Hi, I am new here and am hoping for some insight. I hope this is not too long, but I want to get out some of the history.

I am concerned about my 12 year son. He has always been harder to manage than my other son and does not act like other kids. When he was in third grade, I brought him to a psychologist for testing.

The result was that she was on the fence. She thought it could be add, inattentive only, but she thought he may be gifted and had him tested for that by the school counselor, the Wechsler. He had a scatter pattern and high average, but not gifted although some of the subtests were quite high. The psch felt that his scores were depressed and so was my son. The next year he took a different test and scored in the gifted range.

She recommended a trial of meds, but said he just doesn't act quite like add, because, for example, when a siren went by he did not get distracted. That's where we are with testing.

Here is what he looks like. He is daydreaming in class often off task. Horrible handwriting and 15 min of homework may take hours. teachers say he is impulsive, but not hyper, quiet but inattentive unless it is something he enjoys like science. Kids think he is annoying and hyper. He does not keep hands to self, teases. He makes noises constantly. He says that he can't control his "energy bursts". He has gone from not seeing the consequences of his actions to seeing them too late and feels bad. Can play well one on one, less so in groups. Usually ends up bugging someone eventually.

Meds - Adderall XR in 4th grade, little or no help. Metadate in 5th seemed to help, but because we were unconvinced of add let him quit. 6th grade back on metadate helped for a while then we let him quit, down hill slide, back on it and not seeing a lot of improvement. We are not going off meds again.

It is the pesky noisy behavior that I am concerned most about. He rarely seems calm and serene, but has this excess energy that does not allow him to have a regular conversation. Does this sound like ADD? Sorry for the length.

Apparently I'm reading all of your posts backwards. Sorry.


This sounds so much like my son. He is very inattentive and (mine) also very hyper. I really think you should look into another doctor.;)

Some of the experts we spead to say that a better term for ADD would be "variable attention disorder". In general the ADD kid has no problem with attention when they are doing something they like. The problem is with things they do not like, or things that require a lot of cognitive thinking.

This is why ADD really starts showing up in school at about the 2nd grade. That is when the homework first starts being difficult. For my daughter it really showed up with the 100 problem timed math tests. The child has to constantly think and perform 100 math problems in 5 min. There was just no way she could do it. However, give her some crayons and she can sit for hours coloring. That is classic ADD.

The first med we tried worked immediately. (Focalin). Took a pill, then sat down and did six pages of math homework in 30 minutes. So, we were lucky with the meds. However, we realize that we need to monitor her over the next few weeks to see if it keeps working.

I know that for myself, some things are more distracting than others. If your son is used to hearing sirens go by often, then they wouldn't be as distracting to him as to another child who lives on a different street. Or it could be he was doing something he found more interesting during that portion of the test and was too focused to be easily distracted.


That imbalance also shows up when testing for gifted. In a subject that he really enjoys he might test as gifted, while in a subject he doesn't like he would test as non-gifted. That imbalance, that inconstancy, is a huge flag in my estimation of ADD diagnosis.

I would tend to agree with whoever said, find another doctor. Basing, or actually not basing a diagnosis off the fact that he wasn't distracted by a siren is concerning to me. There are tons of different noises that I can completely block out of my head. There are also other noises that drive me absolutely insane. It's very selective though. If I'm hyper-focusing on something there is very little that will distract me, because I can block out pretty much everything. I can hyper-focus if I'm extremely interested in something. If I'm just trying to concentrate on something, then noise is very irritating.

My son on the other hand, if he is trying to concentrate is bothered by every noise, doesn't matter what it is. He can't block things out well even while he is hyper-focused.

Every person is different, and that includes those of us with AD/HD.

Anyway, yes, in my non-professional opinion, your son seems to fit the profile. I'm curious though about the noise, what kind of noise? When does he do it? Is it out of boredom, or something he can't help? Something he is aware of, or not?
It's pretty common for children on the spectrum to make a lot of odd noises. Spectrum disorders can mimic ADHD, or have ADHD as a co-morbid disorder.
AD/HD kids also tend to do it out of boredom though too.
There are also vocal tics that some children can have as well.

It might not hurt to have another child psychologist evaluate him.
Good luck!

One other thing I will mention: you should expect that the novel situation of the clinical setting will help focus the child. You thus get the paradoxical situation where ADHD children do not behave like ADHD children when they go to see the doctor.

That is why it seems to me that the best diagnosticians will go more by the history provided by the parents and teachers than the behavior presented by the child in the examination room.

Thanks all for the insight. I think your right about the inconsistency being a flag, because I really beleive he is trying. And he does sometime complain about some distracting noises like a buzzing light when he is trying to do homework.

The noises he makes vary. And I think that they can happen for any of those reasons you listed, boredom excited and nervousness, I asked one ped about them being possible tics and he did not seem to think so, although the the one psych said it was a possibilty but she said if it were, it was not obvious to her.

He makes more sqeals of delight I guess you could say. He says he can't help it. But I don't think it is totally involuntary either and he is definately aware of them, if fact sometimes he looks at my a says jokingly "so, sorry I didn't mean that".

When I ask him what he is feeling after he makes a yelp or giggle or squeal like that, he says he is just so excited. when I ask what he is excited about, he says "i don't Know" Now as he gets older he will even say he is feeling hyper. It is usually accompanied by fidgeting. When he focused on something he enjoys, there really are not any noises.

Oh and Lunacie, we do live across the highway from an ER.

What you've all said really seems to fit what I see. Thanks so much.

I'm a big fidgetter myself, although I don't make a lot of noise, squeals and such. My granddaughter is more like that. More often though, she sings. I think I did that a lot as a child, hopefully not as loudly as she does. But she has a lovely singing voice so it could be lots worse. :D


Anyway, I'm glad what I wrote made sense to you, and may help you and your little man figure all this out.