ADHD--earliest diagnosis, schools, private school assessments

[sofia2014]

Hello,
I have a son, who is nearly 3 years old and who I have suspected has ADHD since he was only a few months oldconstantly fidgety, wants to be constantly engaged by me and my husband, can't sit still. Now that he is nearly 3, he can rarely focus on watching TV. I know he is different no matter how often I hear that "he will outgrow this phase". As a result we are constantly entertaining him which is draining and emotionally exhausting. I am getting a sense from talking to his nursery carers that he is more on the active side compared to other children. While others of his age are outgrowing their hyper active toddler phase, he is falling behind in things that involve sitting in a circle and focusing on activitieslearning numbers, colors, etc. He is very bright otherwise and his language development is good. Having read the other ADHD posts I get a sense that diagnosis often comes very late as parents are just being fobbed off by the doctors until things start going seriously wrong at school.

So, my questions are, is it worth getting an early diagnosis? If so, how does one get a diagnosis at 3-4 years?
My second question is, is it worth seeing a private child specialist that does one on one sessions? I came across a very impressive private specialist in our area, who would be willing to work with my son, but the fees are very high --£85 per hour. My hope though is that an experienced professional would be able to identify any issues early on and refer us to specialists. Does anyone have experience with similar issues?
Finally, schools: my son is registered to sit his assessment at a good local private school. Are private schools better at providing help with ADHD issues? Or do they instantly spot ADHD at assessment and reject the child a place? Many thanks for any advice!

I can't say anything with regards to private schooling.

With regards to 'early' diagnosis. We have been given a working diagnosis of ADHD for our 4yo. The paed feels he is too young yet to say definitively. My interpretation of our last meeting is basically school can prove to be a good or bad thing for our son. He is very intelligent, when he chooses to be. But as with yours, actually getting him to focus on something is a challenge. Unless it's anything train related in our case. Ds can focus on trains for a considerable time compared to other activities/toys and this has often been used to steer him towards something which he should be doing.

I don think there is any harm in getting your concerns documented. We fought with our HV team until they finally caved and started a caf for us - basically a group of various people which gets together with ds' best interests in mind and helps get everyone singing from the same hymn sheet. By contrast, our gp was much more helpful and sent off for referrals to paeds and so on. She is well aware of our family history though and has known of our concerns for quite some time. She agreed that we needed to start the ball rolling before ds starts school so we're not starting from scratch when ds has already been labelled as naughty/non-compliant and so on.

A fab source of help for us, as well as these boards, has been our Ormiston trust centre - same as sure start I think. They helped us with dla forms, speaking to people who can help and so on. Ds goes to an additional needs group once a week. Compared to the others you'd say he was nt. except they are all very quiet and mostly non-verbal whereas ds makes himself known in very big and dramatic ways. It was thanks to them that I finally started to believe myself when we were saying ds is challenging and others were trotting out lines like 'boys will be boys'.

Hello Sofia
Our DS sounds very similar to yours at that age. I was so worried and can remember it very clearly - I was in bits. We found Robin Pauc at Tinsley House through Mumsnet. You see him every two months and then do exercises/diet/supplements at home every day. We have a follow up every 2 months. The first visit was about £120 and subsequent ones are c£70. Our DS was in pre Nursery at a local private school. We moved him just over a year ago to a Pre Prep. At this point we had been seeing Robin for 5 months. On his advice, we didn't mention the problems DS had a nursery and now 18 m into treatment, DS is thriving at school and home. You would not know that we had any problems.

I think we have nipped something in the bud. A neighbour came in the other day who is an ex Headmistress of a special needs school in the USA. She said that so much can be done to help our DCs when they are very young and that whatever the extent of the concern, early intervention makes a real difference.
Happy to chat on phone if that helps, if not good luck.

x

Dear Minisoksmadehard work and Ruggles, Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! It is a great idea to start documenting stuff, though of course (and here I agree with Ruggles too) we ought to try to be careful in mentioning our concerns to teachers in his prospective school. I hope that once we get him into a good school, they would be able to help with referrals etc., child psychologist, etc. sooner rather than later. I have not heard of the Ormiston trust and will certainly check it out. Sounds like a good resource. It is good that some gps can be supportive. Our experience with doctors has been so far as follows: we used to have private Bupa insurance, and when my son was 2 years old we took him to a private consultant who said it is too early to diagnose and the earliest diagnosis he did was for a boy aged 3. he was very encouraging though and said do come and see me if the problems persist. He also seemed not averse to prescribing ritalin. A year has gone by, we moved to another area, and have no private insurance anymore (and my DS has not changed). We went to see a local gp and he completely brushed us of saying that from just looking at our son he can tell he does not have adhd. However, he did not propose to do any proper assessments or any proper tests. It came across all as very unprofessional. I realized that we would have to go private for a quick diagnosis as the private Bupa doctor seemed a lot more open to do a proper thorough check (at a cost of course). It is interesting Ruggles that you mentioned Dr. Pauc. I came across his book and website a couple of days ago and got very enthusiastic but then read some negative reviews of his method (the criticism was that it is a placebo effect). I am totally agnostic as I don't know much about him, but it is very good to hear that you have had good experiences with him. Certainly worth considering. It is interesting you mention a US practitioner. My sister lives in the US and I know that they are way more proactive and way more thorough there with their children. To begin with (assuming one has medical insurance, which in the us not everyone does of course), every child regularly sees a pediatrician whether they have any issues or not, just for check ups etc. so they have a regular channel of communication with a professional right away. Anyway, sorry to be rambling on. It would be nice to chat on the tel. Am new to this site. How do we exchange numbers? Thank you again for your very useful advice!

My younger son was formally diaogosed with severe ADHD at 18 months via the NHS. If a child is significantly affected by ADHD no one who meets them is in any doubt. At the time he was rated as the second worst affected child the regional unit has ever seen in the Midlands region.
I have posted a longer response in your CAHMS thread. In honesty if the ADHD is significant [moderate to severe] its NOT worth paying privately unless you are well and truly loaded. Bens school support alone would have cost us over £30k per annum privately but as he has a statement we can eat. Be careful there are a lot of sharks who claim to be specilaists or that this diet or expensive theraphy will 'cure' ADHD who make a lot of money out of worried parents. Positive Parneting offer free courses to parents whose kids have ADHD and your HV should know of any in your area.
BTW drugs such as ConcertaXL and similar are only useful as they give kids that few seconds thinking time to allow behaviour strategrgies a chance to take. They are not magick bullets and they have nasty side effects that can affect learning in a different way to the ADHD itself.

Dear triballeader, thanks a lot for your advice. wow, 18 months is very young for a diagnosis. It must have been very hard. I'll check out positive parenting to see if they can help. on my husband's side they have a history of asperger's but thankfully our son is not showing any signs of it. but, since adhd and aspergers seem to often go together, I am quite alert to the possibility.

Bens always been very active- he kicked so hard before he was born he landed me on the antenatal ward with polyhydronephritis, was born yelling and screaming, managed to move up and down his crib within the first 24 hours and would not sleep. He was trying to hold his own head by two weeks and tried to drag himself across the floor by six weeks. It was as if he could not wait to mobilse! The hyperactive side is more pronounced than just fidgetting. When that is there as well kids literally seem to bounce off the walls and ceilings. Ben at 3 used to scale the roof of the house [broke so called child locks and bolts] pole vaulted over the bannister and land like a cat on the floor. In five minutes at the CDC he had removed the sink from the wall [unscrewed it] and annouced his fave story was the little pink pigs as he stripped off his clothes and ran round yelling 'wee wee wee all the way home' then he solved the window lock and climbed out of the window in the peaditricans office to chase a lawnmower with me and the pead' in hot pursuit.
It makes me smile to look back now but at the time Ben as a toddler turned me into a hyper-vigilent sleep-derprived zombie as I never knew what he would do next. Have a look at ADD as doing as your thinking about doing is common to both ADD & ADHD. If you have a kid with ADHD expect to find a co-morbidty along for the ride on top. Ben's was aspergers, lax joints and being horribly intelligent. It was not until he had meletonin and concerta XL that the rest was spotted as it was hdden behind the wall of hyperactivity. He had concerta for 18 months to allow behaviour stratergies and some educational basics to take and then it was tailed off as he had a very supportive local primary school.
He is now 17 and the hyperactivity has settled down to that of a lively driven eccentric. Hang in there, someimes the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train.