Is Childhood Trauma Mistakenly Diagnosed As ADHD ?

For months now, 1 of your teachers has been coming to you about a struggling educatee. The student is easily distracted, disorganized, ofttimes hyperactive, and restless. Your training tells you to recommend an evaluation for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Your gut tells you this may be something more.

The problem is, yous're not sure what.

What's the link betwixt babyhood trauma and ADHD?

In 2014, The Atlantic highlighted inquiry beingness done by Dr. Nicole Brown, a resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. She noticed that many of the children diagnosed with ADHD at John's Hopkins seemed to come from low-income backgrounds. This led to the possibility that trauma could be playing a role in some of those diagnoses, especially when medication and behavioral therapy didn't manage symptoms for some of those kids.

"I began hypothesizing that perhaps a lot of what nosotros were seeing was more externalizing behavior every bit a result of family dysfunction or other traumatic feel." Brown told The Atlantic at the time.

Ii years after, that hypothesis resulted in research published in Academic Pediatrics that confirmed Dark-brown's initial concerns. Utilizing data collected for the 2011–2012 National Survey of Children's Health of the nearly 80,000 children betwixt the ages of four and 17, Brownish and her team discovered a significant clan between a child's Adverse Childhood Event (ACE) score and ADHD.

The research ended with a call to improve ADHD assessments and routine evaluation for ACEs.

What counts as babyhood trauma?

In an endeavour to heighten sensation about ACEs and the bear on they can have on a kid'south mental and concrete health, The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has compiled a list of potential traumatic experiences in childhood. It includes:

• Child corruption (emotional, physical, sexual)
• Kid neglect (emotional, physical)
• Parent or household mental disease
• Parent or household substance apply/alcoholism
• Witnessing domestic violence
• Having a parent or family member incarcerated
• Parent separation or divorce
• Expiry of a parent or sibling

The more ACEs a child experiences, the greater risk they have for teen pregnancy, alcoholism, smoking, illicit drug use, depression, heart illness, and liver illness, among other things.

What are the differences between trauma and ADHD?

While childhood trauma and ADHD do have some symptoms that overlap, at that place are also some distinguishing features that tin can help educators and practitioners tell them apart.

"Children of trauma get startled and scare hands," psychologist Dr. Karin Cleary recently told School Leaders At present. "They perceive many things equally potentially unsafe and threatening, and may react in a manner that seems out of character for them or in a way that seems argumentative or ambitious."

Cleary is currently working on a presentation for a local loftier school on this very subject. She specializes in trauma and PTSD, and ofttimes does psychological testing, which includes assessing for ADHD.

She said other signs of babyhood trauma include:

• Intrusive thoughts causing lark
• Trouble sleeping at night, which may lead to trouble staying awake or maintaining attention in class
• Seeming emotionally flat, less likely to appear either angry or happy
• A want to control every situation, which could wait like overachieving
• Trouble remembering things they have previously learned or understood

Source: nctsn.org

What tin can educators do?

Do you lot suspect your student may exist suffering from the results of trauma? Yous should immediately refer that student to the schoolhouse counselor. From there, Cleary says, "The best way to distinguish between trauma/PTSD and ADHD is to have a mental wellness professional, preferably i with a specialty in trauma, do an assessment."

While misdiagnoses do appear to occur, letting the counselor and evaluators know almost your concerns can assist them consider the possibility of trauma equally opposed to ADHD more closely.

Only Cleary says the most important thing educators can do is be aware of but how prevalent babyhood trauma is. "The likelihood of experiencing a traumatic outcome, defined as experiencing or witnessing a life-threatening issue, serious injury, or sexual corruption and violence, is virtually ninety percent."

It'due south a concerning number, only Cleary explained, "Teachers tin can work to create 'trauma-informed classrooms,' and there is a lot of literature on this to help teachers empathise how trauma can touch on classroom beliefs and learning."

Ultimately, it turns out, y'all do have the ability to brand a departure when it comes to identifying babyhood trauma and ADHD.

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Source: https://www.weareteachers.com/childhood-trauma-and-adhd/

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