What Causes ADHD?
... ADHD has no known cause and is largely considered a genetic disorder. ADHD is a problem of the brain and nervous system. It is not caused by home or school situations or by poor parenting. Studies of ...

Diagnosing ADHD in Children
... There is no single test for ADHD. ADHD is diagnosed after a child has shown some or all of 18 symptoms of ADHD on a regular basis for more than 6 months. Health care providers can diagnose ADHD with t...

Signs and symptoms
... At various times, ADHD has been called attention-deficit disorder (ADD), hyperactivity, and even minimal brain dysfunction. But ADHD is the preferred term because it more accurately describes all aspe...

Causes
... Parents often blame themselves when a child has been diagnosed with ADHD, but scientists increasingly believe that structural changes in the brain, not parenting, may be a leading cause of the disorde...

When to seek medical advice
... In the 1990s, diagnosed cases of ADHD in the United States increased dramatically. The number of children with a diagnosis of the disorder climbed from 950,000 in 1990 to more than 2.4 million in 1996...

Screening and diagnosis
... No single test for ADHD exists, making the disorder difficult to diagnose. But a variety of exams are used to differentiate ADHD from learning disabilities and mood disorders. For this reason, make su...