ADHD is diagnosed in two to three million school children in the United States. For those who receive an ADHD diagnosis, clinical psychologist Susan Ashley states that about 80 percent will receive medication at one point or another. She asks the question, "Why the push for medicine?" Why not, instead, she reasons, push for parental training and educational remediation? These are appropriate questions.
One reason is that the United States is very comfortable with pills as a solution to every sort of problem. If a pill can fix the problem with little or not effort, why not? If a teacher has a difficult child in school, and prescribing the child Ritalin will solve that problem for the remainder of the school year, why shouldn't the teacher's life be made a little easier?
Who is diagnosed with ADHD? Facts and Statistics
The following facts and statistics shed light on who is being diagnosed with ADHD:
- ADHD is usually considered to be a childhood condition but its symptoms can be present with some adults as well.
- ADHD symptoms are manifest with poor concentration, impulse control, lack of attention or focus. ADHD sometimes includes hyperactivity, which may be the case in perhaps 40-70% of ADHD diagnoses.
- 3-10% of children in each state (U.S.)–2.5 million school age children–are diagnosed with ADHD.
- Up to two thirds of children who are diagnosed with ADHD also have a secondary disorder such as depression, an anxiety disorder or Tourette Syndrome, or they may also be diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) or Conduct Disorder (CD)
Since every child displays some of the symptoms associated with ADHD, when is ADHD diagnosed? Simply put, when symptoms are prolonged and disruptive to the daily life of the child (or adult).
Encouragement to Parents
Encouraging to parents are the comments of Russell Barkley, who stated that ADHD is not a "patholocial condition;" rather, ADHD is a categorization of a disorder that is at the "extreme lower end of a normal trait. " What that means is, it cannot be considered a disease, but it should be considered as a less than ideal mental state. That being the case, parents should not overreact if educators or a child study team diagnose a child with ADHD. It should be realized also, that ADHD is a label to a set of symptoms. It is more a question of labeling symptoms, the effect, than it is providing an accurate cause. The cause of a child's difficulties is not ADHD, but ADHD is a label on the overall symptom profile.
With that in mind, ADHD is "curable" through natural methods, including lifestyle changes, educational remidiation and so on. There is a lot parents can do, and sometimes there is an adequate solution within a school system in changing classrooms. Parents don't need to rush to put their children on medicine. What is more, ADHD is not progressive, it tends to improve over time rather than the opposite. About 50 percent who have the disorder as children will grow out of the disorder without serious intervention. The vast majority, if not all of the cases of ADHD in children can be addressed without medication, if parents are willing to put work into it, and make changes in their child's (and their own perhaps) lifestyle.
Reference:
From the book - Overcoming ADHD Without Medication: A Parent and Educator's Guidebook
Scott Wolfenden - Scott Wolfenden is a teacher and writer in New Jersey who writes on the subjects of ADHD, mental health, children and parenting, as well ...
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