One of the questions I wonder about as a parent is whether or not symptoms of ADHD ever just go away as a child matures. In other words, is it possible for a child to grow out of ADHD? In order to answer this question we are going to call upon some experts to provide their professional perspective on this topic. We are also going to be taking a look at research which reveals that the process of brain development and maturation in children with ADHD may have an effect on whether or not they will continue to experience ADHD symptoms into adulthood.
If you look at the stats on how many children are diagnosed with ADHD in the U.S. you will see some fairly high numbers. For example, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that there are at least 5.3 million children with ADHD living in this country who are between the ages of 3-17 years of age. Another way to look at this data is that 8.6% of the children living in the U.S. will have received a diagnosis of ADHD during their childhood years. The statistics for the number of adults having ADHD is a little less clear because ADHD has traditionally been considered a disorder of childhood. Now that we know adults can have ADHD too, there are more people who are being diagnosed with this disorder and successfully treated. Yet experts speculate that there are many adults who go undiagnosed as they do not recognize the symptoms of ADHD.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health an estimated 4.4 percent of adults ages 18-44 in the United States experience symptoms and even some disability due to ADHD. The difference in the percentages of children having ADHD vs. the percentage of adults diagnosed with ADHD makes one wonder about what happens to the ADHD children as they become adults. Will some children lose their diagnosis as they grow into adulthood? If so, how does this happen? Or is this simply a matter where some children learn how to better manage their ADHD so that by the time they become an adult, they no longer meet the criteria for diagnosis? We have called upon two experts to give their thoughts on whether or not it is possible for a child to outgrow their ADHD.
Doctor Deborah Serani is a mental health blogger, an author of a book entitled Living with Depression: Why Biology and Biography Matter- Along the Path to Hope and Healing, and is a practicing psychoanalyst. She has written about both ADHD and autism on her blog, Psychological Perspectives.
Question: Why do some kids with ADHD lose their diagnosis as an adult?
Dr. Deb: ADHD is a neurobiological disorder that continues throughout life. There are many children who learn how to manage it so that as adults it is hard to detect. However, there are many adults who continue to need treatment, medication and psychotherapy, to mitigate ADHD. So the simple answer to this complex question is not that children outgrow ADHD... they learn to manage it better.
Question: Do the symptoms of ADHD ever go away and if so how does this happen?
