Attention Deficit Hyperactivi... : Tests

Too often, difficult children are incorrectly labeled with ADHD. On the other hand, many children who do have ADHD remain undiagnosed. In either case, related learning disabilities or mood problems are often missed. The American Academy of Pediatr...

The first step in determining if a child has ADHD is to consult with a pediatrician, a doctor who treats children. The pediatrician can make an initial evaluation of the child's developmental maturity compared to other children in his or her age g...

Currently, there are no accepted or proven genetic studies to prove the existence of ADHD. The condition is diagnosed purely on certain behavioral characteristics that are long-term, excessive, and pervasive. These characteristics are listed above...

AD/HD cannot be diagnosed with a laboratory test. Diagnosis is difficult and it takes into consideration many aspects of the child's behavior. Often the child's teacher is the one to bring the first signs to the attention of the parents. However, ...

Well-established and research-validated clinical guidelines for the diagnosis of ADHD are provided in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). The DSM-IV criteria for diagnosis include ...

The first step in determining if a child has ADHD is to consult with a pediatrician. The pediatrician can make an initial evaluation of the child's developmental maturity compared to other children in his or her age group. The physician should als...

The first step in determining if a child has ADHD is to consult with a pediatrician. The pediatrician can make an initial evaluation of the child's developmental maturity compared to other children in his or her age group. The physician should als...

ADHD is sometimes difficult to diagnose. Unlike the flu or a limb fracture, ADHD lacks symptoms that can be detected in a physical examination or via a chemical test. Rather, the diagnosis of ADHD relies on the presence of a number of characterist...

During a physical examination, a health care provider studies a patient's body to determine the presence or absence of physical problems. A typical physical examination includes: Inspection (looking at the body; Palpation (feeling the body with hands; Auscultation (listening to sounds; Percussion (producing sounds.

Psychological tests are written, visual, or verbal evaluations administered to assess the cognitive and emotional functioning of children and adults.

Developmental assessment involves the measure of a child's attainment of physical or cognitive skills that allow continued maturation, learning, and function in society.

Widely used intelligence test. The oldest and most influential intelligence test, devised in 1916 by Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman (1877-1956), using the 1908 Binet-Simon model. Although some of its concepts, such as mental age and intelligence quotient, are questioned by many today, the test is still widely used to assess cognitive development, and often to determine placement in special education classes. Most recently revised in 1986, it can be used with children ages 2 to adult. Consisting of questions and short tasks arranged from easy to difficult, the Stanford-Binet measures a wide variety of verbal and nonverbal skills. Its 15 tests are divided into the following four cognitive areas: 1) verbal reasoning (vocabulary, comprehension, absurdities, verbal relations); 2) quantitative reasoning (math, number series, equation building); 3) abstract/visual reasoning (pattern analysis, matrices, paper folding and cutting, copying); and 4) short-term memory (memory for sentences, digits, and objects, and bead memory). While the child's attitude and behavior during the test are noted, they are not used to determine the result, which is arrived at by converting a single raw score for the entire test to a figure indicating "mental age" (the average age of a child achieving that score). A formula is then used to arrive at the intelligence quotient, or IQ. An IQ of 100 means that the child's chronological and mental ages match. Traditionally, IQ scores of 90-109 are considered average, scores below 70 indicate mental retardation, and scores of 140 or above place a child into the "gifted" category.

The Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID) measure the mental and motor development and test the behavior of infants from one to 42 months of age.

Developed by C. Keith Conners, Ph.D., the Conners' Rating Scales-Revised (CRS-R) are paper and pencil screening questionnaires designed to be completed by parents and teachers to assist in evaluating children for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, often abbreviated as WISC, is an individually administered measure of intelligence intended for children aged six years to 16 years and 11 months.

Assesses the development of motor skills. The Lincoln-Oseretsky Motor Development Scale is an individually administered test that assesses the development of motor skills in children and adults. Areas covered include fine and gross motor skills, finger dexterity and speed, and hand-eye coordination. The test consists of 36 tasks arranged in order of increasing difficulty. These include walking backwards, standing on one foot, touching one's nose, jumping over a rope, throwing and catching a ball, putting coins in a box, jumping and clapping, balancing on tiptoe while opening and closing one's hands, and balancing a rod vertically. Norms for each part of the test are provided for children aged 6-14 with percentiles.

The developmental norm used to express a child's physical, behavioral, and language development. The developmental quotient is a norm used to express aspects of a child's development as measured by the Gesell Development Schedules. These tests were created by Arnold Gesell (1880-1961), the United States's foremost authority on child rearing in the 1940s and early 1950s. Gesell was among the first to outline standard stages of child development, which he considered to be governed more by biological than environmental factors. He envisioned both mental and physical development in infants, children, and adolescents as comparable, orderly processes, with every child passing through a sequence of predictable stages, although at varying ages. The Gesell Development Schedules, which are still published as part of the Gesell Preschool Test produced by the Gesell Institute, were originally designed for use with children between four weeks and six years of age. They measure development in a wide range of areas—ineluding motor and language development, adaptive behavior, and personal-social behavior—both qualitatively and quantitatively. The results of the test are expressed first as developmental age (DA) and then converted into developmental quotient (DQ). A separate developmental quotient may be obtained for each area represented on the scale. In the 1940s and 1950s, developmental quotients were widely used by educators and mental health professionals to assess children's intelligence. Eventually, GeselFs ideas were supplanted by theories that stressed the importance of environmental rather than biological elements in child development, notably those of Jerome Bruner (1915- ) and Jean Piaget. The developmental quotient is no longer accepted as a valid measure of intellectual ability. However, it is still used to assess the behavioral, emotional, and physical development of children between the ages of 2 1/2 and 6. Included among the abilities assessed by the Gesell Preschool Test are eye-hand coordination, attention span, ability to understand and follow directions, visual perception, short-term memory, recognition of similar shapes, language comprehension, and gross motor skills.

The Stanford-Binet intelligence scale is a standardized test that assesses intelligence and cognitive abilities in children and adults aged two to 23.