Parents sometimes spend years treating a condition their child isn’t even suffering from. How to prevent a misdiagnosis — from finding the right evaluator to avoiding common pitfalls.
“When parents are contemplating an evaluation and a diagnosis they should go in with a clear mind and ask themselves the following: What am I hoping to gain from the diagnosis? How will this diagnosis guide treatment? What will I do differently if there’s a diagnosis?”
N o one knew what to do with Sharona. At school the ten-year-old struggled to follow her teacher’s directions. She’d space out during class and seemed to be in a world of her own. When her classmates would do benign things like touch the corner of her desk she’d explode. The teachers assumed that Sharona’s difficulties with focus and impulse control meant she had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Diagnosed by her pediatrician Sharona was started on a stimulant.
But nothing changed. In fact the drug just made things worse — she was even more spaced out now and she was drowsy at all hours.
Sharona’s parents took her to another specialist Dr. Sara Gluck PhD LCSW clinical director of the Five Towns Wellness Center. That’s when they discovered that the stimulant wasn’t the problem — the diagnosis was.
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