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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a mental health issue that continues to draw significant attention from the media, primarily due to two factors:

1. The ever-increasing numbers of children who are being diagnosed with ADHD

2. School nurses who are seeing and reporting a significant increase in the amounts of medications being dispensed during the school day to children who struggle with hyperactivity and inattentiveness

As a mental health professional with over twenty years of experience, I have seen a number of shoddy examples of ADHD assessment that have resulted in misdiagnosis and incorrect treatment. However, I have also witnessed the transformation that can occur when a child is correctly diagnosed and, with therapeutic intervention, receives the opportunity to reach his or her full potential.

There are some dynamics that can help us understand why ADHD may be being overly diagnosed in children. Diagnoses of mental illnesses are routinely performed by a variety of helping professionals. Although companies that have created and published standardized tools for assessment have attempted to responsibly control their use, there are few guidelines as to what the components of a comprehensive assessment for ADHD should include. Consequently, a wide range of practices exist that are routinely used to diagnosis this disorder. Some evaluations involve a brief and incomplete fifteen minute consultation followed by a diagnosis that is highly questionable due to the lack of information gathered and the brevity of observation. More comprehensive evaluations may include a variety of measurements, scales, and questionnaires designed to engage the participation of parents, teachers, and both medical and mental health professionals. Consequently, a diagnosed label of ADHD can result from a wide range of evaluative processes, some of them not comprehensive enough to make an accurate assessment.

The "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendment" of 1997 placed a greater emphasis than ever before on narrowing the gap between expectation and level of accomplishment for disabled children in the public school system. It also stressed, for the first time, early childhood prevention as a key to helping disabled children succeed educationally. In 2001 President Bush signed a bill entitled "The No Child Left Behind Act." This piece of legislation held public schools to a higher level of accountability with respect to screening and providing

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