Does anyone know if there is a scale or lists for identification the ADHD in preschool level ?
Its very hard to recognized ADHD in early childhood without other diagnosis, but also is very important to recognising risks for prevention behavior disorder.
Look up papers on the heritability of ADHD. This is very high, so ADHD must have been measured accurately.
Diagnosis of ADHD requires that the child be at least 6 years of age. The reason for this is because many preschoolers "grow out" of these symptoms by age 6. Thus, such an instrument is not likely to be reliable over time and never establish validity.
The preschool version of the ADHD Rating Scale is fairly well validated for ages 3 to 5 years:
McGoey, K. E., DuPaul, G. J., Haley, E., Shelton, T. L. (2007). Parent andteacher ratings of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in preschool: The ADHD rating scale-IV preschool version. Journal of Psychopathological and Behavioral Assessment, 29:269-276
Re: age, DSM-V simply requires onset of symptoms/behavior prior to age 7 for ADHD.
The difficulty with ADHD DX at very young ages is that many activites of very young may reflect other concerns--illness, parental abuse, other neuro based or sensory concerns. Use a standard screener--but use observation by multiple observers and across setting ---consensus is needed.
As the other comments indicated, care must be taken in diagnosing ADHD at such a young age. One simplistic reason which goes back many years is that they had not been required to perform many of the cognitive and motor tasks until they enter school. There is literature that discusses measurement, but they are related more to predictive behaviors that can occur at later stages. While many studies rely on one behavioral measure, one test is not a good measure of most pathology. Others measured working memory subtests and still others used executive function. Some promising research is developmental in nature, but again, the results described risk factors, not diagnosis of ADHD. However, caution must be taken to not confuse symptoms with an actual diagnosis. I hope the attached articles help.
Dear Colleagues, thanks for all answers. You help me very much but my interests is observation for multiple observers and consensus between them. Distinguish between DSM IV and DSM V is in time for observation ( six months in DSM IV but not in DSM V). In that constellation what means term frequently or often for parents, teachers, psychiater, psychologist, doctors and others???
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