Ladies please help.

[Meme2019]

I realise this probably not the best place for this question but the dedicated topic for this on Mumsnet handily ever gets any responses so I apologise in advance.

I have an 8year old son who is very anxious/fearful. My son is not the type of child you say to something bad will happen because he literally takes that on and worries about whatever you say.

I recently booked a hypnotherapist to help with his fears, he had one session and the therapist suggested getting my son checked for ADHD, she said he has some traits that children with ADHD have. He is easily distracted, so he couldn’t concentrate during that session, he jumped from one subjected to another.

My son is SEN, a school child psychologist assessed him last year but they didn’t mention ADHD, they just said his vocabulary is not very good which is why he is struggling at school with comprehension, inference skills, poor logical thinking etc. I mentioned to the school SENCO that we were going to have him assessed for ADHD, she said my son doesn’t display any ADHD traits at school, she said ADHD is not something you switch on and off, if he has ADHD, he would show this both at home and at School. So now am confused about what to do, getting assessed is not cheap, my son is struggling at school, that’s why he is SEN, home schooling is absolutely challenging, he is reluctant to do any reading comprehension, any school work that requires reading and writing he finds difficult. He is very good at is spelling, he has an absolutely amazing memory, he can tell you all the tube stations on the London Underground and overground, he can tell which interchanges are at which station, although the psychologist says he has poor memory which affects his reading comprehension.

I am desperate to find a way to help him. I thought there was one assessment that we can do that will help identify if there is any underlying issues, but it sounds like everything is assessed separately which potentially means paying out thousands.

We have a tutor for my son to help him with reading comprehension, we listened in on his lesson last week and it was heart breaking hearing how little he understood, he is in year 4 and will soon finish primary school and it literally feels like the only thing he has learned is reading. He reads fluently and confidently but with no comprehension of what he is reading.

My son is a summer baby, born in July, I have been holding on that as the problem, but as the schools don’t acknowledge this is as the potential cause am wondering if I am just burying my head in the sand a bit.

Has anyone had an experience of this.

I mentioned to the school SENCO that we were going to have him assessed for ADHD, she said my son doesn’t display any ADHD traits at school, she said ADHD is not something you switch on and off, if he has ADHD, he would show this both at home and at School.

The SENCo is right, and that would form part of the assessment.
Why not get the GP to refer for a full Paediatric Assessment by a Community Paediatrician if you believe he may have a medical condition. Yes, waiting lists are long, but it won't cost you thousands.

Does he have any diagnoses yet?

I agree with going to the gp, write down a list of all your concerns and any behaviours he displays that don't seem right to you and they should refer you to a paediatricion to be assessed my son has asd and his comprehension is awful. I'm his last speech and language assessment his comprehension was on the 2nd centile.

Hi I have ADHD. While it's not something I can "switch off" I certainly flew under the radar at school (and as an adult) and never got diagnosed until I was 34. I was a high achiever but never knowingly did my homework, didn't listen in class but managed to follow the lesson, mostly sat there doodling. I learned to fidget in ways people wouldn't notice, like wiggling my toes in my shoes, and often spent so much mental energy not fidgeting/shouting out that I couldn't concentrate on what people were actually saying. I've never been able to stop myself interrupting people though so I can't hide some symptoms.

Having said that, I wouldn't trust the armchair diagnosis of a hypnotherapist as I had one earlier this year who was really blasé about throwing around diagnoses she didn't fully understand/had only looked up in a textbook with no understanding of the clinical thresholds for diagnosis. If I had listened to her (she wanted to refer me to a psychiatrist she knew who apparently always took her word about patients ), I'd be slapped with a borderline diagnosis right now when a different psychiatrist decided after a 4-hour assessment and pages of detailed written questions for me and someone who had known me a long time that I actually have ADHD.