However, each student's needs are unique and may require intervention or support to be successful in school. The difference is whether hyperactivity is a component of the diagnosis. It should be noted that ADHD is the current term referring to children with a disorder with attention deficits.
ADD is an older term that was used.
Students who have exhibited the ADHD characteristics for longer than six months may be at risk for having an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. However, a diagnosis of ADHD should only be made after ruling out other factors related to medical, emotional, or environmental variables which could cause similar symptoms. Therefore, physicians, school psychologists, counselors and educators often conduct a multi-disciplinary evaluation of the child possibly including medical studies, psychological and educational testing, speech and language assessment, neurological evaluation, and behavioral rating scales completed by the child's parents and teachers. Watching TV is not a demanding task and requires no academic output. Children need discipline, but an ADHD child is not being willful or lazy.