Boy 6 years

Adrian's mother had applied for help at the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Out-Patient Department because she felt that she had great difficulty attracting his attention. He always seemed to be in a different world and would not tolerate any disturbance when he was active with one of his favourite pastimes. At other times he would just roam about the apartment and seemed never able to calm down. At those times it was really impossible to get him to sit still for even fractions of a minute. Adrian's mother had read about so-called Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in a popular weekly and felt that there were traits of this condition that she recognised in Adrian.

The child psychiatrist noticed at once as she approached the waiting room area that Adrian would not look up from his comic strip magazine even as the nurse announced his name and asked Adrian and his mother to come along to a nearby room. Once in the doctor's office Adrian sat down but appeared to take no interest whatsoever either in the doctor or the mother and continued, sitting in a chair with his legs crossed, to study his magazine intently.