- I'm now going to invite with me, incredible expert from a great organization called understood.org. It's a great resource. I have with me Dr. Thomas Brown. What is the difference between ADD and ADHD? - There was a time when we used ADD to talk about people who had problems with attention but not with hyperactivity or behavior problems. And ADHD for those who had attention problems and behavior problems, but then a few years ago, the diagnostic manual changed it, so in a way that, I think, didn't make much sense, saying we're going to call it all officially ADHD but most of us, including myself usually use ADD and ADHD interchangeably. How do you know it's ADHD? - You don't know if you have ADHD by brain scans at this point, even those are helpful for research but not for diagnosis, or by an expensive battery of psychological tests. What you need is a clinical interview with a professional who is trained in dealing with ADHD who can recognize the characteristics and how they're similar to and different from normal development and behavior. And then the process includes usually a screener, a list of questions to check it out, clinical interview, find out where the person's having trouble where their strengths are. A normed rating scale so you can make comparisons between that persons functioning and the functioning of other people of the same age. And then a screening to be sure there's not some other learning or psychiatric problem that's making trouble instead of or in addition to the ADHD. Someone with ADHD, as an adult has six times the likelihood of having at least one other psychiatric or learning disorder on top of the ADHD. - And what are some of the symptoms, that goes from severe and maybe mild, that you see in a child with ADHD. - [Dr. Brown] It depends upon the age of the person you're talking about. You know, the thing that we see often with really little kids are problems with safety. They're much more difficult to control and to protect so they don't run out in the street or do something, jumping off something that they're going to be hurt at. Or engage is some other kind of behavior like that where they can get hurt. Or, often they'll be very difficult to manage their sleep. Older kids, the problems have more to do with getting along with other people in the family, or getting along with other kids. And certainly when they get into school. Then you run into difficulties with their being able to follow directions. They may be quite smart but they often will have difficulty in being able to stay tuned to the things they need to do, to shift focus from one thing to another when they need to. Or there may be difficulties with being able to keep one thing in mind while doing something else. - Dr. Brown, do you think that there is any difference, in diagnosis with girls or boys? And are boys getting more diagnosed? - Boys definitely are more frequently diagnosed when you're looking at kids. The ratio for kids who are being diagnosed with ADHD is about three boys for every one girl. And what we've learned more recently though is, that when you look at young adults and adults, the ratios of men and women with ADHD are quite similar. And what that suggests is there are a lot of girls and women out there who have these difficulties but they're not getting identified early enough to make a difference for them. People just think they're not making that much trouble for anybody else and maybe they're not paying much attention but they're just a little ditzy or they don't care and it takes a while until they get to the point where they can bring their needs to the attention of people who can help them get a diagnosis. - I always wondered, why is it that a child that has, you know, trouble focusing also have that other quality where they're able to hyper focus. - I have seen thousands of children and adults with ADHD, every single one of them has a few things they can do where they have no trouble paying attention and focusing and working hard and remembering things, even though they have much difficulty in being able to do that for almost everything else they have to do. Everybody I've ever seen that has this has a few things like that that they can do where they have no trouble focusing, even though on everything else they've got a lot of trouble. And you ask them about it and you say what's with this, how come you can do it here and you can't do it there? And usually what they'll say is it's easy. If it's something I'm interested in I can pay attention, if not, I can't. People who don't have ADD, if they've got something they've got to do and they know they've got to do it, it's important, they can usually make themselves pay attention. Even if it's pretty boring just because they know they've got to do it. People with ADD, it is incredibly difficult for them to be able to make themselves pay attention, unless the task is something that's really interesting to them. Not because somebody said to them hey, this is important, you should pay attention to it for a better grade. It's because it is more interesting to them for whatever reasons. That's the essential nature of this problem. The brain chemistry responds well to things in which the person sees as really interesting or really scary. But they can't make it happen for other things. - Everyone I want to highlight again, understood.org. It's a great resource for a parent who's any child with a learning disability. Thank you so much for being here today.