ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition caused by communication problems in your child’s brain. As a result, it’s hard for children to pay attention, get organized, solve problems, and regulate their emotions and behaviors.

Children with ADHD aren’t purposefully ignoring you or misbehaving. Instead, they don’t have the ability to sit still or follow directions due to their neurological deficits. The challenges caused by ADHD aren’t minor or occasional problems. They’re consistent and severe enough to affect your child’s success in school and interfere with making friends.

The symptoms of ADHD appear before the age of 12, but some children aren’t diagnosed until adolescence or adulthood. Most face the challenges of ADHD throughout their lifetimes.

There are three categories of ADHD: inattentive, hyperactive and impulsive, and combined. With combined ADHD, your child has symptoms of both the inattentive type and the hyperactive and impulsive type.

Examples of inattentive symptoms are the first six in this list. The last six symptoms are caused by hyperactivity and impulsivity:

• Failing to pay attention to details
• Making careless mistakes
• Frequently losing things
• Forgetting daily responsibilities or chores
• Having a hard time staying organized
• Being easily distracted
• Feeling impatient or restless
• Talking excessively
• Being frequently on the go
• Blurting out answers before the question is finished
• Having a hard time waiting
• Interrupting or intruding on others

Children with ADHD also have poor working memory. Working memory gives people the ability to store and manipulate information. This information stays in working memory for a short time — just long enough to follow instructions, solve a problem, or plan the next step.

If your child hasn’t been diagnosed with ADHD, Dr. Atousa talks with you about their symptoms and completes a standard evaluation that measures inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. If they’re diagnosed with ADHD, she recommends:

Medications

Stimulation medications effectively treat hyperactivity and impulsivity. They also improve your child’s ability to focus and pay attention. If stimulants don’t help, Dr. Atousa can prescribe a non-stimulant medication.

Psychotherapy

Talk therapy for ADHD focuses on helping your child learn the skills they need to succeed. For example, they may learn how to organize their school work, focus on social skills, or find ways to manage anger and challenging behaviors.

An ADHD evaluation typically starts with a conversation about your child’s behavior, attention, and daily challenges at home and school. Dr. Atousa reviews these patterns using standard assessment tools that measure attention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, and no single test is used to make a diagnosis on its own. She may also ask for input from teachers or caregivers to get a fuller picture of how your child functions in different settings. Once the evaluation is complete, she’ll walk you through the results and discuss whether treatment, such as behavioral strategies or medication, may help.