I am finally getting somewhere with my pediatrician after talking to her for the last 3-3.5 years about my and his teachers concerns. My son will be 7 in Jan. and is hyperactive/impulsive. He is a happy, life of the party kind of kid most of the time. He did ok in Kindergarten and continues to do well academically because he likes to learn and can hyper-focus on school work. However, he has been removed from class 2 times this year already basically for not keeping his hands to himself. The second time he almost got one of his friends suspended from school. His teacher is great and a former sped teacher so she makes many accomodations for him that have helped.
Sorry about babbling on. Just giving some background on my situation. My son's dr has referred us to a pediatric neurologist to determine if he is adhd. I know that there are several professionals who can diagnose, but I am happy with this referral because he would also monitor medications, if any are prescribed. He has come to me highly recommended by someone other than just my ped. for diagnosing and treating adhd.
NeuroPsychologist or Neuropsychiatric?neuropsychologist for evaluations. Psychiatrist for management of meds if needed.
A neurologist is a medical doctor, not sure you need that.
Why neuropsychologist vs. Neuropsychiatric? I know one can prescribe meds but why the first one? Is it because they can't prescribe meds and will really look at the issue instead of what can "fix it" pharmacologically? not necessarily, there a neuropsychologist is expert at administering different testing. That is what their specialty trianing is. They could look for all kinds of LD's. A psychiatrist is certainly capable of diagnosing ADHD and/or ODD, but IMO if the main issue is school, why not figure it all out. You could start with a pediatric psych and go from there if you are not worryied abiout any kind of learning disability and/or giftedness. A neuropsych can do IQ testing and get a handle on where their learning ability is and if they are struggling what is casuing that struggle. They are really a one shot deal testing only. At least for us, my daughter has a psychiattrist for her med management and he sees her every three months (more if needed) to monitor her anxiety and how our med regimen is going.