By Site Admin Community Outreach • Testing 0 Comments

Mental Health Awareness Month

With May being Mental Health Awareness month and April 2nd which was Autism Awareness our office would like to share more information to help educate our community on some of the most prevalent conditions facing our children. Testing for Autism and ADHD is a critical step in understanding difficulties you or a loved one might face. Our revolutionary testing approach will examine every aspect from the patient to the parents and teachers and other observers if present. We factor in all information possible to form an accurate diagnosis and eliminate potentials for misdiagnosis and missing other issues that might be present along with the presenting issue. In certain cases we see other symptoms included with ADHD and Autism like depression, anxiety, learning or language disorders, schizophrenia, and a few others that can create additional underlying issues.

Mother helps child with homework
Parents who are involved with their child’s education have a higher chance of detecting early signs of Autism or ADHD.

It is our mission to provide the best mental healthcare possible for you and your family. Mental health issues can affect anyone. From individuals, couples and family counseling, we care for the family as a whole. With decades of experience within our community we have rigorously developed peer reviewed diagnostic assessment batteries. These series of tests can help generate an in-depth multi-step treatment plan to help you and your child start the healing process with a simple straight forward approach. While there is no known cure for either condition we develop a treatment plan that focuses on help from all aspects including educational assistance, medication management, parental coaching, emotional therapies, occupational therapies, speech therapies, wellness and nutrition management, and more.

Our team thoroughly vets and analyzes the materials we use. Each test instrument is carefully reviewed for evidence-based results and medically substantiated research. We will never use unproven questionable methods of testing or pseudoscientific techniques like brain mapping or brain scans. Our revolutionary approach focuses on examining the individual as a complete person, not just focusing on one single presenting issue. Examining each person to discover every aspect of their adversity and eliminating factors of common misdiagnoses, like anxiety and depression, is imperative to placing you and your child on the right track. We also provide social and emotional competence assessments to support teaching, learning, and emotional growth, while unlocking one’s true potential for success.

Autism Facts

Autistic children might prefer to isolation over being with family members or friends.

Autism’s core symptoms include a complex developmental condition that involves persistent challenges in social interaction, speech and nonverbal communication, and restricted/repetitive behaviors.

  • About 1 in 54 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) according to estimates from CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. [Read article]
  • ASD is reported to occur in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. [Read summaryexternal icon] [Read article]
  • ASD is more than 4 times more common among boys than among girls. [Read article]
  • About 1 in 6 (17%) children aged 3–17 years were diagnosed with a developmental disability, as reported by parents, during a study period of 2009-2017. These included autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, blindness, and cerebral palsy, among others. [Read summary]

ADHD Facts

Children with ADHD might have a hard time staying on task.

ADHD’s core symptoms include problematic levels of impulsivity, inattention, and hyperactivity.

Millions of US children have been diagnosed with ADHD
  • The estimated number of children ever diagnosed with ADHD, according to a national 2016 parent survey,1 is 6.1 million (9.4%). This number includes:
    • 388,000 children aged 2–5 years
    • 2.4 million children aged 6–11 years
    • 3.3 million children aged 12–17 years
  • Boys are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than girls (12.9% compared to 5.6%).1
Many children with ADHD also have other disorders

According to a national 2016 parent survey,1 6 in 10 children with ADHD had at least one other mental, emotional, or behavioral disorder:

Other conditions affecting children with ADHD: depression, autism spectrum disorder, and Tourette syndrome.

You can learn more detailed information about each condition from the Services Drop Down Menu above or from the links below. Also check out our post with more screening information:

Screening Information for Autism and ADHD

Statistics copied from the CDC

https://www.cdc.gov/NCBDDD/adhd/data.html

https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/index.html