how can you tell if a child with MR has ADHD?

[mommyandmore]

My son is almost 6 years old. He has a bunch of different disabilities including cerebral palsy, low vision and mental retardation due to a head injury at 17 months. He also tested positive for alcohol and cocaine at birth (he's adopted) and was a premie (29 weeks). Given all that, he functions at about a 3-4 year old level. He is about to start 1st grade and his school psych brought up the possibility that he has ADHD as well. Now that she mentioned it, I do notice that he has a short attention span compared to most 3 year olds BUT I think it would probably be in the normal range- just way to the "hyper" side of normal. He does have an inordinate amount of trouble with transitions- like if the kids in class move from group to group, he tantrums EVERY SINGLE time.
I'm not sure how I would pursue a diagnosis of ADHD or if it would even be beneficial to do so? How would anyone know whether it was ADHD or just normal for his developmental level and other disabilities? I'm not averse to medication if they will make his life easier/better but I don't want to medicate for no reason.
Oh, and this is totally weird but his speech abilities vary GREATLY through the day- he'll wake up from sleep or a nap talking in long, complex sentences with no problem thinking of the words he wants but as the day goes on his sentences get shorter and he has a lot more trouble with word retrieval and does lots of stuttering/stammering. Any ideas what might cause that? Is it normal for kids with ADHD maybe?
Thanks
Katrina

 

[BeckyScott]

I do not have an answer for you.

I can tell you, though, that my son was diagnosed w/ autism, and then 3 years later at a re-eval got an ADHD diagnosis on top of that. I have no idea how they actually figured it out. My reaction (and I may be wrong to think this way, it was just my own feelings to it) was that we had enough to deal with, "bigger fish to fry" so to speak, the ADHD was a fairly minor thing compared to the autism. And there weren't any more modifications to be done at school that they weren't already doing.

We did try meds w/ him, btw, and there was no noticable difference in his behavior. I don't know if the autism just over-rode the effect of the meds, if they just weren't effective for him personally, or what, but we ended up pulling him off of them because nothing was happening. Same as you, we were willing to try it if we thought it would help.

 

[lovethecastle]

I think maybe a neurologist could dx ADHD. Have you asked your pediatrician for any ideas?