Why are teachers being allowed to diagnose students with ADD and ADHD?
My friend who taught for 20 years says that the field of teaching has changed. She said that most of her fellow teachers are stressed and that they are required to persuade parents to have their kids whom they suspect have ADD ADHD or are unable to control to be tested by elementary grade level. She says there is a lot of pressure on them from administrators to catch the early signs or else it will fall on them.
October 16th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Wrong.
The only person that can legally diagnose a student with ADHD/ADD is a doctor or clinical psychologist. Teachers can recommend whatever they want to parents, but by no means does that mean that the parents HAVE to do what they say/think.
Teachers are not doctors, or psychologists so for missing a ‘diagnosis’ could never ‘fall on them’, nor could they get in trouble for missing it. That’s why there’s teacher’s unions.
If you can’t control a kid in your class prior to elementary grade level, I got news for you…it’s not ADHD/ADD!
October 16th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
That’s one more thing that’s being imposed on teachers by incompetent administrators, who have to look good at PR; and when things don’t go their way, they blame the teachers.
October 16th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
I am a recently retired elementary principal. First, ADD or ADHD can only be diagnosed officially by a doctor or set of doctors. Teachers are in a good position to provide relevant data to the examining physician(s) because of the amount of time they spend with young children observing and guiding their work and their social interactions. They pass this observational data on to the medical profession and the child’s parents. If and when a medical diagnosis comes back with an ADD or ADHD conclusion, then, based eventually on the prior written consent of the parents, a team of professional educators/M-Team ( This stands for Multi-Disciplinary Team) (i.e. classroom teachers, speech and language staff, school psychologist, guidance counselor, and other appropriate special education staff do additional tests and evidence gathering that is summarized and reviewed at M-Team Meeting with the staff, parents and sometimes the principal. In this report, and also shared towards the end of this meeting are the recommendations of all members of the M-Team as to what strategies could best be employed to help this student. It is in the end up to the parents as to whether not the child receive the suggested services. That is what usually happens.
On a personal note, in order to still stay close to the education of children, I have put my name on a couple of the local school districts. Two days ago I was subbing as a science teacher in various grade levels for this particular day. In this one class of second graders of the 24 children that composed the class, in all honesty, there were, believe it or not about 15 of the children that exhibited what I could call as serious off-task behavior, and I am, among other things very good at discipline and having the children stay focused on the learning. Now, this is worst I have ever seen in over 30 years of total experience both as a teacher and as a principal, and now as a sub. But still, I am really not exaggerating. Why this is the way it is, I really don’t know, but it is scary!
October 16th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
teachers aren’t allowed to diagnose – we are allowed to put the application through to have the child tested internally at school. and WHY shouldn’t be be able to..we see the kids day in and day out and it’s our perogative to send a child for assessment….
unfortunately what is also happening is that the parents are looking for an excuse to get their kids tested..becuase if they end up having something’ this accounts for poor behaviour and all round silly actions.
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