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Gathering childhood evidence

The strongest thing you can bring to any ADHD assessment is a childhood picture, and most adults arrive without one. Here is how to build yours in a weekend.

Why clinicians care so much about your childhood

ADHD starts in childhood by definition; an adult assessment is always, in part, a historical investigation. The difficulty is that adult memory of childhood is patchy and kind to itself, and people who learned young to push through tend to remember “I was fine”. That is why clinicians value collateral: what other people remember, and what got written down at the time.

Eight questions to ask a parent or older sibling

Over a cup of tea, not an interrogation. Write down what they say, as close to their words as you can.

1. What was I like sitting through things: Mass, dinners, long car journeys?
2. What did teachers say at parent evenings, the same thing every year or different things?
3. What was homework like in our house, for me specifically?
4. Did I finish the things I started: clubs, projects, hobbies?
5. Was I forever losing things, forgetting things, late for things?
6. How did I compare to my siblings or cousins at the same age?
7. Was there a phrase the family used about me, affectionate or otherwise?
8. Is there one story about me as a child you have told more than once?

One caution, because it matters: ask open questions and let them answer. Don't coach the memory you are hoping for. An honest “you were a quiet, organised child” is genuinely useful information too, and a clinician will value that you gathered it honestly.

Old school reports: the accidental evidence

Irish school reports are a quiet archive of ADHD evidence, written decades before anyone thought to look. Phrases that carry weight in an assessment, in the polite dialect teachers wrote them:

• · “Bright, but doesn't apply himself”
• · “Not working to her potential”
• · “Easily distracted” · “Daydreams in class”
• · “Disruptive” · “Can't stay in his seat”
• · “Careless mistakes” · “Rushed work”
• · “Would do better if she concentrated”

Ask whoever kept the family paperwork. Photograph anything you find; the exact wording, year after year, is the point.

How to bring it

Nothing fancy: a page of notes from the conversations, photos of the reports, and two or three of your own earliest memories of the pattern. Bring it to your GP first and to any assessment after. If you take our full assessment, the report has a childhood section where this evidence slots in alongside your scores, and the GP Conversation Kit covers the rest of the appointment.