I have learned through this journey that the psychiatrist prescribe the medications necessary and the psychologist helps with behavior modification techniques. My 9 year old son sees both. Pediatricians are wonderful, but not trained in these fields, so seeing a specialist is a step forward in the right direction.
A good and well trained psychiatrist will talk with you and your child and will then ask you to do the SNAP Questionnaire by providing you with a questionnaire to be filled out by you, your spouse and all teachers involved with your child. Upon completion, he/she will review this. The questionnaire is all behavior related. Once he/she gets a general consensus, at that point, medication will be prescribed, or he/she will modify what he is currently on if need be.
I love my son's psychiatrist. He has been a God send. Best of luck!
I just took the next big step in our ADHD journey, and made an appointment for DS (age 7) to see a child psychiatrist. He comes highly recommended by DS's therapist, who has a similarly-aged son with ADHD, and she gives this doctor high marks both personally and professionally.TillyT, what do you hope to gain from the appointment?
You should call back and ask if the pdoc wants documents sent in advance. Some doctors prefer to read everything before meeting new patients; others like to start fresh with their own perspective and then read up after the first appointment.
In general, I recommend that psychiatrists diagnose mood issues (anxiety, depression, mood disorder) and neuropsychologists asssess for neurological conditions like ADHD and PDD, as well as learning disabilities. If treatment goes beyond typical ADHD meds, I strongly recommend that a psychiatrist manage meds because they are the ones who have cutting-edge knowledge of psychopharmacology. My kids have seen both neuropsychologists and psychiatrists for evaluations. They are currently being treated by psychiatrists who do both weekly therapy and med management.
SmallMom38806.5369907407
I guess it depends on whether you have an official diagnosis yet or still need one. We had our initial eval done by a psychologist, then went to a child psychiatrist for a second opinion (not that we disagreed, but that we wanted a confirmation because I was just *so* mad at the fricking psychologist for blaming me for the comorbid depression part of her diagnosis). We took all the testing paperwork and diagnosis information and sent that to the pdoc. Then we also had about 5 questionairres to fill out as pre-screening information (a really good pdoc will send these to you ahead of time).
Then when we went in, we took all our stuff and met with the pdoc and discussed our concerns (academic and social progress) and goals (keep DS in private school, use therapy/coaching to avoid permenant medication regimin). We were open to medication, so at that point we discussed available med types and decided to go with Strattera because it was not a stim and we didn't want to start with one. He responded really well to the first one we tried so after that, it was med managment mostly.
I am really looking for medication management help from someone with knowledge of the state-of-the-art on ADHD and mood issues. From what I have learned about this psychiatrist, he is *the* one in Vermont for this.