Each answer opens with a direct response in a few sentences, then explains the reasoning, names its sources, and points to a concrete next step. Answers stay unpublished and unindexed until their sources are verified and a reviewer signs off.
Published
What is the Vanderbilt ADHD assessment?
The NICHQ Vanderbilt Assessment Scales are ADHD rating scales completed separately by a parent and a teacher. Each rater reports how often specific attention, hyperactivity and impulsivity behaviours appear, plus how the child is functioning. A clinician interprets the results; the scales themselves do not diagnose.
No. The Vanderbilt is a rating scale, so it records what a parent and a teacher observe. Diagnosis is a clinical judgement that also weighs history, development, school information and other possible explanations. A high score signals a conversation worth having, not a conclusion.
Why can parent and teacher Vanderbilt scores differ?
Home and school ask different things of a child, and each rater sees a different part of the day. Structure, subject, seating and existing support all change what gets observed. A gap between parent and teacher scores is information about where difficulty appears, not a sign that someone rated incorrectly.
Each item is a frequency rating, so scoring looks at how many behaviours a rater marks at higher frequencies and whether performance items show functioning is affected. Specific symptom counts and thresholds come from the official NICHQ scoring instructions, which we link rather than restate.
An answer is published only after every clinical statement in it has been checked against a primary source and a reviewer has signed off. More answers are in preparation and appear here as they clear that process.
