Module 1- Introduction to ADHD

Duration: Approx 60 minutes

In this module you will learn

• The basic definition of ADHD.
• Who discovered it and created the term.
• How understanding has changed over the years.
• How to start to take control of the issues.

Welcome to your ADHD Awareness Diploma course.

Before you begin the course please read these important notes.

Modules

The course name is broken down into 15 modules. Each information packed module lasts between 15 and 60 minutes, but you are free to spend as long as you like on each module. Once you have finished the module, click the “continue to next module” button at the bottom of the page to move to the next one.

Assignments

Some of the modules contain self-assessed assignments/tasks. The tasks are set at the end of the module. Most of the assignments should take around 30 minutes to complete, again, you are free to spend as much time as you need on them. The assignments are self assessed; you do not need to send them in to us. You will find the answers/our suggestions attached.

Highlighted Text

In the modules you may notice some text has been highlighted, or marked differently to the majority of the rest of the text. For an explanation of each, see the key below:

Information worth remembering

Third-party websites or links that contain information that can further your learning

Vitally important to remember. Ignoring this could cause problems.

Useful trivia

Facts/data related to the topic

Quotes and examples

Sums / Calculations or other formula

Questions you should ask yourself

Extra Content

In addition to the course modules, we have provided you with some extra articles that cover topics not found within the course. You can find these articles in the sidebar of the course under the “Exclusive Members Content” heading. We will be looking to constantly add to these articles, so please check back in often to see the latest articles.

Revisiting Modules/Access to the Course

You can revisit modules that you have completed at any time, even after you have finished the course. To do this, simply log back in to your account and click on the “revisit modules” option from your member’s sidebar. You will then be able to select any module that you have already completed.

End of Course Test

At the end of the course, there is a 30 question test. Each question has multiple choice answers and you will have 3 options to choose from, one of them is correct. In order to pass the test you need to answer 70% (21/30) of the questions correctly.

Don’t panic if you don’t pass first time. You can take the test as many times as you need. If you do not pass on the first occasion we recommend that you go back over the modules that you did not fare so well at and study them again.

Completion of the Course

Once you have successfully completed the end of course test, you will be awarded your certification. You can download and print your certificate any time you want from your account.

If you would prefer us to send you a hard copy of your certificate by mail, we can do so for a small charge of £10 within the UK (slightly more for international orders). You can order a copy of your certificate from your account page.

What you can do once you have completed the course

Once you have completed the course you will have a great understanding of ADHD. You can now use this knowledge to assist with your search for jobs. Any potential employers can validate your qualification 24/7 via our website. Simply provide them with your full name and certificate number.

If you wish, you can undertake further study to bolster your employment chances further – you can never have too much knowledge!

Support

If you need any assistance we are here to help you. Simply click on the support tab (located at the top of the page) and one of our support staff will get back to you as soon as possible. Please note, support hours are 9:00 – 17:30 Monday – Friday (we have a limited support outside of these hours and your enquiry may take longer to respond to).

Let’s Get Going

We hope you enjoy your course and wish you the best of luck with your future career.

You can now begin your course. The first module starts below.

The videos in this course summarise the information in each module, as well as including additional content, but you will need to read the text to be able to complete any worksheets and final test.

Introduction to ADHD – 5m46s

1.1 The Basic Clinical Definition of ADHD

ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, is a term that more people are now aware of, as it has had more than its fair share of air time in the media.

However, it is one of those medical terms that has a lot of negativity surrounding it, combined with a lack of understanding as to what it means or even how it impacts on an individual.

This, in itself, is a major problem, but throughout this course, you will learn all about ADHD, allowing you to deal with the issues if it affects a family member, or perhaps work with those individuals that have been diagnosed.

It makes sense for us to begin by looking at the actual clinical definition of ADHD, as this will provide you with a better understanding of what the term actually means.

As a result, you can begin to piece together how it does actually affect not only the individual that has the condition, but also those around him or her, whether this is sporadically or on a daily basis.

ADHD is regarded by experts within the field as being one of the most common childhood conditions around the world, although the true picture as to how many children are affected is something that is still being discovered at this moment in time. Furthermore, it is a condition that stays with the child through adolescence and even into adulthood, with this last part being something that surprises a number of people who believed that it was merely something that applied to children.

Later in this module, we will look at the ways in which the understanding of the condition has changed over the years. As you will see, ADHD has covered a considerable distance since it was first initially spotted by a UK doctor at the turn of the twentieth century. However, it has not always been that way.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the official clinical definition of the term ADHD is as follows: “A persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that is more frequently displayed and more severe than is typically observed in individuals at a comparable level of development’

There is no actual mention of childhood in this part of the description, even though it is understood that it is a chronic condition that does affect children and where some of the initial symptoms may have been present before the age of seven. However, the difficulty, as we will see later, is that it is sometimes after this age that the initial diagnosis is made, although the initial diagnosis is often made between three and seven years old. (More recently, it has been thought that ADHD can be diagnosed after the age of seven and can be caused by external factors.). This makes it harder for us to get a good grip on the way in which this condition evolves in the early years, as there is often a need to take history into consideration, rather than the presenting symptoms at that time.

We will go into the actual symptoms in other modules, but at this point it is enough to look at the basic, clinical symptoms that need to be observed for ADHD to be a possible reason or explanation for certain types of behaviour in a child. However, caution should be taken against jumping to conclusions, as there has certainly been a rash of apparent diagnoses of ADHD in children as if it has become the norm, or a “cool’ thing to have.

Generally speaking, children will need to show several symptoms over a certain period of time for them to potentially be diagnosed with ADHD.

The key symptoms, according to the clinical diagnosis, include the following:

Hyperactivity

This is perhaps the most obvious symptom in that the child should show clear signs of having excess energy, or show that they are largely over-excited with no clear reason for them to be acting in this manner. Hyperactivity can be the result of a number of other symptoms or disorders, which is why a diagnosis cannot be made purely on this symptom alone. However, it is clearly a predominant symptom and one that cannot be ignored.

Lack of attention

Another clinical symptom that is linked to this condition is that the child has to be seen as being incapable of really paying attention for any considerable period of time. The important thing to note here is that their attention span has to be compared to other children of the same age and in the same situation, as there will always be subtle differences between children. It is also the case that this has to be something that is observed over a considerable period of time, in order to eliminate the possibility at that point that other factors are creating this lack of being able to pay attention.

Issues with controlling their behavior

The final major symptom that we are going to discuss at this point is the way in which children who suffer from ADHD have a real inability to control their behavior, especially when compared to their peers. This can occur in a number of different ways, although, as with everything else, there is a need to be aware of an issue over an extended period of time before any conclusions can be drawn.

Later on, we will look at the different subtypes of ADHD when exploring the symptoms and the way in which it has an impact on the individual. However, as you can see, the clinical explanation is relatively easy to understand and this should give you some confidence in your ability to not only deal with the issues, but to also provide some kind of relief and help the individual to better deal with the difficulties that they will face.

1.2 History and the Creation of the Term

After looking at the definition, we should perhaps provide you with some background information on the history of ADHD to give you a sense of where it has come from over the decades.

As with other disorders, the understanding has evolved from its earliest days and this bodes well for the future and the way in which researchers will continue to gain a better understanding of the condition, leading to better treatments and therapies. However, it has not always been plain sailing for the condition and the research that has been carried out into it.

Even though children will have clearly been suffering from this condition since time began, it was not until the 1960s when it was officially classified as being a diagnosable condition.

However, the term ADHD first appeared in 1902 when a British paediatrician by the name of Sir George F. Still noted differences in the behaviour of several of his patients and yet they were still of the same intelligence. Still described the behaviours as “an abnormal defect of moral control in children.’

It was as if they could not really control the energy or the way they acted and yet it was not a usual form of mental impairment. The part regarding the children having the same intelligence was seen as being key; as it indicated that there was something else going on that was, in effect, controlling their behaviour.

Previously, it would have been put down to some kind of mental deficiency, which tended to mean at the time that they were regarded as being less intelligent, but Still was able to espouse the theory that this did not always have to be the case.

At that stage, there was very little understanding of what doctors were dealing with and it is accepted that the next major breakthrough in the understanding and treatment of this condition came merely by chance in 1936. This was the year that a drug called Benzedrine was approved in the United States.

SEND regulations provide an alternative or adjusted curriculum that will educate children with these varying needs and help them gain skills that will allow them to effectively participate in the working world.

In 1937, Dr Charles Bradley stumbled upon the calming effects of Benzedrine. The children’s behavior and performance in school improved when he gave it to them.

1952 was another important year for the understanding of mental health disorders, as it saw the first time when different disorders were noted in the first volume of the DSM. However, it is important to note that there is no mention of ADHD in this first volume and, indeed, even when the updated version was released in 1968, it still did not mention ADHD, although the condition was introduced under a different name – Hyperkinetic Impulse Disorder.

However, even though this term had been introduced, it is still regarded as being different from the interpretation that we now have regarding ADHD. At this time, it was thought that the main focus was on impulsive behaviour and being unable to stop themselves from carrying out certain actions, but it is still seen as being a step forward in the understanding of the condition.

It was not until 1987, with yet another version of the DSM, that we saw an attempt to give some clarification as to what was going on in children that suffered from this particular behavioural issue. In this year the concept of Hyperkinetic Impulse Disorder was officially changed to ADHD. In the process of doing so they pulled together a number of different subtypes of the disorder and brought it all together effectively under the one definition.

However, this was not an approach that would remain for a long period of time, due to further changes after additional research had been carried out on the condition as a whole.

The final change came in 2000, when we saw further changes to the way in which ADHD was described. This is when the three different subtypes that make up our understanding of the condition were first really written down in an official capacity. In actual fact, it saw a partial step back in that the official definition saw the reintroduction of the three main subtypes of the condition that had largely been scrubbed from the record book in the 1980’s. This was mainly due to researchers having spent a considerable amount of time focusing on the intricacies of the condition, before finally coming to the conclusion that there were indeed a number of subgroups related to how the condition could affect different children in different ways.

The three subtypes of the condition are as follows:

• Combined type ADHD
• Predominantly inattentive type ADHD
• Predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type ADHD

As you can see, it took basically 100 years for us to get from the initial observations of children who appeared to suffer from some kind of behavioural dysfunction, to a concrete understanding of the condition and the ability to identify the different subgroups that have to then be treated in their own particular way.

We will look at the three subtypes in more detail when we get to a module that looks at the way in which it affects children and the symptoms that they experience. It should be noted that any diagnosis of ADHD should be taken seriously, no matter their individual subgroup.

1.3 How Understanding Has Changed over the Years

As with any medical condition, in which we include psychological conditions, the understanding of it does change over the years; especially when more money is put into research to really get to the root of how it impacts on people.

ADHD has seen a considerable sum of money being invested in its study, simply because of the way in which it has been accepted that the condition can continue to have a negative impact on the life of the individual, even when they move into adulthood.

This understanding means that there is an even bigger need for improved treatments that can bring the condition under control and allow the individual to develop mentally and emotionally in the same way as their peers, rather than being effectively set aside and viewed as being ‘difficult’ or ‘troublesome’.

In recent years, one of the biggest changes has been the realisation that ADHD can stay with people, even when they move into adulthood. Previously, there was a belief that this was a condition that children would “grow out of’, which pushed those that were unaware of what was involved into a realm where they believed it was linked to changes in hormones. However, that is no longer the case.

You can also look at the brief time line that has been discussed above, to see how our understanding of the condition has changed over the decades, as things have certainly come a long way. At the same time, we can also look at the way in which more children are now diagnosed with the condition as further proof that we do have a better understanding of ADHD and that doctors and medical experts feel confident enough in their interpretation of the condition to then provide children, or adults, with this diagnosis.

Indeed, if we look closely at the way in which it has been diagnosed, what we see is that there was a real increase in the number of children being classified as having ADHD from the 1990s onwards and that can be explained by several important factors:

1. It appears to be the case that doctors in general, are better equipped at being able to correctly identify the condition, thanks to an improved understanding of notable symptoms. However, we will look at those symptoms in later modules, to also help you to spot the telltale signs as quickly as possible. This is seen as being a useful leap forward, in that the more doctors that are trained to spot this condition, or at least view it as being a possibility, the more likely it is that children will not have to suffer or struggle with their behaviour.
2. Thanks to the increased exposure that the condition has had in the media since the 1990’s, it is certainly also the case that more parents are aware of the basic symptoms of the condition and they are also more willing to take their child to the doctor in order to see if ADHD could explain their children’s behaviour. In previous decades, there was certainly a reluctance to do so and this may have very well contributed to a lower diagnosis rate, compared to other conditions. However, even though there is increased information, including on the Internet, it is still important for a parent to take their child to the appropriate medical professional, so he/she can be properly assessed and it can be determined if they do indeed have ADHD.
3. Finally, it may also be the case that more children are actually developing the condition and this in itself, is an interesting point. This means that there is something triggering the condition and that trigger is more prevalent in the modern day, as opposed to previous decades. However, we will look more closely at reasons for the condition in other modules.

But what about our current understanding of the condition? Where are we currently with the way in which we feel things can proceed with regards to ADHD?

Current research is actually quite easy to understand, as there are increased attempts at trying to really get to the absolute core of what is going on and the way in which the condition develops in the first place. Scientists are spending a considerable amount of time looking at the genetic picture, in order to try to determine if this is having an impact on ADHD.

Indeed, current research does appear to show that there is a link between parents who have the condition and their children. This is something that could potentially open the way for better treatment earlier on, or at least allow doctors to be able to identify possible issues at an earlier age.

The understanding of this condition has certainly come on leaps and bounds over the decades, but there is still an acceptance that there is a great deal of work still to be done.

It is accepted that more money has to be utilised in both understanding the origins of the condition, as well as how to better control it. This would contribute in helping those individuals who have been diagnosed to develop in the age appropriate way. However, as we will see through the different modules, there is also a need for more education about ADHD due to the various misconceptions that exist – leading to people incorrectly believing that they actually understand the condition. In all honesty, this sometimes tends not to be the case.

Fact

As we are talking about the clinical side of things as well as the history of the condition, it is a good idea to examine the future of research in this field.

The main focus is not only the ability to get the condition under control – and we will look at various treatment methods throughout the course – but also, how the researchers can start to take control of the issues.

For example
There is a misconception in the world that a child with ADHD is going to be difficult and there is a lot of negativity surrounding children who have had this diagnosis. Now, whilst that may very well be the case for some children, it can often be as a result of other conditions that underlie this one – which just makes their interpretation of the world extremely difficult for them to contend with.

In other words, one area that has to be worked on is improving the general understanding and awareness that the public has regarding ADHD. These misconceptions have to be addressed, to allow the child to get the correct treatment and for society to view this condition in the appropriate manner. We mentioned this point earlier, but some quick research online will lead you to numerous links and posts from parents of children with the condition who are frustrated at the incorrect information and misunderstanding that prevails.

The key, as we will explain throughout the modules, is to get a clinical diagnosis as early as possible and to then go through the trials and tribulations of getting the appropriate treatment that will prove to be successful for the individual in question.

However, there are other things that you need to do in order to really take control of the issues that can benefit not only individuals with ADHD, but also their family and friends.

Understand it yourself. The first thing to do is to get to grips with the condition yourself – and this diploma will make this so much easier for you.

Get involved. The only way in which you are ever going to be able to deal with this kind of condition is to actually deal with it head on. Get involved and never shy away from it. ADHD is something that can be controlled, not something to be feared.

Ask for help. There is a considerable amount of help out there for people who have a child, sibling or other relative with the condition. You should never be afraid to ask for help, simply because there are a number of groups that can offer you the kind of support that you are looking for. This is not something you have to suffer in silence.

Modern day awareness has not only led to greater understanding of ADHD, but experts have begun to realise that ADHD is actually on the rise among children.

If this is true why would this be the case? Researchers believe that lack of structure in children’s lives, constant exposure to Internet, TV, media, iPads, mobile phones and other gadgets plays an important role in triggering ADHD tendencies.

The non-stop titillation from games, movies and staring at screens results in delayed onset of sleep, shorter sleep durations and poor quality of sleep. Many children prefer to stay indoors instead of playing outdoors in the air and sunshine.

Experts believe that lack of exposure to adequate sunlight may also be a factor in exacerbating the symptoms of ADHD. They also see lax rule-setting at home, excessive allowances in terms of late-night events or movies as reasons that keep children in a constant state of excitement.

In general, the reasons for the increase in ADHD could be attributed to:

• Lack of structure in eating, sleeping and study routines
• Increased pressure to perform
• Excessive indoors living
• Addictive use of electronic games

Assignment

Introduction to ADHD

Time: 30+ minutes

Work your way through this worksheet to see how well you have done in absorbing the relevant information.

Download the worksheet below print out and complete.

Download Worksheet

SUMMARY

In this module, we have focused primarily on the clinical side of things by looking at the official definition as well as the history of the development of ADHD as a condition.

Furthermore, we looked at the way in which our understanding of the condition has changed over the decades as further research is undertaken that has changed the way in which we view ADHD. Finally, we sought to offer you some basic advice on how to begin to take control of the issues that will always arise when dealing with this condition. It is not going to be easy, but at the same time it is not something you can shy away from.

In the next module, we will turn our attention more toward the family and the way in which this condition can impact on everybody that is involved.

WELL DONE!

YOU HAVE MADE IT THROUGH MODULE 01! CLICK THE BUTTON BELOW TO MOVE ON TO THE NEXT MODULE

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