Is your child struggling to focus and pay attention at school? Maybe they are delayed in learning to read, and their teacher has suggested they could have symptoms of ADD/ADHD or Dyslexia.

As a result you might be asking yourself “Does my child need a diagnosis?”

The short answer is “Not necessarily”. 

Put simply, a diagnosis is a collection of symptoms that fall into a particular category. This is usually aligned with the medical model, and can be used to help your child to receive specialised medical support. However, you might like to weigh up your options before seeking help.

Can a Diagnosis of ADHD or Dyslexia Help?

Can a diagnosis really benefit your child? Yes, they may receive some individual classroom support and the school may receive funding for this. Your child may also be eligible to receive government funding to access specialised therapies and appropriate medication.

A diagnosis can offer peace of mind for parents. Being able to put a label onto their child’s learning and behavioural challenges can help with understanding. 

Disadvantages of Having a Diagnosis

However, diagnoses aren’t always helpful, and can carry negative impacts. There is a risk of damage to self esteem, with your child taking on a belief that there is something wrong with them.  A child with ADHD, for example, may see this diagnosis as a part of them, part of their personality, losing sight of their gifts and positive attributes.

A diagnosis can also become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Wth a focus on the symptoms of the initial diagnosis, behaviours can develop to match the label, fitting into their allocated “box”. Their view of the world, their beliefs and expectations may develop in accordance with that particular “label”.

Applying a diagnosis can create a barrier between a person and their experience, as though the experience is not part of them. It belongs to the diagnosis.

The many fine qualities that your child brings to the world can become obscured by a diagnosis. Removing the label, it’s easier to see your child for the unique and gifted individual that they really are.

Labels stick! Ray Moynihan, journalist and academic researcher, quoted in an article on the the website of the Australian Psychology Association said that “if we give a child – or anyone – the label of ADHD, we change their personal narrative for the rest of their life. For better, or worse.” 

An added complication for families in rural regional areas, seeking a diagnosis often involves travel to larger centres for specialist appointments. This can be expensive, and is not always easy to manage with other family and work commitments to consider.

An Alternative Perspective

However, diagnosis is not your only option, and not all parents choose to go down this path. I suggest an alternative paradigm, based on addressing the root cause, looking for what lies beneath the behaviour. I believe all behaviours are bringing us a message. We just need to learn how to read them!

Looking through the lens of the Polyvagal Theory, developed by Dr Stephen Porges, a child’s disturbing behaviour can be understood as an automatic response to a perceived threat, happening below conscious awareness. In other words, their nervous system is reacting before their “thinking brain” has had a chance to kick in.

In her book Polyvagal Theory in Therapy Deb Dana, author and international lecturer invites us to look beyond a diagnosis inviting clients to “see their behaviours and beliefs as adaptive responses in service of survival”. Exploring more deeply, I usually find behaviours are linked to gaps or immaturities in early stages of  development.

An Holistic Approach to Healing

As an holistic therapist I’m more interested in the person in front of me, than any label they may or may not carry. I see their behaviour as a symptom of something deeper. Rather than trying to “fix” the child, by managing the symptoms, an holistic perspective sees the behaviour within a broader concept of healing, or moving towards wholeness.

This holistic approach to healing recognises that all parts of a person are interconnected. Your child does not exist in isolation. They are also part of a community and their behaviour is also influenced by your family story. This includes wounding from past generations that have been passed on. 

For children struggling with learning in the classroom, with signs of dyslexia and ADD/ADHD, healing involves addressing all aspects of your child. This holistic or whole child view includes social, emotional, behavioural, physical and academic learning. 

Disrupted Early Development

Based on my experience from the last 20 years, I have found that diagnoses of dyslexia, ADD/ADHD and autism share one common thread. All have signs of disruptions to normal stages of early development. Aligned with this, I generally find overwhelming experiences either in the child’s personal biography, or ancestral wounding that has been passed on through generations. 

Add to this the influences of life in the twentieth century. As a result, we can see the behaviours as indications of a distressed and over-reactive nervous system, responding to perceived threats in the environment.

In other words, the child is part of their wider environment. Their behaviour is an attempt to survive in the world they have been born into. In other words, the issue is greater than your child.

Stages of Child Development

Child development happens in a specific hierarchical sequence, with each subsequent stage building on the foundations of the previous one. This means that if the lower stages are incomplete, the following ones are likely to be a bit “wobbly”.

Think of a tower of Jenga blocks. When enough blocks are missing from the lower levels, the tower will eventually topple. Something similar happens with development immaturities. Without a firm foundation, children will often struggle with learning and behavioural challenges. 

When their world becomes too overwhelming, they often act out or shutdown. These behaviours are bringing us a message.

Addressing Development Delay

During the last 20 years, I have helped many children with challenging behaviours and learning difficulties. Some came with diagnoses such as ADHD and dyslexia. With or without a diagnosis, they were all facing similar challenges. Breaking these behaviours down, I found gaps or immaturities in early stages of sensorimotor development.

When these immaturities have been addressed, the children make gains not only academically, but also improved behaviour, reduced anxiety and depression. Parents often report  closer family relationships, and their children form more supportive friendships.

An assessment is a good place to start. We can identify immaturities in early stages of sensory and motor development. From here we can work together to “fill in the gaps”, helping your child to achieve to their potential.

Sessions incorporate a graded set of basic movement exercises designed to replicate missed stages of early development. In this way, we work at your child’s pace, addressing immaturities where necessary. Sessions may also include relationship building, counselling,  play and art therapy.

Support for a Development Movement Program in Schools

Classroom teachers have expressed concern that disruptive behaviours have escalated since the bushfires and Covid lockdown in 2019/2020. They have noticed an increasing number of children struggling with social skills and academic learning in the classroom, suggesting many “need a diagnosis”.

Children with delays in early stages of development often struggle to learn in a traditional classroom, many finding the volume of sensations is simply too overwhelming. As a result they can easily go into sensory overload. The behaviours we see are the response of their dysregulated nervous system.

Research from the Institute of Neuro-Physiological Psychology shows benefits of a school-based sensorimotor development program.  Addressing neuromotor immaturities has been shown to support learning in all its forms – social, emotional, physical, behavioural as well as academic. 

With so many children struggling, perhaps now is the time to create change, and if not now, when?

Conclusion

Diagnosis is useful as a way of understanding behaviour traits, and seeking financial and other supports. However, there are other options to consider before embarking on this process. This article has highlighted an alternative holistic paradigm, stepping away from the traditional medical model of labels and pathologies.

This invites the question “Is it the diagnosis that’s important, or is it how you deal with it that matters?”

The good news is that you don’t need a diagnosis, a Mental Health Plan or a referral to see a Counsellor or Psychotherapist.

To learn more, contact Rosalind

Related Articles

Understanding ADHD – an Holistic approach to healing

Dyslexia and Sensory Processing

ADHD and Links to Listening or Auditory Processing