Does My Child Have ADHD?
My second grade daughter has very poor concentration. Her teacher commented on this several times last year. Does that mean that my child has ADHD?
– Wondering
When children have trouble concentrating in school and are overly active, disruptive, and inattentive, many teachers and parents jump to the conclusion that a child has ADHD. However, to find the answer to your question, you need to start with a routine visit to your daughter’s primary care doctor. Tell the doctor about the teacher’s observation of your daughter. You might even want to bring the child’s report card along to the appointment. Ask the doctor to test her for ADHD. Some doctors will do the evaluation. However, others will give you a referral to an ADHD expert because testing for ADHD takes several hours and a large amount of time to analyze the test.
If your doctor does not give you a referral and you still want testing, you should seek out a referral from the special education teacher, a psychologist, or guidance counselor at your child’s school.
Here are the areas that will be used in helping to make the diagnosis of your daughter:
Social history: a typical day in your daughter’s life
Medical history: any medical concerns that your daughter might have
Family history: ADHD runs in families
Strengths and weaknesses: activities the child can and
can’t focus on
Education: how your daughter is doing academically
By the time the clinical interview is over, most experts who diagnose and treat people with ADHD will have a good idea of whether your daughter has ADHD.
No More Cursive Handwriting?
What is the latest on cursive writing? Is it making a comeback or gone forever? All my children have been taught is how to write their names in cursive.
– Love Cursive
The decision of states to drop cursive handwriting instruction from their curriculum was definitely influenced by the dropping of this skill from the Common Core standards in 2010. However, by 2016 cursive instruction began making a comeback, especially in the South, and is continuing to do so throughout the country.
Today, the older generation laments the passing of cursive instruction. But the younger generation questions its role in a time when both cursive and print handwriting are being replaced in schools by keyboarding on computers and typing on mobile devices.
Both advocates of teaching printing and/or cursive agree that each play a major role in child development and need to be taught. An MRI scan study has shown that each type of handwriting fires up a “reading circuit” in the brain that is not engaged in children when they are typing.
There is, at the present time, no conclusive evidence that learning cursive contributes to developmental gains in children. Research does show that it can benefit children with dysgraphia (a handwriting learning disability). Plus, cursive handwriting is typically faster than printing and reduces the confusion between “b” and “d.” Most experts now say that one form of handwriting is no better than the other.
Parents should send questions and comments to dearteacher@dearteacher.com or to the Dear Teacher website.
©Compass Syndicate Corporation, 2020