The main symptoms of asthma are chronic coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, decreased exercise tolerance and chest pain or tightness. If your child’s breathing sounds noisy or has increased 50 percent above normal, he may have asthma. Other signs include lethargy (she’s tired and uninterested in her favorite activities), quieter crying and difficulty eating.

“Although chest wheezing is a prominent symptom, asthma is just one of many causes of wheezing in children,” says Dr. Sami Bahna, Chief of the Allergy & Immunology section of Louisiana Sate University Health Sciences Centre in Shreveport, Louisiana. Symptoms are also similar to those in viral infections, croup, bronchitis, pneumonia and cystic fibrosis. So your child’s doctor may request a consultation by an expert to rule out these other problems. Since allergens are often the cause of childhood asthma, evaluation for allergy might be helpful The doctor will take a detailed medical history, including information about family allergies and asthma, and may want to do blood tests, allergy skin testing or possibly take x-rays.