Frequently Asked Questions

David Rabiner, Ph.D. developed this program. He's a child psychologist and a retired Research Professor at Duke University. He has spent his career studying ADHD and building practical tools to help parents, teachers, and clinicians support kids with attention difficulties. He has published more than 50 research papers, funded by groups including the National Institute of Mental Health, the Centers for Disease Control, and the U.S. Department of Education.

Since 1997, Dr. Rabiner has also published Attention Research Update, a free monthly newsletter that explains new ADHD research for parents, teachers, and health professionals. Over 20,000 people subscribe.

We designed this program with privacy in mind. When a teacher submits a rating form, we score it right away and email the results directly to you. Results are never sent automatically to anyone else — if you'd like your child's clinician to see them, you can forward the email yourself. To show trends over time, we keep a small summary of each form — symptom counts and a few key ratings — but not the full form and not any written comments the teacher wrote.

During setup, you give us your name, email address, your child's first name, and your teacher's name and email. We store this securely and never share it with anyone else. You can delete your account at any time from your account management page, which permanently erases all of this information. If you want extra privacy, you can use initials or a nickname instead of real names — either when signing up, or later from your account management page — just make sure your child's teacher will still know who it's from.

On the security side: your information is stored in an encrypted database that only this program's own servers can access — nobody else has the credentials needed to read it. Results emails are sent only over an encrypted connection to your email provider; if your provider can't support that, we won't send the message unencrypted and will ask for an alternate email address instead. See our full Data Privacy Policy for more detail.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends regular follow-up monitoring of ADHD treatment, including working with the child's school. But in practice this is hard to keep up with — office visits are infrequent, and there's rarely an easy way to collect ongoing feedback from school.

This program fills that gap. Regular school monitoring gives you and your child's health care provider something ADHD treatment often lacks: timely, real information about how your child is actually doing in the classroom. Without it, treatment decisions often rely on short office visits or a parent's general impressions — both of which can miss important changes happening day to day.

By tracking ratings over time, you can quickly see when your child is doing well, when things are slipping, and whether a treatment change is working. That gives you and your child's provider better information for more productive conversations and decisions together.

No. This program helps parents track how their child is doing at school and share that with their child's health care provider. It does not provide, replace, or substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Don't use results as the only basis for a medical or treatment decision. See our full disclaimer for more information.

Doctors use all 18 symptoms to decide whether a child meets the criteria for an ADHD diagnosis. This program has a different job — it tracks how a child who's already been diagnosed is responding to treatment at school, not whether they have ADHD. For that job, 12 items are enough.

We also chose to keep the form as short as possible on purpose. Teachers are busy, and a shorter form makes it more likely they'll keep filling it out consistently over time. ADHD symptoms also tend to move together — when one gets better or worse, others usually do too. So a well-chosen set of 12 items still gives a reliable, accurate picture of how well a child's ADHD is being managed at school.

Yes. The program isn't limited to U.S. families — signing up, teacher emails, and results summaries all work the same regardless of where you're located.

One thing to know: the automatic pause around winter break is built around the U.S. school calendar, so it won't line up with a different school year on its own. If your school's breaks fall on different dates, use the pause feature on your account management page to stop and resume monitoring around your own school's calendar instead.

Not necessarily. Your child's teacher automatically gets an introductory email explaining the basics — how the program works, what's asked of them, and how results will be used — before they're asked to do anything. So if reaching them directly first would be hard or would slow you down, you don't need to wait; the email covers what they need to know.

That said, there's real value in giving them a heads-up yourself when you can. It can make the process feel more collaborative and gives them a chance to ask questions or share their own thoughts before the first form arrives. If you'd like time to do that, use the delayed start option during setup to choose a later date for the program to begin.

Monthly is recommended for most families: it shows how treatment is working over time and is a manageable amount of work for a teacher. Weekly is better when treatment is just starting or being adjusted, so you can see the impact sooner.

You can switch between the two at any time from your account management page, and your trend graphs keep going across the switch instead of starting over. A common pattern is to begin with weekly during a medication change, then move to monthly once things are steady.

First, make sure the teacher is actually getting the emails. Check that their email address is correct on your account management page — if it's wrong, remove the teacher and add them again with the right address. It's also worth asking the teacher directly whether the emails are reaching their inbox or landing in spam, since school email filters sometimes block automated messages. If they're going to spam, ask the teacher to mark one as “not spam” and add monitor@helpforadd.com to their contacts so future emails come through normally.

Once you've confirmed the emails are getting through, a reminder is sent automatically if a form hasn't been submitted within a few days of the original request. If the teacher still isn't completing forms after that, it often helps to reach out to them directly — a personal note explaining how much their input matters to your child's treatment can go a long way. Busy teachers sometimes just need a nudge.

If the current schedule is more than your child's teacher can keep up with, switch to monthly ratings from your account management page. Monitoring the teacher can actually sustain is more valuable than frequent monitoring that gets skipped.

You can send rating forms to more than one teacher, or just to the teacher whose feedback would help most. If your child is struggling in a particular class, information from that teacher may be especially useful for judging how well treatment is working.

Keep in mind that ratings from different teachers often differ, since kids can act differently in different classrooms. Your child's health care provider can help you make sense of any differences that come up.

You can add more than one teacher during setup or anytime later from your account management page. Each teacher gets forms on their own independent schedule.

Each results email sums up how your child is doing in four areas: hyperactive/impulsive symptoms, inattentive symptoms, behavior and social skills, and academics.

The email opens with an overall summary — ranging from “ADHD symptoms well-managed, no other concerns” to “ADHD symptoms elevated and other problems reported” — plus a short explanation of what that means and whether it's worth a conversation with your child's provider.

Below that, all 15 rated items are listed with their scores (0–3), so you can see exactly what the teacher observed. Items showing a clear symptom or a behavior concern are flagged so they stand out at a glance.

Keep in mind this is a screening tool meant to flag areas of difficulty — not a full evaluation of your child. Always read results in the context of your child's overall situation, and discuss them with their health care provider.

Comparing results across weeks or months gives you and your child's provider a clear, objective picture of whether treatment is working, whether things are improving or slipping, and where problems keep showing up.

Yes. Each results email includes a link to a trends page with graphs of your child's ratings over time, so you see the overall pattern instead of just one week or month on its own. These graphs can cover a full school year.

If your child has more than one teacher, each one gets a separate set of graphs instead of one combined graph. Different teachers often see your child differently, so keeping their ratings separate gives you and your child's provider a clearer, more accurate picture of each classroom.

Trend graphs need a little history before a pattern shows up — they appear after 4 weekly ratings or 2 monthly ratings for a given teacher.

Not necessarily. One hard week isn't always cause for alarm, especially if your child has generally been doing well. Kids with ADHD can have off weeks for many reasons — illness, stress, a change in routine, a substitute teacher, or just normal day-to-day variation. One rough week on top of otherwise good ratings usually doesn't mean treatment needs to change.

That said, any week with concerning ratings is worth discussing with your child's health care provider. They can help you figure out whether it's a temporary blip or something that needs a closer look. Sharing the actual ratings with them — not just describing the week in general terms — gives them what they need to make that call.

A bad month carries more weight than a bad week, simply because it covers a longer stretch of time. If your child's teacher rates a full month as problematic, that's a stronger signal something may need to change, and makes a conversation with the provider especially important.

If your child is at school fewer than 2 days in a week, their teacher won't be asked to fill out a rating form for that week. This keeps ratings based on enough classroom time to be meaningful. The same applies to partial weeks from school holidays or breaks. You'll simply skip a results email that week — this is expected, not a sign of a problem.

Go to helpforadd.com/manage and enter your email address. You'll get a link that gives you access to your account for 7 days. From there you can add or remove teachers, change how often forms are sent, pause delivery during school breaks, or delete your account.

Yes — you can switch between weekly and monthly anytime from your account management page. The change takes effect on the next scheduled send date. Your trend graphs keep going across the switch instead of starting over — a small mark on the graph shows exactly where the frequency changed.

Yes — from your account management page, click “Edit” under “Your registered information” to update your name, email, or your child's first name at any time. This is also how to switch to an initial or nickname later if you signed up with real names and decide you'd like more privacy. Changes only affect future emails to your teacher — nothing already sent is changed.

Yes. From your account management page, pick the teacher you want to pause and optionally set a date to start again automatically. If you don't set a resume date, you can restart manually anytime.

From your account management page, find the teacher and click “Remove this teacher.” They'll stop getting forms right away. Removing a teacher (or swapping in a new one, e.g. at the start of a new school year) also clears that teacher's trend history, so a new teacher's graph always starts fresh instead of mixing ratings from two different people.

From your account management page, scroll to the bottom and click “Delete My Account.” This permanently removes all your information from the system. You're welcome to sign up again anytime.

Check your spam or junk folder for emails from monitor@helpforadd.com. If you find them there, mark them as “not spam” and add monitor@helpforadd.com to your contacts so future emails land in your inbox.

Check your spam folder for an email from monitor@helpforadd.com. If it's not there, make sure you're using the same email address you signed up with.