Favorite 0 Featuring Dr. Jeff Chamberlain, MD · August 22 2011 at 11:12 am

Dr. Jeff Chamberlain explains that there are some significant differences in how ADHD manifests itself between the sexes. Hey what's up? Barnaby here on this...

Dr. Jeff Chamberlain explains that there are some significant differences in how ADHD manifests itself between the sexes.

Hey what's up? Barnaby here on this HelloLife moment as we delve deeper into ADHD.  An interesting question has been posed by one of the people, that check in now an again with HelloLife.net, you're invited to do that on the community page always, send us your questions and we will get to them as quickly as we can.  This person asked, 'As regards ADHD, is there different manifestations of traits of ADHD male versus female?'

This is a really good question, we always have to remember that everyone's different so people don't always necessarily always fit the norm, but as a whole males tend to have a lot more of the hyperactivity type symptoms or impulsive symptoms so they're all over the place, trouble sitting still, trouble fidgeting, doing things like running out into streets without thinking about the consequences.  Sometimes girls do these too but we see a lot more in the boys than the girls.

Well you said before that more guys, kids in school, are diagnosed with ADHD than girls, is it because it presents so obviously? 

And that's part of it, it seems like more boys have it than girls but also the boy's symptoms seem to be more troublesome ones because they interrupt class so if there is a kid interrupting other kids, the teacher is all over that.  Whereas with girls a lot of times they tend to have more of the attention problems and so maybe they're having trouble focusing, having trouble paying attention, shifting from one subject to another in their minds that the teacher isn't catching this because they aren't interrupting anyone so maybe they're just falling behind in school and that's all we know is that they're falling behind and we don't realize what's going on in their mind and what causes them falling behind.

So is the testing different?

It's the same testing for it, because for everyone we test for all the traits but it tends to show up more in different ways in different kids. 

Okay so if you're the parent of a young girl, specifically you'd be looking for poor performance in school, what other sorts of things? 

So a hard time performing in school, a hard time organizing things or things at home or organizing their thoughts, they switch subjects, they might start doing one thing at home then switch and do something else and they're doing it more so than other kids the same age.  So looking for those types of things can maybe flag you or maybe there is some attention deficit problems that the daughter has.

Well it's interesting because as parents I think it's best to talk to other parents, I do it all the time saying, 'I've got an 8 year old son' so I talk to people that have 10 year old kids saying, 'Now as you look at my 8 year old, remember when your child did that?  "Oh yeah! Oh yeah." '  So then I automatically say, 'then it must be somewhat normal.'  And so it'd be good to maybe just start talking amongst yourselves as parents saying 'my kids doing this, is your kid doing this?'  And get some sort of a benchmark.

And that's a good way to start the screen for this, if you think your kid has an issue but every parent you talk to says their kid has the exact same thing then this is probably normal for the age.  Whereas if you friends are saying 'Whereas if all your friends are saying, 'Man your kid is just al over the place', maybe this kid's sticking out and there is something different about him that we need to look into further, 

Yeah and it's almost reinforcing what the teacher might be saying as well so open your ears, drop your guard, and take the information in and do what's best for your child.

Exactly.

Yeah.  Alrighty, good information sir, Dr. Jeffrey Chamberlain in this HelloLife moment because here we are all about matching your commitment to a healthy lifestyle.

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