Posted on 07/11/2006 3:24:49 PM PDT by blam
Feminine Side of ADHD: Attention disorder has lasting impact on girls
Bruce Bower
Although hyperactive behavior often abates during the teen years for girls with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, many struggle with serious academic, emotional, and social problems related to that condition, a 5-year study finds.
Compared with teenage girls who had no psychiatric disorder, those with ADHD had difficulties that included delinquency, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, poor mathematics and reading achievement, rejection by peers, and lack of planning skills, reports a team led by psychologist Stephen P. Hinshaw of the University of California, Berkeley.
"ADHD in girls is likely to yield continuing problems in adolescence, even though hyperactive symptoms may recede," Hinshaw says.
The new findings appear in the June Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
In 1997, Hinshaw's team organized the first of three yearly summer camps for 6- to 12-year-old girls, including individuals already diagnosed with ADHD. The project focused on 140 girls with ADHD and 88 girls with no psychiatric disorder, all of whom completed one of the 5-week programs. Staff monitored each girl's daily behavior and administered a battery of tests without knowing who had an ADHD diagnosis.
Girls with ADHD showed marked problems in academic subjects, in peer relationships, and in planning and time management. Girls' ADHD symptoms involved disorganized and unfocused behavior more than the disruptive, impulsive acts often observed in boys with this condition.
The latest findings, collected from those same girls 5 years later, come from interviews and questionnaires administered at home to 126 girls with ADHD and 81 girls with no disorder. The researchers also obtained reports on each girl's behavior from her parents and teachers.
Of girls diagnosed with ADHD as 6-to-12-year-olds, 39, or nearly a third, no longer displayed the condition as teens. The 87 adolescent girls who continued to deal with ADHD grappled with learning problems, psychiatric symptoms, and social difficulties far beyond any observed in teen girls never diagnosed with ADHD, the researchers say. Only about half of the girls who originally displayed symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsiveness did so as teenagers.
The new data mirror earlier reports that hyperactivity in boys with ADHD often recedes during adolescence as problems with inattention grow worse, remarks psychiatrist Benedetto Vitiello of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md. "ADHD is a developmental condition that changes over time in similar ways in boys and girls," Vitiello says.
In the new study, no specific form of treatment was associated with shedding ADHD between childhood and adolescence.
Treatment effects are difficult to tease out in samples such as this, Hinshaw says. Girls with severe, hard-to-treat ADHD symptoms tend to seek treatment, as do those with mild symptoms who are highly motivated to get help or whose parents are treatment savvy.
As many as 7 million children and teenagers in the United States have been diagnosed at some time in their lives with ADHD. The condition occurs about three times as often in boys as in girls.
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It could be that the percentage is so high because parents are more likely to pull an ADHD child out of school to spare them. My thoughts were just that homeschooled kids would have more opportunity to move and get rid of the energy so that a normally active child would not be misdiagnosed when they are just bored. But if truly ADHD children are homeschooled at a higher rate, that would throw off the numbers.
I don't try to get into why people home school, no more than I try to get in why any school is chosen. Kids are who they are and we as parents have to make our best choice at the time.
My gut tells me that more ADHD kids are in public schools than home schools because I don't think most parents have the patience to handle these bundles of energies. I can't tell you how many times I have parents tell me how bad their kids are after the weekend or after vacation. It's just a thought, not sure of anything.
BTW, good catch on that vanilla flavoring. But, I bet it wasn't too much of an accident, I imagine you were like we were, looking at everything that set him off. Is he still sensitive to it?
I would bet many times as many die from vaccinations. It is pretty obvious whether it works or not. If the person is more calm after taking it, bingo. I just think they need to find something else for children. 10 mg of Ritalin in a 50 lb (or less) child is ALOT! I think in most cases the children under 18 need to be placed in a controlled environment rather than medication. Even though I don't think it is killing them, I don't think it is possible that all the cases in children are correct diagnoses. But trust me, it is real. Just a note: Zoloft seems to be really good for certain types of depression and doesn't give the patient a drugged feeling. Many times things like Prozac work only because the patient doesn't give a crap. The problem is still there, but they are standing beside themselves looking in, and could care less. Zoloft is definitely a great cure for IBS without feeling drugged in any way.
I don't know if it still bothers him or not. He's 16 now and loves to eat good (real) food so doesn't bother with the baked goods that usually contain it. When we do bake at home (which he also does a fair share of) we use real vanilla flavoring.
I'd guess he still is sensitive. If it's some kind of chemical reaction, as opposed to an allergy, it's unlikely that he would outgrow it like you can with an allergy.
BTW, I have a friend whose son was sensitive like that to Red#40. It was like Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. This normally nice kid would get downright vicious when he had it. She could ALWAYS tell. But off it, he was a really nice kid.
[BS. I've had this mess all my life.]
I totally sympathize and agree. I'm right there with you. I have ADD too. The problem with me is that I hyperfocus on one thing. Whatever I focus on I will know it backwards and forwards. If it is a subject I'm interested in I will have read about 20 books on it at least. But meanwhile I forget to pay my bills, return phonecalls or do paperwork at my job. I could go on and on, but I will stop there.
That's about how many reasons we had for homeschooling ourselves. I could not really pinpoint any one that was the deciding factor.
Sounds like you're exactly describing my daughters.
Every time you pick up a paper, you read about recess becoming optional or just being deleted. Or they limit what the kids can do at recess...Dodgeball is out...too dangerous...Tag is hazardous...no monkey bars, teeter totters or swings, lawsuits waiting to happen (okay, so the teeter totters really ARE dangerous...)...playing Red Rover? I don't think so.
So they completely remove any kind of spontaneous activity...which is the root of playground joy and fun. You can only play what they let you play.
And they wonder why kids are hyperactive in class.
One thing I found that worked well for our kids, aside from the dietary things, was having them join the local Y swim team. When they were putting in enough hours a week in the water, it really settled them down. A week after the season ended, I could see a big difference in how they behaved at home and how they treated each other. That's why I'm such a big fan of getting them moving.
My youngest daughter, also 19, kept getting into trouble at school because she gave teachers she didn't like a difficult time. The teachers complained that she had ADHD, which mysteriously disappeared when she took a class from a teacher she liked.
I took her to the counseling sessions, but did not put her on drugs, and she managed to graduate from high school in the middle of her class.
Now she is working to earn money for college, her goal is to become a therapist and work with disabled children.
My daughter's story is similar to yours, SoftballMom.
She was diagnosed by doctors at age 19, and the help she got changed her life. She was never hyperactive (except within her mind), and no teachers pushed any diagnosis or medication. She begged for help herself, after years of silent frustration. She went from an absolutely desperate state, to highly successful college senior in just a few years. What she suffered was painfully REAL.
I may be ignurnt, but I do know a sentence is supposed to have a period at the end of it. < /sarcasm>
Go get yourself a medical degree,complete an internship and residency and then spend some time in the research labs of Harvard,Yale,Columbia,the NIH,or the CDC and we'll talk.
I wish it was as simple as too little dopamine, or exercise or food allergies or loose parenting or bad teaching or any number of things you want to throw out, but it wasn't. It is however part of her and we love her because of it, in spite of it, with it or without it. She is our beloved gift and we celebrate everyone of her victories.
So, you are one of those that don't deal with this in your life or in the lives of one that you love. Count yourself lucky.
Nope. Those who have it and/or have children with it know better. Yes, there are some who are mis-diagnosed, but that doesn't support the conclusion that all diagnoses are false.
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