Your questions answered: Part one | ADHD in children: What to look for and what to do next

Dr Heidi Phillips, and Charlotte Jarvis, Practice Manager at Oxford ADHD & Autism Centre recently presented on the key signs of ADHD in children, how it can present differently depending on age and gender, and what steps parents and carers can take if they have concerns.

Within the session, they covered:

• Common signs of ADHD in children and how they may show up differently in boys and girls

• How ADHD can affect learning, friendships, and emotions

• When to seek professional advice and what the assessment process involves

• Practical strategies to support your child at home and at school

After the presentation, Dr Heidi covered a wide range of questions, and this post is the first in a series covering the most frequently asked questions. If you have not yet had an opportunity to watch the webinar, you can access the replay.

Questions answered in this post

• As ADHD is considered a disability, could an ADHD diagnosis restrict my child in adulthood?

• How can I support my child heading to university?

• Other than medication, what other ways can you help a child with ADHD?

• Can a child have both autism and ADHD?

• If you suspect both autism and ADHD in a child, should one assessment happen before the other?

• How can we how can we help young children that are quite impulsive without nagging them all the time?

Firstly, whether you share that you have ADHD to anyone is your choice. It is a personal decision whether you disclose it to an employer, and you do not need to inform the DVLA automatically because you have a diagnosis. The DVLA advise that you disclose it if you feel your condition impacts your ability to drive.

Under the Equality Act 2010, ADHD meets the statutory definition of a disability if it has a "substantial and long-term adverse effect" on daily life. It is up to you whether you are disabled by your condition, which can change over life, and whether disclosing it will be helpful. Whether you do that is going to be a personal decision.

In terms of restrictions, across all UK Armed Forces, being actively prescribed ADHD medication is generally a bar to entry. That is something I would advise looking into further if it is relevant as a career choice.

For those travelling, I know there are some limitations in terms of whether you can take your medication to certain countries and that is going to depend on where, when and the time, etc. It's worthwhile checking with the country you're travelling to.

In a university setting, most universities offer a wellbeing and disability service, and your child does not need a diagnosis to access support. They can make an appointment with the service, explain their difficulties, and the university will put in place the adjustments they need.

The university may advise them to apply for the disabled students allowance or get on a waiting list for an assessment. In the meantime, they can put adjustments in place, such as flexible deadlines or check-ins with a disability coordinator to help set a sort of timetable of activities.

These services can be really helpful. Children do not need to struggle on their own or be embarrassed about asking for help. It is not a personal failure if you don't have a brain that works that way.

It does depend on your child and the age and maturity of your child. Certainly, as a parent, parent coaching can be really helpful. From my own perspective, having parent coaching and understanding from a parent perspective, as well as from a child's perspective. Is useful.

A lot of local authorities offer something called the local offer. If you go on to your local authority website, you can look up local offer, via special educational needs, and find resources that are available in your area.

In terms of child coaching, availability is sparse, but as they get older and into their teens, it can definitely be helpful. My eldest child found coaching when she was in university during her intern year. She was given an ADHD coach, and that coach worked with her and her line manager. That was so important for her because it wasn't about what we can do for you; it was what your line manager can do for you. Things like checking regularly, giving deadlines and specific tasks, and saying, "By Monday next week, I want you to have produced X," really works for the ADHD brain.

Yes, a child can have both ADHD and autism. One of the things that I teach is that we have a neurodiversity umbrella. Under that umbrella, we've got ADHD, autism, specific learning difficulties like dyslexia and dyscalculia, speech and language disorder, developmental coordination disorder, and tics disorders. They all come under the neurodevelopmental umbrella.

As a clinician, I've now realised that if I see somebody with dyslexia, I tend to think, "What else you got?" because there's so much overlap between them. Until 2013, you could not have ADHD and Autism together, but now it's recognised that they do overlap and some studies show an overlap of up to 70%.

There is no right answer here, it's about what difficulties your child is experiencing and what are the most challenging difficulties. If they cannot focus, cannot pay attention, are so distracted, or are really hyperactive, then you're going to go for an ADHD assessment first. If their difficulties are more around social communication, then that may point towards autism.

We are not at the stage where we do the two assessments in one, but we absolutely ask about the differences and might suggest that you could benefit from the one you did not have.

For some parents, it's pragmatic. An ADHD assessment can be cheaper than an autism assessment and is usually quicker. Equally, I would think it's important to look at your child's difficulties, talk to your trusted adults and your special educational needs coordinator, read about autism and ADHD, and try to see which assessment to go for first.

What I wish I could do more consistently is redirect. If you've got somebody who is perhaps dopamine seeking, with restlessness and impulsivity, it's trying to redirect that.

A couple of things I found useful with my children is exercise. There have been some studies that show that moderate exercise is as good as methylphenidate in some children. So preschool exercise, trampolining, PE, and doing physical stuff can be helpful. Many parents of hyperactive boys tell me it's rugby on a Monday, football on Tuesday, swimming on a Wednesday. Most of us cannot fit that into our lives, but if you've got something like a trampoline in the garden, or something they can do for exercise, and maybe doing it with you as the parent, you're killing two birds with one stone.

In terms of impulsivity, it depends on what the impulsive behaviour is. If it is behaviour that is dangerous, there's no substitute for "stop, move, don't do that." If it's behaviour that you want to correct afterwards or not see repeated, then once it's settled and calmed down, that's the point at which to say, "I noticed that on Tuesday when we were doing that, you had difficulty with it. What happened there? What was going on?" Then try to get to the bottom of what was difficult for them so that next time you can pre-empt it and maybe help.

For example, going to a restaurant and the behaviour is all over the place. I never could take my children to a restaurant unless they all had tech with them, because there's no way they could have sat and behaved. It's about working out what you need for your family and your children in advance.