Some concern has recently been expressed in some quarters over the flood of parents and schools rushing to put kids on drugs so they’ll behave. Invariably, misbehaviour is blamed on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
That link is busted; it comes up with HTML code at the end. When you pop it open just delete the extra crud at the end. “IV” should be the last two characters.
I’d like to see some hard-core evidence of the “disease” but I could never find any.
My OPINION is that it’s crap. I wouldn’t put my child on ritalin or whatever it’s called. I suppose there are some real cases, but I imagine they are VERY few. The kids are probably just bored/disinterested. I was at that age.
My girlfriend teaches at a middle school and theres way too many kids who are on ritalin, or have been diagnosed with ADD (she showed me the medical problem list once, the majority of it was ADD and ADHD).
I am by no means an expert in the field & have no authority to say whether or not ADD or ADHD is a real impairment, however I think that many professionals consider it to be one.
Just looking at that list, I’m pretty sure that I would have qualified as an ADD kid three times over, but there seemed to be plenty of kids around me acting the same way & nobody made a big fuss about it. I eventually grew up, and as I saw the maturity level change around me (my peers), I changed along with them. I stopped being a class clown, became much less “hyper”, and stopped using all of the leftover ingredients from my school cafeteria lunch to make a mystery dessert.
I was a teacher for 12 years but never taught nobody younger than high school graduates, so maybe I’ve never been exposed to a real ADD candidate. I think kids are just hyper little monsters with batteries that never run down.
It’s real, and there’s a growing amount of neurological studies that show what happens. Basically, the hypothalamus is understimulated in these kids, and stimulants such as Ritalin (there are many others) tends to counteract that effect.
As a middle school teacher, I would have to say that ADHD is a real malady, however, I do feel that it is over-diagnosed. Going from my own experience in the classroom, I would say that a child that had ADHD truly can’t help how they act. They are constanly distracted, have problems staying in their seats (no matter how many times they are chastised) and cannot for the life of them stay on task. When confronted about these actions, they usually are quite apoligetic and respectful, but their behavior doesn’t cease.
On the other hand, you have your typical class clown, whose goal in life is to be the center of attention and will stop at nothing to get this attention they crave. I feel that these students can control themselves, but they choose not to. A lot of times, these students don’t get the discipline they need at home, and God knows, as educators in the year 2000, we’re certainly not allowed to discipline them. When confronted about their actions, these students usually protest loudly that, “It wasn’t my fault!” or “I wasn’t doing anything wrong!” and don’t take responsibility for their own actions.
How we would delineate between these two types of students, I’m not sure as I am not a psychologist/psychiatrist, but trust me, ADHD is real.
This describes my son perfectly. He can barely sit still long enough to write his own name. He was having the kinds of problems described above. We had him evaluated by the school psychiatrist and his family doctor. He is now on Ritalin. He’s doing a lot better in school. Count me as a believer.
There’s also a misconception that AD(H)D just “goes away” as the child who has it grows up. It doesn’t. There is a DSM-?? (whatever the latest one is) entry for “Residual Attention Deficit Disorder” (I think that’s the right name), which is ADD manifesting in adults. The symptoms have to have been present in childhood, and the hyperactivity usually does tend to disappear before adulthood. There is a fairly large and growing number of adults whose childhood came before the general screening of AD(H)D began who are being diagnosed with the disorder.
The latest DSM (DSM-IV) does not show any “residual attention deficit disorder.” ADHD affects both children and adults. One of the criteria is that one or more of the hyperactive-impulsive or inattentive symptoms must have been present before the age of 7.
The problem with the criteria, which provide that six or more of certain symptoms of inatention or hyperactivity-impulsivity, as delineated therein, persisted for at least six months to a degree tht is maladaptive and inconsistent with developmental level, is that it is very subjective.
In addition, as noted, it has been over-diagnosed, primarily, I think (altho I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist) because of lack of strict adherence to the diagnostic criteria. Children who have “disorders with prominent symptoms of inattention or hyperactivity-impulsitvity that do not meet criteria for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder” are diagnosed as having a “Conduct Disorder.”
I’m no neurosergeon, but this doesn’t sound like anything more than lack of focus in general. I’m not saying this for all the cases, I’m sure that there are plenty of people out there who have a legitimate chemical imbalance, but certainly not the huge percentage of children which are diagnosed ADD. I know plenty of adults, myself included, who read books rarely, watch TV for many hours a day often flipping the channel during commercials, live in somewhat of a mess because cleaning takes too much time, and show enough signs of mental distraction that if they were placed in fourth grade, would be on medication faster than you could say “Focusin”. Thing is, I can sit in front of a computer for eight hour writing a program in a complex computer language as I try to piece a porly written documentation together. I don’t have any problems focusing, I just don’t do it that often.
Problem is, focusing isn’t taught at school, just a bunch of things that require focus. Throw in four hours of schitzophrenic kid’s TV a day and it’s no wonder that children have trouble reading an entire book. So we give it a name, ascribe it to a lack on neurotransmitters in a portion of the brain (which is about as ambiguous as saying that sleep is caused by my brain shutting down rather than vice-versa), find a drug that stimulates you to focus, and medicate the hell out of the kids. I wonder what would happen if somebody taught third graders how to meditate for half an hour a day?
I’m sick of people not taking responsibility for their mental state. I do agree that there are people who have a legitimate reason to go on medication, but you don’t give a psychoactive drug to children just because they are lazy. There are so many healthy ways to change someone’s mood that actually do good, rather than create a substance dependancy. I know 22 year olds who take ritalin because they feel they can’t function normally without it. I wonder how much of that is a real disorder and how much of that it classic conditioning based on the learned advice of psychiatrists and the hyper-focus buzz of a good hit of ritalin.
Most pediatricians think that ADD is a real disorder. Some don’t, arguing almost any kid can pay attention to Nintendo. Ritalin and Dexedrine unquestionably helps school performance in thousands of kids, they do not take these psychoactive drugs for mood. Had you met many of these kids, and I have, you would realize that they differ substantially from being the class clown. Drugs aren’t usually prescribed before testing is completed by both the parent and the teacher. In my town, the medication is also administered in a “double blind” way so that only the pharmacist knows which 2-weeks to 1-month the child is getting the medication. For many children, the difference is night and day, and the change is very positive.
DSM-IV criteria of other disorders would blow you away as well. The DSM was brought into play because before its existence, different psychiatrists would make vastly different diagnoses on the same patient. These would be treated differently, and consequences from drug-drug reactions could also be very damaging. The DSM, in theory, says A+B+C=D, but in practice psychiatrists still use their clinical experience. The conditions mentioned in your link are all subjective and are properly marked on a scale. The reason it is overdiagnosed, all of a sudden, might be because people weren’t looking for it. I know an Indian pediatrician who disagrees. “This disease doesn’t exist in my part of the world”. Even he thinks ritalin benefits many kids, but it needs close monitoring, and it should be given partly as a placebo initially to make sure there is a real effect, in the opinion of everybody. To be ADD, you must display these traits to an extreme degree in several different settings, not just school. I think you also need poor marks despite real effort to qualify.
I have known people who were being treated for ADD whom I would say had genuine need of ritalin, and others who were not–often in the same family.
For instance: My nephew NEEDS ritalin. Pretty much ever since he was out of the crib, he’s been a problem. Held back several times in school, constantly distracted, no social skills, and, most importantly, prone to random acts of destruction. Ritalin reins him in.
On the other hand, his younger sister is on Ritalin and, in my opinion, does NOT need it. She’s attention-hungry (esp. since the parents spend so much time disciplining her brother) and would likely be fine w/o Ritalin. I have even seen her doped up on it to a near-stupor, something that has me and the rest of my family a little furious.
I also have a friend (mid-20s) who is ADD and on Ritalin. He’s always pretty manic; if he ever slowed down and got depressed, I’d say he was bipolar, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I can’t imagine what he’d be like w/o the Ritalin. Probably impossible to talk to.
No responsible neurologist would prescribe a drug to anyone who hadn’t met the criteria for a diagnosis of a condition for which drugs would be indicated. Yes, the diagnoses aren’t as clear-cut as anyone would like, but they’re improving, and they’re not all that subjective, either. Yes, the problem can be confused with, and often occurs in conjunction with, simple bad attitudes, but they can be separated, and neurologists who do this for a living can tell the difference.
Ritalin can be found on the black market, sure, but not without a prescription otherwise. The people you mention who self-medicate would, I hope, be under the supervision of a doctor - if not, they don’t know the risks they’re taking. If they really do have ADHD but haven’t been diagnosed, they would be examples that contradict your earlier statement about it being overdiagnosed. I’ll add that the people selling their legal Ritalin on the black market instead of taking it as prescribed aren’t doing themselves any favors, either.
Yes, there are still pediatricians and neurologists who don’t think it’s a real condition, but they’re retreating in the face of all the PET-scan-based work that shows it’s real.
IANAMD, just a parent who’s had to learn the hard way. Please visit ChADD - that’s the most complete and best organized resource I know of.
I work in a college admissions office and over the
course of the last five years I’ve personally reviewed the
applications of nearly 1,800 students. Each year there are more and more students including documentation of ADHD with their application materials, and its clear to me that when the students start on medication, grades improve. While I’m still convinced that many students are diagnosed with ADHD when they simply lack focus, I do believe those who truly have a problem are helped. But too often myself and our colleagues run into a situation where a parent says “Well, his grades stunk, so we got him on Ritalin, and now he’s fine.” The nonchalance is frightening.
The other interesting point is that for the dozens and dozens of cases (real or otherwise) I’ve encountered in these applicants, exactly ONE in five years has been a female, and it was very clear that she had legitimate problems. For a lot of the guys, the legitimacy is difficult to ascertain.
When I was still studying to be a teacher, I took a class called something like “Teaching the Exceptional Child.” About halfway through the semester, I finally worked up my nerve, raised my hand and asked:
Prof, whatever happened to the dumb kids?
He didn’t like the question. Suffice it to say that nowadays, many school officials (not all) work from the core principle that all children can succeed.
You can see how easy it is to get from there to the point at which you give every child every single thing he or she needs to succeed.
When I taught, I worked from the perspective that every child wants to succeed. I think it an important distinction.
Certainly there are students with a medical need for drugs like ritalin. But, I don’t think every kid on drugs needs to be. Not even close…
I’m a parent who has been through the mill of diagnosis and treatment with one kid and we are now doing the dance with the second kid. I do believe that ADHD is overdx’ed and there are some kids who score the dx because they are simply not ready for school but the condition definitely exists and where it exists medication can be needed. But not in isolation, the kids generally need other support as well.
ADHD is no longer the ‘fashionable’ dx in Australia though. We’re dx’ing autism and Aspergers syndrome at a great rate of knots. It’s been fascinating to see with my kids how readily they got Aspie dx’es in Australia while in NZ there is NO way they would dx’ed on the autistic spectrum. My older kid in an age level classroom (which he isn’t in ) would appear ADHD. Especially if he were bored rigid.
As a parent I have pretty firmly rejected any dx’es that I felt were wrong and/or didn’t serve the needs of the child. My younger kid is currently dx’ed as high functioning autistic. I think that’s crap but it gets him services which he does need. For whatever reason in some areas, he is developmentally delayed while being extremely advanced in other areas.
My older kid is dx’ed as Anxiety Disorder with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Zoloft has been a complete lifesaver in this household. He was on the verge of developing agoraphobia before the Zoloft.
But finding the right dx’es, the right people to work with my kids and developing my own parenting skills to a point where I can finally say we can see the light at the end of the tunnel has been one of the most awful years of my life. IMO most parents do go through major anguish and grief with kids who differ from the norms and if they get the wrong advice from the professionals and don’t know HOW to go on looking for a better idea, it really sucks.
And I could do a fine rant on the vagueness of the DSM. Aspergers is being dx’ed where I live on the most subjective of grounds. There’s nothing scientific about it!
I have ADHD. Yes, it is real.
I cannot study very well. It is next to impossible to sit down and study a chapter in a book the way a normal person would. My mind drifts-I get distracted very easily by noises. I do HYPER focus as well-I can get lost in other things very easily. It was impossible for me to sit still when I was very young-I would run around the room, roll on the floor, pace, I couldn’t focus.
And I was not momentarily diagnosed-I had to go through a ton of tests before I was diagnosed.
Trust me, it exists, and it sucks. Just because it may be over diagnosed does NOT mean that it doesn’t exist. That would be like saying that if, a doctor diagnosed 100 people with cancer, and 90 of them did NOT have cancer, that cancer does not exist.
Per Attrayant’s post both my daughter and myself would probably qualify as ADHD/ADD candidates. A few years ago, while listening to teachers and doctors tell me why she was or was not ADHD etc, I was astounded by the criteria lists they used. Pretty much any child that wasn’t a compliant drone was subject to being stamped with these labels. It was bad enough how subjective the diagnostic procedure(s) for ADHD/ADD were to begin with (ie one from column A and two from column B = ADHD!), but the worst part was the self righteous air of absolute assurance that THIS (ADHD) was the problem and if only we would do as they encouraged all would be well.
I’m sure there are children who are so over the top that medication is necessary but for the vast middle cohort of Ritalin users it is my opinion that they are being medicated into compliance for the lifestyle convenience of their parents and teachers.
I’ve seen the Ritalin kinds and the “Stepford Wives” aura they exude is frightening. I wouldn’t trade my brilliant, creative, distracted little girl for a million of these kids.
There are kids with serious problems that really need medication but the notion of ADD/ADHD as it exists today is largely a huge diagnostic grab bag that you can put practically any annoying behavior into. Beyond ADD/ADHD is the new fashionable disease “Asperger’s Syndrome” which doctors, teachers and mothers are glomming onto like bees to honey.
God…where will it end, maybe when everyone has their own personal “disorder” or “syndrome”.
Sure it exists. I definitely have it, without the hyperactivity tho. Yeah the method for diagnosis of ADD is somewhat crude at this point; and many people are misdiagnosed. But it does exist. I remember some studies I looked over that seemed to indicate that it’s very possible only 1/3 of the people diagnosed with ADD, actually have it.