ferreting out the current traumas or the old traumas.
Many parents are overwhelmed with attempting to balance a career and a family. Many students are stressed because our schools do not ever get around to teaching the student HOW to learn in the classroom. Therefore, every day produces high stress and anxiety for them and many times the ADD/ADHD symptoms are how they act out their frustration
The good news is that EFT can deal with much of the above and/or help ferret out the other potential causes and find relief for the client.
Call now to schedule sessions to guide your children back to health!
