Grade schools are through 5th grade. Most grade schools in the U.S. still do social promotion - if you still can’t read by 5th grade, they still move you to middle school - where they are likely to put you in specialized classrooms. High school graduation rates are problematic - although currently we are nationally at 88% overall completion - the best ever. If you graduated high school in 1968, the overall completion rate was about 78%. When I graduated it was about 82% - even when you could graduate without reading.
There are a lot of variable in high school graduation rate. For instance, in 1968 it was still possible to get a job in a factory with an eighth grade education.
But truthfully, we graduate more kids, with higher standards, now than we ever have before. Despite, or perhaps because, 1/3rd of a class is on an IEP (I have a friend who is a teacher, and 1/3 of her class is on IEPs) .
But Magiver, I’m interested in what your grade school class was like demographically. Where did you grow up? What year? What kind of community? How big was the cohort you are talking about? Was this rural or urban or suburban? Was there a college nearby? (college towns tend to have really good education rates - I have cousins that grew up in Ames Iowa - there high school experience was very different than my blue collar high school where only a handful of students went on to college) What was the average income? It must have been a very static community - I moved on average of once a year in grade school, so had I passed through your class you would have no idea if I had graduated or gotten into heroin at 14 - and that rate of moving isn’t uncommon in some communities (military families, for instance - although that wasn’t my story - my story was my dad worked where the company needed him to work).
Even today, with historically high graduation rates, Hispanic graduation rates are dismal. This is most likely because there is a lot of migrant labor done by Hispanics - unsettled school situations - and, lets face it, concern over ICE. It is not because Hispanic kids are overdiagnosed for ADHD.
African American graduation rates are nearly what white rates are nationally. Which is great news. (Not where I live where we have a HUGE and embarrassing gap, but nationally)
I saw a PBS program a while back which stated that Asian-Americans had the lowest graduation rates of all ethnicities. I thought, wait, what? and then said that the rate among specifically Hmong and Burmese refugees is often less than 50%, even taking other factors into account. This is a relatively new focus of educational study.
I don’t like this bias against medication. Chronic medical conditions are not caused by poor character. Nobody worth listening too would say “just toughen up and learn some coping strategies so you can get off the insulin/levoxyl/albuterol.” For many people medication is a necessary part of a being healthy, and will be something taken for the rest of their life. Some very luck people can treat a condition with only medication, and don’t have to do anything else (“can’t I just take a pill for that?”). Why is it a problem if somebody can overcome their ADHD with a pill?
Twelve years ago, I may have had some sanctimonious opinions about medication and the people who take them. And then my brain started doing weird and painful things.
But even when I was suffering, I still was pretty resistant about taking medication. I wanted to fix myself all by myself. So I increased the intensity of my exercise regiment and added yoga to the mix. Became disciplined with my sleep hygiene and my diet. I learned how to do handle pushy, nosy people, but I also learned how to let down my guard some and trust people more. I learned lots of wonderful things, and my life actually did improve in the process.
But the crazy racy thoughts and the brain fog? Only medication has been effective. The same with my tics. All the learning in the world doesn’t make tics go away.
So yeah, it kind of pisses me off when people talk about medication being a “crutch”. As if crutches are inherently evil, shameful, unhelpful things. We don’t shame people with missing legs who use crutches, so why should people with neurological problems be shamed? If I was a pastoral hunter-gatherer living off the fat of the land, brain fog would not be a barrier to my success. But we aren’t hunter-gatherer society. Besides, I don’t want the kind of job where sounding like a babbling idiot doesn’t matter. Those jobs tend to be crappy. I want the kind of job where I can be called upon at a moment’s notice to deliver an impressive presentation, followed by an hour long Q and A, after which I’m free to do whatever I want to do for the remainder of the day. To do this kind of job well, I need some medical assistance. I don’t know why anyone should find this problematic. To me, it would only be problematic if I refused to try any intervention and I allowed my issues to handicap me.
What are you confused about? ADHD drugs were not invented by Moses. For many generations hyperactive children were held to the same standard as the kids around them. They learned to control their behavior. The End.
Moving forward to today we have a situation where ADHD is over diagnosed. There are enough articles on the subject that I’m not going to argue the point. Handing out drugs like they’re candy isn’t an automatic solution to every frustrated parent/teacher. They are not miracle drugs and the use of them affect such things as military service later on in life.
there was nothing special about my school beyond a reasonable level of coordinated effort toward a common goal. We didn’t skip school, we studied together and our teachers and parents kept us from driving off the rails.
If you’re arguing for a continued escalation of drugs as a solution then we really aren’t going to agree on this.
There was a time that there weren’t antibiotics for strep, and it became the much dreaded Scarlet Fever. The human race survived, and some people even survived Scarlet Fever. We had ice baths, and quarantines, and various other ways of comping. But I wouldn’t want to go back to that time either.
And again, lots of people here would probably agree with that premise. But you seem to believe it should NEVER be diagnosed. Which is it?
That was a garbled mess. Let me try again: of those with a comorbidity of ADHD and OCD (or bipolar or whatever the current preferred label is), what percentage of that group had the OCD diagnosis made after diagnosis of ADHD (and the beginning of subsequent treatment)?
The problem with your analogy is that kids didn’t die from lack of amphetamines to control behavior. Nothing I’ve said suggested that.
You seem to believe what you want to believe and then argue on that belief. It’s an unnecessary argument to make in the first place.
And yes, lots of people would probably agree with my premise. It’s the theme of this thread. There seems to be a common belief that behavior and mental problems are mutually inclusive. They are not. and therein lies the problem. When a mental problem exists it’s rarely something you can just write a prescription for. The brain is a complex chemical machine. A lot of children have killed themselves because the medicine prescribed for them made the problem worse.
I once took a medicine that caused severe muscle cramps. I stopped taking it because I figured my heart was a muscle and I really didn’t want it to cramp up. They took the medication off the market a month later because it was causing heart attacks and killing people. If adults couldn’t figure it out what chance does a child have communicating problems to a physician?
When prescribing drugs to control behavior you better damn well know what you’re doing and stay on top of it. Over-prescribing ADHD drugs has consequences.
Schizophrenics often self-medicate with tobacco, as do some people with Tourette’s. Research into this has been ongoing for at least 25 years, if not longer.
I can’t remember the name of the website, but it was for people who have various mental disorders and their family members, and maybe it was just people who were willing to post on this board using their loved ones’ real names, but it was unusual to see an “In Memoriam” for a Tourette’s patient over the age of 40.
and how many of them were taking amphetamines at the time? Did it occur to you that the study may demonstrate the problem with over-diagnosing ADHD.
If the problem exists then any conclusions based on it are in conflict. Experts estimate that 5% is a realistic upper limit of children with the disorder, but in many areas of the country, as Watson found in Virginia, up to 33% of white boys are diagnosed with ADHD. By 2011 several states reported rates greater than 13% among both boys and girls.
Are you going to beat this horse dead or admit that it’s critical to correctly diagnose and medicate people for behavioral problems. If the numbers I just posted are correct then we’re looking at an average of over twice as many children diagnosed with ADHD that should be.
Because the pill happens to be pharmaceutical-grade speed in this case. ADHD is medicated with really potent amphetamines (I’ve used them quite a bit myself, and am familiar with their effects). The fact that they’re routinely handed out to kids like candy is a little bit concerning, at the least.
For the same reason that my brother wanted to throw my mother off the balcony when her reaction to being given insulin shots was “all right! now I can eat all the sweets I want, just inject more insulin!”
For the same reason that we try to get obese people to change their relationship with food before doing a roux-en-y.
Having insulin and roux-en-y available is good, but we know that there are other methods which work for many people, which when they work have lower costs and/or less secondary effects, etc. We even know that roux-en-y doesn’t work long term unless the person also changes their relationship with food. So, for many conditions, we try the methods which are based on self-control first. I’m happy ritalin exists - but I don’t want it to be the first method used. I don’t want to create a dependency if and when other methods that do not involve one do work.
It is incumbent on you to provide evidence that small, regulated doses of amphetamines increase the likelihood of fatal accidents. Speculation is fine, but I need evidence to be persuaded. I think it is more reasonable to conclude that people who’ve been diagnosed with ADHD are at risk of fatal accidents because they exhibit a suite of behaviors that make them especially prone to serious accidents. Even if they don’t actually have a brain disease, this makes a lot of sense.
And? Obesity rates are higher in certain states than others. Rates of schizophrenia are higher in cities than in they are in rural areas. Women are more likely to suffer from certain cancers than men. All this finding suggests to me is that both genetics and environmental factors play a role in ADHD–just like any other disease.
I don’t think I’m the one beating a dead horse. I have fully acknowledged that people should not reach for medication before they have tried other interventions. And I do believe that ADHD may be overdiagnosed. But you seem to believe it either doesn’t exist or that it can be “cured” with a stay-at-home mother and strict discipline. These are nonsensical views not supported by science.
One thing about impluse control disorders - shockingly, they tend to result in higher incidents of unplanned pregnancy. There seems to be a genetic component to ADHD…
Is ADHD overdiagnosed - possibly. But it requires a few hours worth of testing to arrive at a diagnosis. Some of the tests are designed to weed out people who are amphetamine shopping. Wile it isn’t common to test for, there are differences in the ADHD brain that can be seen on an MRI or EEG - and that researchers can see that difference says that the people showing up to study really do have the disorder.
I would say that its overdiagnosed in places where they just medicate without testing - either to get an IEP for a kid who wants the advantage of more time on the SAT (and may flush the medication) or places where proper diagnostic protocols aren’t followed (West Virginia is also where they handed out opiates like Halloween candy - does it surprise anyone that they’d over diagnosis ADHD as well? - their medical system has been complicit in their addiction issues)
monstro - I’ll disagree with you a little - I personally think that in the case of ADHD - like with depression or anxiety - medication is appropriate in order to get the symptoms under control while you then engage in other interventions. Its really difficult to learn different habits when your processing is all screwed up - like its difficult to learn different thought habits when every thought ends in “and I could kill myself” It may be possible for you to then stop the medication. But since ADHD is usually diagnosed in children - and success or failure in school happens so rapidly, taking the time to explore behavioral conditioning might create a situation where a kid can’t catch up to his potential. (This was a mistake we made with delaying a diagnosis in my daughter and just trying to establish good habits - those habits could not be learned while she couldn’t process - and so she lost years - while her bad habits continues to be solidified).
I wonder how much would early intervention make a difference, there. I realize our cases are all probably on the mild side, but my family just assumes that everybody will “bore easily”, so we start getting that particular bit educated out while still in diapers (stuff such as hyperfocus we perceive as a feature, not a bug; that other people need to learn to call out our name to get us out of it is just a matter of having decent manners). It makes a huge difference in so many other things…
I recognize that it is important not to view medicine as magic. That just taking the pill makes all things better. A lot of treatments, not just for obesity and mental illness, but also things like arthritis and injuries, require both changes in behavior and medication.
The thing I caution against is that it feels like the focus on behavioral changes leads to a “why don’t you just x” kind of attitude and an assumption that someone who is taking medication HASN’T done all the other work too. It’s gonna vary on a person by person basis, obviously. A lot of people haven’t done the other work. But a lot of people have or aren’t able to (like with Dangerosa’s child).
I guess what I am saying is that we need to be careful about our attitudes toward medication and those that need it. We need to make sure not to treat it like magic or candy and be sure to also avoid demonizing it.
PS - Early intervention is very helpful with avoiding long term effects and difficulties related to Autism and ADHD. It just isn’t always available for people.