We receive great questions everyday from our readers, parents just like you, who are looking for a bit of advice or encouragement.

Be sure to visit the ADHD Information Library to see these questions, and our answers, to see if they may be helpful to you!

The Questions and Answers section is added to weekly, and some of the questions can be viewed on the home page. Here are two recent questions:

Hi my daughter who is four and soon to be five in November, her teachers at school are saying she has classic signs of adhd. I always have known shes been QUITE active.Is that to early to determine this. If not whats the best way to treat this without drugs at such a young age..

Thanks - A Concerned Mother

Read Dr. Cowan's Answer...

And

My son can't do any of the stimulants for his ADHD. The dr's have him on Wellbutrin. Would the caffeine still be ok for him to use or is that just going to make him go off the wall? He likes coffee and the protein shake sounds like something he would love. Thanks!

Read Dr. Cowan's Answer...

A new study reports some attention getting numbers. The first is that about 9% of children in the United States have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - ADHD. The second number is that only about 1/3 of them are getting medical treatment.

There have been a number of similar studies done through the years, but this study is considered important because it used the most modern diagnostic criteria for ADHD today, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition.

The ADHD Information Library has written and maintained for years that about 5% of children in the US had ADHD, and that it has been both "over-diagnosed" and "under-diagnosed."

Over-diagnosed in the sense that often the medical evaluations leading to a diagnosis don't consider the differential diagnoses that need to be ruled out before diagnosing ADHD, such as fetal alcohol syndrome, head injuries, tourette's syndrome, bipolar disorder, and more (see http://newideas.net/adhd/differential- diagnosis ). Our concern is that this study may have fallen into the same trap. Simply reporting that 9% of children meet the DSM-IV criteria for ADHD is not the same as 9% of the kids having ADHD. Rather, many children who meet the criteria for ADHD actually have some other disorder.

It's back to school time! Here are some questions that parents might want to ask the school to try to optimize the management of a child with ADHD:

1. What strategies does this school have for assessing, and meeting, the needs of an ADHD child?

2. Who are the people that provide actual evaluations or assessments of children at your school? If they are making an assessment of my child, will they contact me to get a good family history, developmental history, and medical history of my child?

3. Is there a school psychologist on campus? Is there one available? Does he/she do achievement and ability testing?

4. Is there an advocate or case manager available to my child?