The diagnosis of ADHD has been plagued by criticisms that it is both over diagnosed and misdiagnosed.  To some degree, both of these assertions are correct.  There are many circumstances in which environmental influences and/or the presence of other diagnostic concerns makes it difficult to determine whether a child (or adult) truly has an attention deficit disorder. 

Traditional ADHD assessments rely almost exclusively on parent interview and behavior checklists.  While these are valuable and important tools, they can still lead to difficulties in determining the cause of inattention, hyperactivity and/or impulsivity.  Misdiagnosis leads to inefficient treatment and continued difficulties. 

Columbia Neurofeedback Center makes the process of identifying attention disorders more objective and reliable by using a variety of assessment tools that directly measure the individual’s performance on tasks of attention, impulse control, working memory and inhibition as well as examining brainwave patterns to determine if there are patterns consistent with ADHD.  Assessment tools  which measure a range of ADHD cognitive indicators include:

Single Electrode Quantitative Electroencephalograph (qEEG) Analysis Using the results of research in the field of quantitative EEG, we can measure brainwave activity under a variety of conditions (e.g., resting, math and reading tasks) and examine the ratio of slow to fast waves (theta/beta).  The results are compared to same age groups and used to predict the likelihood of an attention-based disorder.  Research in this area has been 90% accurate in predicting a classification of ADHD, as well as identifying 94% of persons that do not have ADHD.

“The Development of a Quantitative Electroencephalographic Scanning Process for Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder: Reliabiltiy and Validity Studies” by Monastra, Lubar, Linden (2001) in the journal Neuropsychology, Vol. 15, No. 1, 136-144.

WebNeuro is a 40 minute cognition screening tool, designed to measure attention, memory, sensory-motor, inhibition, language, planning and emotion function.  A personalized report is generated at the completion of the test. The report provides indications of a child's cognitive performance compared to others of the same age and gender who have taken the same test. The test provides a quick, low cost, scientifically validated way to identify an individual's cognitive strengths and weaknesses.  The FOCUS report, generated from these test results, compares the individual’s performance to others of the same age and gender (with and without ADHD) and uses this information to indicate which group the individual is more similar to; those with or without ADHD.  These predictions are based on the accumulated data of thousands of people from an international database.  

Integrated Visual and Auditory Continuous Performance Test  IVA+Plus is a 15-minute computerized continuous performance test of attention and impulse control.  This is an objective test used to better assess ADHD symptoms of individuals ages 6 through adult. The IVA+Plus is used in conjunction with other assessment tools to better determine the presence of an attention-based disorder.  Using this test to assist in the diagnosis of ADHD is very useful.  Research has clearly shown that the IVA+Plus helps improve diagnostic accuracy. In a validity study, IVA+Plus correctly identified clinician diagnosed ADHD children 92.3% of the time and had a low false positive rate of 10%.

Using such a sophisticated combination of tools, it is easy to see why a Comprehensive ADHD Evaluation from Columbia Neurofeedback Center is the obvious choice when examining the possibility of an attention-based disorder.