According to the Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG) foundation, misdiagnosis of mental illnesses in children who are considered gifted is commonplace.
Dr. Marianne Kuzujanakis, MD, MPH, director of SENG, says that a recent survey of pediatricians revealed that only 10 percent felt adequately prepared by their training to diagnose mental illnesses and prescribe psychotropic medicines for those diagnoses.
Because of this and the 2010 American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Mental Health finding that 37 percent of children and adolescents either meet the DSM criteria for a mental health diagnosis or show some impairment in function, SENG started the Misdiagnosis Initiative.
Intelligence or heightened ability misdiagnosed as mental illness
According to a video report created by SENG, children who are gifted often have the factors associated with their intelligence or heightened ability misdiagnosed as a mental illness - often attention deficit disorder (ADD) or ADHD. These misdiagnoses can often lead to improper medication and life-altering, long-term issues that follow the child through life.
In the July 2012 issue of the American Academy of Pediatrics News (AAP News), Dr. Eric von Hahn explains the questions that parents and teachers should be asking to be sure that the child they suspect has ADHD or ADD is not actually gifted and just bored with the classroom or intellectually functioning beyond his or her peers. One critical step is just informing parents that giftedness is a possibility, which can open new avenues of diagnoses that may have been overlooked before.
Gifted children are often gifted in one or two specific areas of interest or ability. A definite sign that ADHD is not the cause is when these children show no signs of the disorder when engaged in activities that follow their area of interest.
Similarly, in the July 2012 issue of The National Psychologist, James T. Webb, PhD, et al, discuss ways that giftedness can be expressed and noticed by caregivers before a diagnosis of mental illness is found.
In a similar way, the American Association for Gifted Children (AAGC) advocates that parents and teachers first look to giftedness as the "problem" before looking to medical or psychiatric issues.
The problem of misdiagnosis, SENG believes, is much more prevalent than might be believed and needs to be addressed.
