Question on ADHD Eval

Hi. I think it’s great that your daughter is advocating for herself and asking for what she needs. Here’s how it went down for me and my teen. For an ADHD diagnosis, yes you’ll schedule an appointment (even virtual should work) with the pediatrician and they’ll give you the Vanderbilt tests to take as parents and to pass on to her teachers to fill out— hopefully before school lets out. They will likely also refer you to parenting coaching through an organization like Clarity Pediatrics, who operate virtually and will be the ones who evaluate the Vanderbilt surveys and make the diagnosis. 

Once you have the diagnosis, you can request a 504 meeting for accommodations for the ADHD.

If you think it’s something other than ADHD, you would ask the school for an evaluation, but if your daughter can access the curriculum just fine, she might not qualify for services.

And you can pursue both of these, but I’d start with the ADHD route first, especially because there are only a couple weeks left of school. Good luck in your journey. 

We had our daughter tested.  School systems use school psychologists, but 1) they are master's level or sometimes students in training, 2) they work for the school system (vs you), and 3) are limited on what they can assess.  Learning differences are assessed and diagnosed by neuropsychologists.  They are not cheap and often there are long waiting lists -- summer might be a good time to try and get in, as busy times are beginning of school year due to new school year.  Unfortunately health insurance does not usually cover these assessments.

Go through your pediatrician for ADHD, not the school. We have Kaiser and our pediatrician is amazing and well versed in managing ADHD meds but had to refer us for a diagnosis. Unfortunately our inattentive and well behaved kid didn't qualify for a full evaluation after completing the screening process, which requires teachers' input. We ultimately paid for a private assessment with a neuropsychologist who found that yes, they have ADHD and other processing issues. Both Kaiser and BUSD accepted the assessment with no challenges. Our kid now works with the pediatrician to manage medication and is thriving academically though large tests and exams will never be a strength. 

Hello! I would recommend that your daughter does something called a neuro-psych evaluation. This site offers a description of what this is and how it differs from a psycho-educational assessment. I would recommend finding a clinic or psychologist (you can go through your insurance) to find someone who administers these evaluations. Sometimes they book out far in advance and the process can take 1 - 2 months. (It can involve having teachers, family members, and your daughter filling out long questionnaires as part of the process.) We have been through this process with both of our kids - our older teen was diagnosed with ADHD and we also had them checked for Autism Spectrum Disorder. Our younger one was diagnosed with anxiety that could be impacting attention/focus with an invitation to re-assess in one year if we felt that treatment for anxiety was not working out. If you talk to your pediatrician, my hope would be that they would direct you to doing a neuro-psych or psycho-educational assessment. Psychologists are more specially trained to administer these evaluations.

If your daughter is needing testing and other classroom evaluations sooner than later, there is a quick route to getting that: if she sees a therapist for the struggles she is having, she may be diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. GAD is enough to get a 504 Plan. With the school year closing up soon, it may be wise to get on the books with your school to have an appointment to discuss 504 accommodations at the very beginning of the next school year. Depending on what district you're in, the process for getting everything officialized can be kinda lengthy. School staff are over-worked, so things don't move swiftly. Get an appointment with a therapist through your insurance and you should be able to get some sessions in throughout the summer. The therapist can write a letter for the school as documentation for the need for a 504 Plan. With both kids across multiple schools, I've never met any resistance whe it came to getting a 504 Plan.

Another tip - if your daughter plans to take the SATs and gets a 504 Plan, you'll need to look into getting official accommodations for that as well through College Board. This also means an official review process and then a letter confirming the accommodations. You'll then need to make sure that when signing up for a testing seat that you're at a site that can offer the accommodations (not all can). If your daughter tests through the school, be sure to ask the school if they'll be set up to offer the accommodations.

I know this is a lot of info to process but my hope is to help you move through the process swiftly rather than the flying-the-plane-while-buildling-it like we had to do! lol. Best of luck as your daughter figures out more about how her brain works and how to get the accommodations she needs.

You can start with your pediatrician for ADHD and your school for learning differences. Your school district is mandated to provide an assessment. However, the school's focus is whether your child needs accommodation and I've found that standard assessment from medical doctors is gender biased. They tend to be geared toward boys (more hyperactive) symptoms. Girls' ADHD presents differently. Our child was undetected until teens. After years of raising issues with school, teachers, school's learning specialist, and doctors, we finally went and got a private comprehensive neuropsych eval from a psychologist. It's $$$, but we feel it was worth it. The school district's assessment did identify certain issues but overall our child's high IQ compensated for the learning differences and ADHD just enough not to qualify her for accommodations. This was in the elementary school and middle school. I'm quite certain that our child suffered greatly and the issues that surfaced as a teen could have been mitigated if we were able to intervene earlier and develop skills in early years. 

Your experience may be different from ours. I encourage you to start with your teacher and the school district. You are entitled to assessment even if you go to a private school or charter school, because your tax dollars pay for these services. 

As someone with ADHD yourself, you probably do understand that ADHD is a medical diagnosis, not a learning disability (though of course often does show up in issues at school as well as every other area of life). Start with her medical team - their assessment may involve asking you to get input from teachers, but the evaluation/ assessment / diagnosis is done by medical professionals not school staff. If she has an ADHD diagnosis, you may end up working with her school on IEP or 504 accommodations; her medications / therapy / etc. will be through her physician(s); their input is also given on the 504 or IEP.  Good luck. 

My kid wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until college, when he advocated for himself like your daughter is doing and was referred to a psychiatrist, who gave him a diagnosis and prescribed medication. The medication really helped (he just takes it when needed for studying and exams) and he received very helpful accommodations at UC just based on the psychiatrist's note and did very well. Our experience with college was that they were happy to provide whatever the doctor recommended. I think there may be a somewhat more involved process to get accommodations in high school. 

+1 to the other response you received, but a word of caution - if you are in BUSD/Berkeley High, do not expect that they will respond with accommodations. A friend's daughter recently requested a 504 accommodation for ADHD and was told that their daughter should just stop taking AP level classes. Also note that if you get a private assessment ($3000+, insurance may/may not cover, if they don't, potentially seek out UC Berkeley's assessment services) that may bolster your case but it may not be sufficient. BUSD assesses in terms of learning capacity, while psychologists are assessing in terms of DSM criteria. It is true that there's been an abuse of requests for extended time on testing based on questionable ADHD diagnoses, and unfortunately BHS appears unsympathetic to high achieving students maintaining their achievement goals while requesting accommodation. It may not have helped that the diagnosis came so late (as opposed to elementary/middle school), similar to your daughter. No matter what, good luck and do work with your pediatrician. It may be that medication will help her and that will obviate the need for a school response. Plus, naming the problem may help her and assist with building coping schools for post-high school.

Writing in to say that you should absolutely get this process started immediately. We did not get this process underway until the end of the summer before their first year of high school, and it took over 6 months to get a formal diagnosis and a prescription for medication that may have helped my child better cope with school and mental health issues if we had gotten the ball rolling sooner. Instead, we all suffered the domino effect of struggles in school due to untreated ADHD, leading to depression and anxiety and behavioral issues. You should also pay close attention to how your medical provider and school handles the evaluation process--sloppy mistakes by our health care provider (such as typos in the emails of teachers we selected to participate in the evaluation, among other problems) that we did not pick up on for 1-2 months led to further delays. That my child is much happier and more functional in school post-diagnosis really makes me regret not acting on it sooner. If you are already working on executive functioning and study skills, though, you have a good start. Best of luck to you and your daughter!

Good for your daughter!  You can find any psychologist that does “neuro psych educational testing”.  There used to be a place Bay Area Psychological testing Associates (BAPTA) but I just looked and couldn’t find their website.    

I would pay out of pocket to do this.  Schools tend to be hands off and will not actually “diagnose”.  You then take the recommendations from the testing to the school and give results to pediatrician in case you need support from them.  This is all done on your own, I’ve found pediatric drs not very proficient and need guidance.  Best wishes!