Posted on 07/10/2013 1:46:20 PM PDT by neverdem
Studies of Children With Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Find Little Change
It's no longer shocking to hear of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder—and others simply facing a big test—taking ADHD medicine to boost their performance in school. But new studies point to a problem: There's little evidence that the drugs actually improve academic outcomes.
Stimulants used to treat ADHD like Ritalin and Adderall are sometimes called "cognitive enhancers" because they have been shown in a number of studies to improve attention, concentration and even certain types of memory in the short-term. Similar drugs were given to World War II soldiers to improve their ability to stay alert while scanning radars for enemy aircraft.
However, a growing body of research finds that in the long run, achievement scores, grade-point averages or the likelihood of repeating a grade generally aren't any different in kids with ADHD who take medication compared with those who don't. (Typically, studies take into account accommodations schools provide kids with ADHD, such as more time to take tests.)
A June study looked at medication usage and educational outcomes of nearly 4,000 students in Quebec over an average of 11 years and found that boys who took ADHD drugs actually performed worse in school than those with a similar number of symptoms who didn't. Girls taking the medicine reported more emotional problems, according to a working paper published on the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit economics research firm.
"The possibility that [medication] won't help them [in school] needs to be acknowledged and needs to be closely monitored," says economics professor Janet Currie, an author on the paper and director of the Center for Health & Wellbeing, a health policy institute at Princeton University. Kids may not get the right dose to see sustained benefits, or...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The idea used to be that it was only used for the severely ADD. The stimulants charged up the parts of the brain that weren’t working right. That part works. That’s probably 5% of those that get it now.
The rest are just getting high and doing better in the short term and when they come off it they’ll crash.
Medical weed is the same situation, in reverse. 99% don’t need that, but it’s all political. Political just means ‘vote for it’ regardless of reality.
thank you for presenting the results of your medical expertise and professional experience, Doctor
now what is your AMA doing to curb this problem that you have documented?
I guess for the college crowd it is easier and cheaper to get from the campus docs than “speed” (diet pills) used to be in my time, or smoking - if you remember the days when cigarettes used to be the ADHD self-medication of choice
yes true ADHD kids are affected the opposite way by stimulants- it slows them down
ADHD/ADD are now considered to be on the same spectrom as autism, which the most severe cases of autism have skyrocketed so why wouldn’t other disorders on the same spectrum also be increasing?
no, its not because we don’t spank kids or that teachers don’t know how to handle spirited children. When you work with kids you quickly figure out that some of them have “issues”, having lived with an ADHD brother my DD can quickly spot others kids like her brother
This spike in ADHD/autism etc- I suspect something is going on in our advanced society perhaps prenatally with kids’ exposure to toxins while still in the womb.
I know my son’s ADHD is an offshoot of his being poisoned in womb by his BM’s alcoholism. It is stunning what just a few days of toxic exposure can do to the fetal brain and other development at even selected days in the pregnancy. For example the FAS “mask” of distorted facial features comes from exposure to alcohol during just a single 3 day period in gestation
Huh?
I’ll give it a shot:
dear daughter
biological mother (of course ‘b’ could stand for a number of things in this case!)
fetal alcohol symdrome
All comes from the context.
How did I do?
Also, while having trouble concentrating on some things, other things that interest them can be given intense concentration for long periods, such as reading a book from cover to cover without putting it down, but being unable to complete a simple worksheet in school.
Some of these kids have poor social skills and either ignore others or don't know how to interact with them. This turns other kids against them.
There was a particular brilliant student I had who was unintentionally rude on a regular basis. I knew an adult who was the same way. They both would barge into a conversation I was having with another person, would completely ignore the other person, and start talking to me about something completely different.
For both of them, their current thoughts became THE most important thing in the world for them at that moment. Even trivial things demanded their and others' full attention.
The younger person was working on his problem and would sometimes say, "There I did it again. I'm working on it. Excuse me."
The older person was a total loss. He often irritated numerous people without having a clue.
Fascinating behaviors to watch. You feel sorry for them since their brain works in a non-standard way in some (or maybe all) situations. Thankfully, both of these people were brilliant. The kid who is average or a bit below average in intelligence gets punished by their peers. They can react in different ways to this by going into a shell or by acting out violently.
I've seen so many cases where elementary students, mostly boys, are given this crap. What they really need is recess!
It’s not ADD or ADDHD. It’s really BAD (Bad Attitude Disorder) in most kids and parents. The drugs are a way of making them into zombies so they don’t have to be parented and the schools don’t have to manage them. Personal responsibility then is off parents, the kids and the schools. What a terrible joke.
right on!
yes the kid with ADD/ADHD suffers socially even more so than academically (many of them are bright enough to muddle through subjects that don't require a lot of organized thinking and they do absorb subject matter visually or auditory even though they can't sit in a seat and participate in a group discussion)
In elementary school my son had an IEP and an excellent team helping him and his teachers to understand his condition and make accommodations. Now he is in online Homeschool, doing great, but we have to seek out social situations with teens. He is gradually getting better, he has a teen sister who helps and guides him. But he will always be better with bright understanding adults than with kids
Our sad experience with bio son who passed was that his undiagnosed ADD led to social isolation which led to anger and low self esteem which led to association with other “losers”, self medication with cigarettes. then alcohol, then pot, then risk taking behaviors, then hard drugs...which killed him
thus I am trying to take what I learned from his life and use it for the good of others
obviously we are averse to addictive drugs
when I expressed this fear to the behavioral pediatrician who diagnosed his ADHD and prescribed stimulants for his ADHD, she said “think of him becoming addicted to being normal”.
and that is what has happened My son recognizes the difference in his ability to focus and to self regulate when he is on his meds, and off, and chooses to take them
what his adult future holds- don't know - tbd!
I just know he is a bright active NICE 15 yr old boy with no anger issues who does not smoke drink or use weed or hang with anyone who does - !
But the downside is that even with meds he cannot participate in a sports team (or much any group activity with peers) to save his life unless there is a caring adult to mentor him one-on-one
and there are a lot of kids like him and I get frustrated with the comments of some who haven't walked the walk or who think since their path worked out for them, they know the way
Developmentally Disabled, Birth Mother, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
These deficits are not cured by giving kids more recess. It's not something that can be fixed by more discipline. The behavior problems that may or may not be associated with these processing deficits are just a symptom; they're not the whole issue, and even if you use some form of discipline to get the child or adult to sit down and shut up for a few minutes, that doesn't fix what's wrong with his brain.
And yes, this is my area of professional knowledge. I have multi-generational family experience with it as well as clinical experience, back in the day.
Since this is your field, maybe you can answer the question a lot of us have. How many of these group situation mass murderers have at some point been given these poisons?
Personally, I would like every doctor who prescribed them to these people who were totally unhinged by them could be charged with accessory to the crime, murder.
To answer your question: I don't know how many of these mass murderers have been on stimulant drugs, but let's not confuse the stimulants used to treat ADD and ADHD with the SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors,like Prozac) that are used to treat depression. Apparently there are quite a few kids who are very badly affected by SSRIs, and there's evidence linking these drugs to violent or suicidal behavior. Giving people a cocktail of anti-depressants, Ambien, and stimulants is a good way to cause problems. Competent psychiatrists I know are absolutely horrified by the practice of mixing drugs like this.
As for people coping with living with who they are, as you recommend, you may not understand the problems this can represent. If you can't t remember anything you study, no matter how hard you try, you're not going to be able to get through high school and earn a living. Or if somehow you manage to get through high school by the skin of your teeth, you won't be able to hold onto a job because you get confused, can't keep things straight, can't figure out what you're supposed to do, and get your supervisors furious with you. I've seen this among family members who were chronic screw-ups but turned into star employees by appropriate testing and medication. Do you really want to support people like that, or would you rather they just starve and die? Perhaps in centuries gone by they did starve and die, so they didn't pass on their bad genes.
There's definitely a genetic component to these problems, but I suspect there are things in our society that are making more people have attention-deficit disorder. I don't know, but the epidemic isn't just the result of bad parenting or lack of spankings.
Would you be convinced that this really is a brain malfunction if you could see the brain scans of people who have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD?
I suggest you read the posts of people whose kids are ADD/ADHD or who have taught a number of them. They are the longer ones whose authors have stories to tell of real kids with real problems that are not long-term cured by discipline, punishment, or physical exercise.
Your solutions are simple, but they don’t work on the real cases. It is like telling a person who has a brain tumor to act normal or you will make them stay after school and it that doesn’t work you are going to smack them.
Sorry for your loss.
I know how frustrating it is to talk to people who think these problems aren’t real.
Poisons? If you don't believe the personal stories you can read in this thread, I suggest you search out people whose children's lives were saved by the proper use of these drugs.
Why do you assume that everyone who disagrees with you has no knowledge? I've also seen students who've become suicides when put on that crap. Haven't you?
Personal stories are anecdotal. Most of them I suspect could’ve been helped with diet, lifestyle, environmental adjustments. The rest would be better off adjusting to their god-given aptitudes.
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