re: Occupation Therapy for Children with ADD/ADHD

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I would be very wary of allowing someone in that field to fill your very young child's incredibly malleable mind with self-validating nonsense.

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I don't think you understand what an OT does.

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ADD/ADHD is not a character issue or boredom. It is neurological and deals with the inability to control impulses.

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There is absolutely no hard neurological science which validates this statement- no testing exists which can objectively and with finality be used to diagnose ADD/ADHD in the still developing brains of toddlers.

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There is absolutely no hard neurological science which validates this statement- no testing exists which can objectively and with finality be used to diagnose ADD/ADHD

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ADHD subjects fail to suppress eye blinks and microsaccades while anticipating visual stimuli but recover with medication

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in the still developing brains of toddlers.

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The above study was conducted in adults. However, I tend to agree that ADD/ADHD is a quick and easy label for squirmy toddlers. If you watch a toddler play they often bounce from one shiny thing to the next. For older children and adults with ADD/ADHD they do not grow out of this, and their brain is constantly jumping from one impulse to the next.

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Through what means? Some children at that age haven't even fully developed an understanding of colors, numbers, shapes and the alphabet... are such factors used to determine a diagnosis?

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Well considering SPD has nothing to do with a child's knowledge of shapes or the alphabet. No, they are not.

I was using those factors as examples of how children develop cognitively at different rates. There's no set in stone place a child's brain chemistry should be when they are still very young, just general ranges.

Again, this is why you see places like France working to use behavior intervention. It's akin to the OP using OT the help his kid.

You're correct that all children develop at different rates, but there are milestones that all children are expected to meet by a certain age. Younger children have much wider ranges in the developmental windows. For example, my son just had his 18 month checkup and our doctor asked if he could say 5-10 words yet. My son can already identify shapes and colors, knows the titles of his books, knows people's names, and can ask for things he wants.

So is he gifted, or did he just acquire these skills earlier in the developmental window than average? He likely just developed those skills a little earlier, but had he not been able to say 5-10 words yet it would mean that there may be a cognitive issue or developmental delay. That allows your doctor to prescribe the proper treatment or refer you to a specialist that can work with your child.

For example, autism has a wide spectrum of its level of affliction. If children are worked with from an early age they can actually learn to overcome a lot of what would typically hold them back. However, if you forgo that treatment to wait and see if they will grow out of it there is actually a point of no return in which intervention may no longer work.

The point being that you shouldn't just assume that a delay in a behavior or skill is expected because there is a wide range of brain chemistries. If kids aren't meeting certain developmental milestones on their own, it can be very detrimental to their further development by not working to correct the issue through therapy.

As far as putting my child on medication I'm very against that anytime soon and would have to have multiple opinions before taking that action in the future.

ManBearTiger, I would like to sincerely bringing up some good points and helping me think through this. It seems like Golfer knows a good bit about this particular topic and our Therapist had no doubt about her diagnoses. She also knows my daughter outside of just her office so I suppose that could give her some advantages as far as knowing how she responds to different things

Choupic, It sounds like we are in the same boat (probably a bateau). I thought my daughter was just a slightly more difficult child but like a said before, the Therapist thinks different and i don't think therapy will hurt

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Preach it brother. The adhd fad/scam sickens me. Raise your kids. Boys are meant to be active, kids aren't supposed to be in cubicle training. Let them play!

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I used to share your skepticism and cynicism.

One of my children has ADHD and sensory processing disorder. All of my kids were raised in the exact same environment, with the same parental/childcare exposures and the same diet/lifestyle

I find it strange that if this were strictly a poor parenting issue I would anticipate that all of my children should suffer from the same made up condition.

Unless you have been around a child who exhibits true symptoms (poorly adapting to new rituals, coordination,eye gaze, excessive response to stimuli, etc) it would be easy to be skeptical of the large volume of kids who get lumped into this diagnosis

My child has benefited from speech, OT, and Xbox Kinect games (to assist coordination and motor planning)

Uhhh you must not realize we are in agreement. I'm anti-medicine on this big time.

Lol myself and my seed are textbook adhd cases. I was force fed Ritalin for ten years.

You assume I'm ignorant, but I'm not. Not on this at least.