Request your child's ADHD assessment
An assessment across home and school helps identify ADHD and other reasons your child may be struggling.
Guideline advice, not formally gradedADHD evidence
Start with the time you have
1 minute
Picture one recent moment when your child needed more support than they got. That is your opening example.
5 minutes
Write a short request to your child's clinician that describes the main concern.
15 minutes
Put the school feedback and developmental information you already have in one folder.
A plan
Build a shared picture
- Describe concerns to your child's clinician.
- Gather input from school and include your child's perspective.
- Agree the assessment and interim support plan.
How sure the science is
Guideline advice, not formally graded, ADHD evidence
Recommended by ADHD clinical guidelines, but nobody has pooled the trials and graded how sure they are. Guideline advice is a considered judgement, not a measured certainty. Measured in people with ADHD.
AAP 2019 key action statements 1 and 2 (AAP evidence grade B, strong recommendation); AAP grades are not GRADE certainty.
The number, drawn
Assess concerns using information from more than one setting
Why it matters
A good child assessment pulls together your child's developmental history, their own experience, and reports from more than one setting. The AAP recommends evaluating children who have persistent attention or behaviour concerns and impairment, and checking for other possible causes along the way. No single test confirms ADHD, and support does not have to wait for the final diagnosis.
How to do it
- Contact your child's healthcare provider and name the specific learning or behaviour concerns.
- Ask a teacher or childcare worker to write down what they see in their setting.
- Bring the developmental history, plus any hearing, vision or learning assessments that bear on it.
- Find out how your child will be included, and what help can start while the assessment is pending.
A qualified clinician should tell ADHD apart from normal developmental variation and other conditions. Assessment routes differ between countries.
Putting it into practice
In real life
- Describe what is hard at home, and ask a teacher for a separate account from school.
- Bring the school support report you already have instead of writing a new long document.
Watch out for
- Common mistakeA quiet clinic visit does not describe every setting; bring observations from everyday life.
- Common mistakeA school concern is useful information, but it should lead to a clinical assessment, not just a label.
Trusted guides
How we rated it
- Evidence grade
- A Moderate or high certainty evidence in people with ADHD, or an explicit ADHD guideline recommendation.
- The number
- Assess concerns using information from more than one setting (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2019)
- Benefit
- 88/100 The benefit score is an editorial prioritization for the general list, weighted by certainty. It is not a prediction of what will happen for you.
- Effort
- Big commitment
Sources
- Tier 1 guidelineClinical Practice Guideline for the Diagnosis, Evaluation, and Treatment of ADHD in Children and AdolescentsAmerican Academy of Pediatrics, 2019
- Tier 1 guidelineDiagnosing ADHDCDC, 2026
- Tier 1 guidelineADHD in children and young peopleNHS, 2025
General information about ADHD, not a diagnosis or an individual treatment plan. Tailoring changes the order of suggestions; it does not assess you. Medication decisions belong with you and a qualified clinician.