Think son has ADD what do I do now?

MegS

My son has always been hard work but at home we've always managed. I had mentioned to the health visitor when he was 3 that I though he had ADD but was basically told I was a crap mother who couldn't cope with a hard work child, they were also more concerned with the fact that he had delayed speech. Funnily enough that has never worried me, he was always so far ahead on his other skills I figured he would catch up, did go to the hospital to get his hearing checked and after a few visits he was discharged. I did also take him to speech therapy twice before they discharged him saying he had moderate speech delay - tell me something I don't know - I wasn't very happy with the speech therapist as although he was a lovely guy, he was Nigerian and spoke very accented english which was difficult to understand and couldn't even pronounce DS's name properly, so how he was supposed to teach my son to speak I don't know. When he started school is when the problems really started. His first teacher insisted I had him tested for dyspraxia and as I was coincidentally at the doctors that night I spoke to the doc about it and he laughed and said no way. When I got home I looked it up on the internet and I had to admit it was laughable as apart from the speech delay he didn't display any of the symptoms. I had picked up a leaflet on ADD at the docs, took it to school and said I thought he had this, the teacher said she would discuss it with the other reception teacher and get back to me. Again I was made to feel a neurotic mother but I think she was hacked off about me telling her the doc laughed at her diagnosis, she again insisted I seek a second opinion about the dyspraxia. DS then changed schools and things were a little better but still there are concerns about his behaviour and the way he socialises with the other kids. After a meeting with his teacher and special needs teacher we agreed they could ask the educational psychologist attached to the school to look at hime. That was the end of last term and we heard no more. After an incident in the playground on Thursday I had a meeting with the headmistress yesterday and it seems the special needs teacher thought we didn't want to go ahead with the assessment (although my husband insists we did sign the papers and sent them back), I think maybe the special needs teacher was a bit confused as I said I didn't want to go down the audiologist/speech therapy route. Anyway the headmistress is going to get the educational psychologist to look at him. Doing research on the net I'm still convinced DS is ADD and have printed off some info which I intend to give to the headmistress on Monday and ask for them to look at this at the assessment. I didn't bring up ADD at my meeting mainly because of the way its been handled before. I did speak to his after school club (who had asked me in the past if he had any problems and I said no) and asked the carer (who owns the club) outright if she thought he had ADD and she agreed (at last someone who does see it), her son and grandson have ADD so I guess she knows what she is talking about. I'm having a chat with her on Wednesday. Thing is do I leave it up to the school to sort out from here or do I take DS to the doctors? Sorry this is so long but felt I should at least give some background to how we got to here. In the past they have always been so engrossed in DS's speech delay that they haven't seemed interested in anything else. Thanks for taking the trouble to read through all of this.

shakemeup

I would let the educational psychologist observe him first, they should observe him and talk to his class teacher about him. Go to the school and insisit he is assessed, the psychologists (in my experience) are very good. They should then sit down with you and discuss any needs he has or the next plan of action. The great thing is that you are a parent who wants to help, there are a lot of children who do not get the support at home.

Hope it works out for you and just keep pushing for what you want and believe, never mind if the school think you are fussing, follow your instinct. I am a reception teacher and wouldn't care if a mother kept coming to see because she is concerned we have so many who don't care.

kenshaz

Make a copy of this quote put it into letter form and send it to your Doctor and a copy to your education authority,This must be addressed for the sake of your child and your family ,no one knows your child better than you,always remember that,also once it is in writing ,they must act ,and a record is on file.Good luck ,but why should you need it.

candygirl

Keep at it.The school might be reluctant to help in case it costs them in terms of support teachers , but unless you push it things will go from bad to worse for him in the school system;)

loveandlight

Make a copy of this quote put it into letter form and send it to your Doctor and a copy to your education authority,This must be addressed for the sake of your child and your family ,no one knows your child better than you,always remember that,also once it is in writing ,they must act ,and a record is on file.Good luck.

This is very good advice. Couldn't have put it better myself.

Mrs_pbradley936

Just want to offer you some moral support. Also something which really makes a difference to this is the child’s diet, particularly the ratio of omega 3 fats to omega 6. I do not know if you are aware of any of this but put simply if nobody likes fish in your house then his ratio is probably very low. There is a man on here called Ted and he knows all about it from the scientific side, if he reads this he will be able to give you all sorts of help. But read this and then perhaps do a bit more research on it yourself:-


http://http://addadhdadvances.com/fishoil.html

Mrs_pbradley936

So sorry that link does not work but just put omega 3 and childs behaviour into goggle and you will get lots of hits.

LondonDiva

Just wanted to wish you good luck.

However....

MegS wrote:

I wasn't very happy with the speech therapist as although he was a lovely guy, he was Nigerian and spoke very accented english which was difficult to understand and couldn't even pronounce DS's name properly, so how he was supposed to teach my son to speak I don't know.

What would you have said if the speech therapist was from :eek:Liverpool/Newcastle/Glasgow/Devon/Wales?:eek: All places with quite strong accents, that probably would not have caused comment. If your child exists in a school with children/teachers and parents of more than one ethnic or geographical background, he would and should be used to different accents, as opposed to RP.

the only factor should be whether the therapist was competent.

MegS

LondonDiva I hope you're not implying that I was being racist. The strong accents you mention would be easy enough for me to understand (my husband is from the north-east and I am from Yorkshire), the speech therapist was from Nigeria and had a very, very strong accent in that it sounded as if he had only just to learn to speak english. He couldn't pronounce my son's name right ever and we had to help him out with the english words he was trying to think off, he even admitted he wasn't used to speaking english. He was not overly competent, eg he kept bringing out loads of toys and then said my son couldn't concentrate on any one toy. Of course not he was 2 at the time and he thought it was Christmas, he kept looking to see what else was coming out of the box. The second time we saw him I told him before we went in not to do that and only have five toys at the most and things were better. How was he going to help my son pronounce syllables when he couldn't pronounce them himself? This is what I was getting at, not that he was black.

fsdss

can i just ask what convinces you that your son has adhd / add?

[Deleted User]

I only have extremely limited knowledge of this but of everything I have read one common denominator seems to matter.

Diet.

I understand that by removing all processed food from the diet, and increasing fruit and veg can help enormously. (A work collegue had this same situation with her child and successfully went down the dietary route.)

The OS Board has hundreds and hundreds of recipes which are moneysaving, time saving and healthy.

Of course, persuading the child to eat it is another matter. But a gradual change over time is definitely worth a try. And I'm sure there's numerous parents here who can tell you how to expertly 'hide' veg in a meal.

If you do see improvement you will know you have eliminated the culprit without resorting to anything more than dietary change.