Reply to New York Times Magazine article questioning adhd commonplaces (including meds)

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Reply to "New York Times Magazine article questioning adhd commonplaces (including meds)"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Can we go back to the fact that 25% of boys get ADHD diagnoses??[/quote]

If it is over diagnosed, it is the hyperactive type. They want to control behavior in over crowded classrooms. 
Inattentive is grossly under diagnosed. Every teacher loves the quiet kid (who is zoned out but no one realizes that). They will ignore that kid unless they fail (hard to do in elementary school) to avoid having another student with an IEP.[/quote]

I’m not totally sure that’s true. I do think a lot of parents are hyper-attuned to any academic struggle or difference. A kid missing a few assignments in MS will snowball into an ADHD diagnosis. [/quote]

This, and also I don't know if this has been discussed in the thread (I know it is not mentioned in the article) but changing expectations for kids, especially in early elementary, can also contribute to over diagnosis because age appropriate behavior gets identified as an issue. You get 5 yr olds in kindergarten who can't sit still for long periods or f time and need outdoor time, playtime, really engaging instruction in the form of songs and activities (which is what kindergarten was originally conceived to be) and then you ask them to sit in chairs and do worksheets for several hours a day. Half of their instruction is done via screens. And then when those kids struggle, it's like, well maybe he (or she) has ADHD? No! That's a normal 5 yr old.

And sometimes you see this moving down to PK. It's ridiculous. And it doesn't even result, long term, in higher test scores or literacy rates. There's a bump but it's temporary, and kids who get to play and have less academics early catch up in middle and upper elementary.

All kids NEED play, exercise, unscheduled time. But now we pathologist the kids who struggle more without it. In reality most of the kids who aren't struggling are just better at suppressing it. [/quote]

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