If girls are more likely to have ADD....

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So, if more girls than boys have ADD and more boys than girls have ADHD.....
Does the personality of the child and the cultural expectations placed on that child have stronger influence over whether that child will develop ADD or ADHD, than the child's neurology? i.e. if a child is born with an attention disorder will it's personality decide if it will be the inattentive type or the hyperactive type?
Or does the ADD/ADHD mold the child's personality?
Could potentially a person go from being ADHD to ADD (or vice versa) in their lifetime?
Thanks

I do not really believe that girls are more likely to have ADHD-PI and boys are more likely to have ADHD-C.

Might be worthwhile to look at differences in social perceptions of girls and boys. A girl's behavior will be interpreted and responded to differently from a boy engaged in the same behavior.

ADD is no longer a diagnostic entity.

no dudes have more add and adhd than chicks do.

probably why girls make better grades cuz they actually try harder.

Barkley differenciates in the ADD group and says that 50-70% are actually ppl with ADHD who don't fullfill enough diagnostic criteria for hyperactivity or lost their hyperactivity groing up. The other 30-50% is this type usually with HYPO-activity and he thinks it's a seperate disorder called SCT - sluggish cognitive tempo (but that's very controversal in psychiatry). But in this SCT group (or hypoactive ADD group) you have about 50%/50% boys and girls. So it's not more common in girls, it's pretty much equal.
Just ADHD with HYPER-activity is supposed to be more common in boys than girls.

Please forgive my misconception, everyone.
So, far everything I've seen/ read has said girls are more likely to be ADD...etc.

May I ask what ADHD-PI and ADHD-C mean? I've not heard them before.
Also, when did ADD stop being a diagnostic entity?
Thanks.

Lets put it this way: it is more likley for a girl to be dx with ADD than ADHD, but ADD is equal in boys and girls. It is just more likley for a girl to be dx with ADD than ADHD, because ADHD is more common in boys than in girls.



What was called ADD is now called ADHD-PI. ADHD-PI means ADHD predominantly inattentive and ADHD-C means ADHD combined type and means that you are inattentive and hyperactive.
But I want to point out that the ICD-10 differs from the DSM system. There ADHD is called: "hyperkinetic disorder" and also meantions: "other hyperkinetic disorder" where you can dx ADD for example. My psychiatrist dx me with ADD actually. Also the ICD-10 is more strict in dx ADHD than it is the DSM, so it's naturally that there is more dx of ADHD in the USA than in most other countries, because the USA uses the DSM where more ppl fullfill the diagnostic criteria for ADHD compared to the ICD-10 what most of the rest of the world uses.

Here is an interesting twist. (I am female)

I have never, ever considered myself hyperactive. Probably because I was not a kid to jump off of roofs and climb all over things.

So, I would consider myself to be ADD without the H.

But, the other week someone questioned me on that. She said that I almost never sit still. I am always fidgeting, even if almost imperceptibly. Now that it has been brought to my attention, I realize this is true. I am almost never still. But I try to move in small ways so as not to bother others. If I try to sit still, I become extremely anxious and almost feel the need to bolt. How I lived most of my life without noticing this is beyond me.

You know what? My son is kind of the same. Never was the stereotypic daredevil kind of ADHD'er. He did pace and walk around a lot as a wee one. Had to do his homework standing up, etc. His neurologist commented that for a boy with ADHD-c, he was very atypical because he has never even had a serious physical injury and does not engage in any physically dangerous/impulsive behavior.

But I think I have figured out why...we both have motor planning issues and tend to by physically cautious because of it. He also has gravitational insecurity (panics when his feet leave the ground).

But he does describe a feeling that I think is probably an internal restlessness.

So I am starting to wonder if the hyperactivity can just manifest itself differently in some people due to other neurological characteristics (for example, being clumsy, gravitational insecurity, etc).

Boys are far more often diagnosed with ADHD than girls, but some studies show that girls might be very under-diagnosed, and the real numbers may be as high as near half of the actual cases being females. It definitely seems that more girls have ADD and more boys have ADHD.

http://psychcentral.com/lib/adhd-and-gender/0003126


http://cpancf.com/articles_files/art_57 ... d_file.asp

More girls are getting dx with ADD than ADHD but ADD is equally dx in girls and boys.
This is explained to the fact that ADHD on the other hand is more often dx in boys than girls.
Those are two different things!