Maybe nothing seems to be working to help your child. Or your mama instinct just tells you that there’s more to the story than ADHD.
There are 3 other diagnoses that have symptoms that mirror ADHD but have different treatment pathways.
Sleep Apnea
Besides impulse control issues, other symptoms include falls asleep immediately after their head hits the pillow, snores, grinds their teeth,
wakes up in the night, has night time accidents or daytime accidents, is hard to understand when speaking, has under eye circles, has crooked teeth or a misaligned bite, wakes up insanely early, is irritable during the day, or has a bad appetite.
Vision Processing
When a child is bright, parents are confused by their difficulties with reading, believing they have already ruled out a vision problem at their yearly eye exam or screening. Often the child is labeled hyperactive, lazy, or slow. What makes this even worse is that many of these problems can easily be mistaken as learning disabilities or attention problems such as ADHD. Vision screenings in school and at the pediatrician’s office typically test only distance vision. Most people think that 20/20 is “perfect vision”, when in fact 20/20 is simply a measurement of what someone is able to see at a distance of 20 feet. Common symptoms for vision processing issues include headaches, poor reading comprehension, homework takes forever, trouble keeping attention when reading, poor handwriting, clumsiness, or car sickness.
Sensory Processing
If your child has misprocessing information that he’s hearing, seeing, or feeling, it can greatly distract him from focusing on the task at hand. Additionally, if your child seeks vestibular or proprioceptive input, he may look hyperactive because of jumping or spinning.
Watch the video below for suggested solutions and what to do if you suspect your child is dealing with any of these three issues.
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