ADHD EVALUATION/TREATMENT If you suspect or have been advised that your child is having learning difficulties or attention problems in school, we recommend that you obtain an age-appropriate educational evaluation. This may be arranged through your child's school, or we can provide the names of child psychologists who do this type of in-depth testing. Once the evaluation is complete, call our office to schedule a consultation with one of our physicians. Prior to the consultation, send the written report along with any parent/teacher evaluations to that physician for review prior to your meeting.

In this first meeting, the physician will meet with the parents alone, to review the child's complete history and discuss the test results and recommendations. If our clinical assessment and the written evaluation suggest the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder, we will outline the treatment options, including classroom modifications and possibly the use of medication.

At a subsequent visit with your child present, we will explain how medication may be helpful, including the expected therapeutic effects as well as the possible side effects.  We also obtain baseline measurements of height, weight and blood pressure. Depending on your family history, we may order some pre-treatment cardiac testing.  Once we initiate treatment of ADD/ADHD, we require each patient to have follow-up medication checks, particularly to monitor side effects, especially weight loss, or slow down of linear growth.  Please review the following section regarding our medication management of ADD/ADHD.

Our physicians are experienced in the medical management of straightforward ADD/ADHD. If our physicians are not able to arrive at a successful treatment plan, or if in addition to ADD, a child has other emotional problems, we may recommend a separate psychiatric evaluation in order to find the very best treatment plan.

STIMULANT MEDICATION (PDF)