Summary: Study reports medications for ADHD have little detectable impact on how much a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder learns in the classroom. However, the medications helped children retain attention, improve classroom behavior, and improve seat-time work.

Source: Florida International University

For decades, most physicians, parents and teachers have believed that stimulant medications help children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) learn.

However, in the first study of its kind, researchers at the Center for Children and Families at FIU found medication has no detectable impact on how much children with ADHD learn in the classroom.

Approximately 10% of children in the U.S. are diagnosed with ADHD and more than 90% of them are prescribed stimulant medication as the main form of treatment in school settings because most physicians believe that medication will result in better academic achievement.

“Physicians and educators have held the belief that medication helps children with ADHD learn because they complete more seatwork and spend more time on-task when medicated,” said William E. Pelham, Jr., senior author of the study and director at the Center for Children and Families. “Unfortunately, we found that medication had no impact on learning of actual curriculum content.”

Researchers evaluated 173 children between the ages of 7 and 12 with ADHD participating in the center’s Summer Treatment Program, a comprehensive eight-week summer camp program for children with ADHD and related behavioral, emotional and learning challenges.

Children completed two consecutive phases of daily, 25-minute instruction in vocabulary and subject-area content in science and social studies. The instruction provided to each student during the three-week phases was at their determined grade level. Certified teachers and aides taught the material to groups of 10–14 children in a classroom setting.

Each child was randomized to be medicated with a sustained-release stimulant medication during either the first or second of the instructional phases, receiving a placebo during the other.

Contrary to expectations, researchers found that children learned the same amount of science, social studies, and vocabulary content whether they were taking the medication or the placebo.

While medication did not improve learning, the study showed that medication helped children complete more seatwork and improve their classroom behavior, as expected. When taking medication, children completed 37% more arithmetic problems per minute and committed 53% fewer classroom rule violations per hour.

Additionally, consistent with previous studies, researchers found that medication slightly helped to improve test scores when medication is taken on the day of a test, but not enough to boost most children’s grades. For example, medication helped children increase on average 1.7 percentage points out of 100 on science and social studies tests.

Improving academic achievement is important for children with ADHD because compared to their peers, children with ADHD exhibit more off-task classroom behavior, receive lower grades, and obtain lower scores on tests. They also are more likely to receive special education services, be retained for a grade and drop out before graduation.

Poor academic achievement is one of the most debilitating impairments associated with ADHD, often leading to the long-term vocational and financial difficulties that characterize ADHD in adulthood.

Previous research conducted by Pelham, an ADHD research and treatment pioneer, has found that behavioral therapy—when used first—is less expensive and more effective in treating children with ADHD than medication.

Stimulants are most effective as a supplemental, second-line treatment option for those who need it and at lower doses than typically prescribed. Additionally, the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (SDBP) has published new clinical guidelines that strongly recommend behavioral intervention as the first-line treatment for youth with ADHD.

“Our research has found time and time again that behavioral intervention is best for children with ADHD because they, their teachers, and their parents learn skills and strategies that will help them succeed at school, at home and in relationships long-term,” said Pelham.

“Medicating our children doesn’t solve the problem—it only takes away the symptoms temporarily. Instead, families should focus on behavioral interventions first and add medication only if needed.”

Behavioral and academic interventions that meaningfully improve functional impairment long-term for youth with ADHD include parent training and classroom-based management tools like a daily report card, and school services specific to academic achievement such as 504 plans [accommodations provided under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973] and special education individualized education plans (IEPs).

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Researchers note that the study was conducted in a controlled summer school-like environment and results may be different in a regular classroom setting. They would like to replicate this study in a natural classroom environment using academic curricula over the duration of a school year to further evaluate the impact of medication on learning.

Link: https://neurosciencenews.com/a...tion-learning-20647/

Of course not.

Anyone with any experience around these kind of kids/young men should easily be able to assess what’s required; personalized and focused attention on the child to teach them about their gifts.

The traditional classroom as it’s been structured for the last 60 years is the wrong place for these kids.

How is this not painfully evident to most people here?

ADHD is only a problem in (public) schools with (young) women who don’t know shit about boys/men, trying to make them sit still and act like little girls.

quote:

...the medications helped children retain attention, improve classroom behavior, and improve seat-time work.

So, the meds work exactly as designed. Whoever believes that they help do anything else is brainwashed.

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Originally posted by SIGnified:
ADHD is only a problem in (public) schools with (young) women who don’t know shit about boys/men, trying to make them sit still and act like little girls.

Again… plenty of girls and women have ADHD.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
ADHD is only a problem in (public) schools with (young) women who don’t know shit about boys/men, trying to make them sit still and act like little girls.

Again… plenty of girls and women have ADHD.

Duh … i’m not addressing them, as I don’t have experience working with women diagnosed w ADHD.

I can’t say for sure the things that works for boys would work with girls. I would suspect they probably do in approach- different details.

This one-size-fits-all mentality has got to end. It is sheer ignorance and stupidity and downright malpractice.

I would make a very large wager however, that most diagnosed are male by a large margin.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:


I would make a very large wager however, that most diagnosed are male by a large margin.

Why? Seriously, I've often wondered this.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:


I would make a very large wager however, that most diagnosed are male by a large margin.

Why? Seriously, I've often wondered this.

Why what? The wager or the rate and the population by sex?


Googed it … 4:1 male (nih)

quote:

In addition to age differences, there are clear gender differences with respect to the prevalence of ADHD, its subtypes, and endorsement of specific DSM-IV ADHD symptoms. Males are generally more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than females, with a male to female ratio of approximately 4:1 in community samples. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3101894/

Not the why, but I have my own theories. I start with the premise that it’s not a problem, rather a characteristic of those were better adapted at certain skills; non-business office/chair and email type activities.

Learn? No

It would have helped me actually do the assignments as a kid, I'm over 50 now, the "hyper" part left me years ago but I still have ADD. I just started Qelbree the other day, my first meds for it

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
ADHD is only a problem in (public) schools with (young) women who don’t know shit about boys/men, trying to make them sit still and act like little girls.

Again… plenty of girls and women have ADHD.

Believe he's talking about young women ie young female teachers without children, and their inability to comprehend that young boys by nature are generally a bit more rambunctious as a group be it goofing off or unable to sit still for long periods of time.

Therefore they treat young boys, 4 to 1 in order to control behavior.

They want them to sit down, be quiet, stop disrupting others, ie controlled is the focus not comprehension ..

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:


I would make a very large wager however, that most diagnosed are male by a large margin.

Why? Seriously, I've often wondered this.

Why what? The wager or the rate and the population by sex?


Googed it … 4:1 male (nih)

quote:

In addition to age differences, there are clear gender differences with respect to the prevalence of ADHD, its subtypes, and endorsement of specific DSM-IV ADHD symptoms. Males are generally more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than females, with a male to female ratio of approximately 4:1 in community samples. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3101894/

Not the why, but I have my own theories. I start with the premise that it’s not a problem, rather a characteristic of those were better adapted at certain skills; non-business office/chair and email type activities.

Metareviews (studies that look at a bunch of other studies and try to average them out) tend to estimate that girls make up 20-40% of ADHD diagnoses.

Studies also tend to show that girls with ADHD are more likely not to get diagnosed than boys with ADHD, which would suggest that the actual prevalence of ADHD in girls is higher than studies of diagnostic rates indicate.

Studies of adults with ADHD also show less of a gender gap, which would indicate that more girls are not getting diagnosed as children.

Here's a study that was done to carefully examine diagnostic rates.

https://link.springer.com/arti...07/s00787-018-1211-3

In the study, the ratio by previous clinical diagnosis was about 2.5:1 (29% girls, 71% boys). By symptom evaluation, it was 1.8:1 (36% girls, 64% boys).

The study mentions the predominant hypothesis for why girls are underdiagnosed:

quote:

Sex differences in the phenotypic expression of ADHD are often proposed as an explanation for the greater rates of ADHD diagnosis in males. A common hypothesis is that females with ADHD are more likely to present with predominantly inattentive symptoms, and less hyperactive/impulsive or conduct problems than boys, and are thus perceived as less problematic [4, 7, 11]. Therefore, females with ADHD problems that manifest as predominantly inattentive symptoms and lower levels of disruptive behaviours may be less likely to receive a diagnosis of ADHD [5].

To summarize: girls with ADHD are less likely to be wild and disruptive than boys with ADHD, and that's all that people who don't know anything about ADHD notice.

The thing is, ADHD is not about wild and disruptive behavior. ADHD is about several much deeper issues (of which, yes, wild and disruptive behavior can be a symptom) that can cause people significant problems for their entire lives.

quote:

The thing is, ADHD is not about wild and disruptive behavior. ADHD is about several much deeper issues (of which, yes, wild and disruptive behavior can be a symptom) that can cause people significant problems for their entire lives.

I don’t disagree with any of those statements.

However I do view it more as a cultural problem rather than a medical condition.

I am intimately familiar with many who have suffered from this vile oppression. They can be remarkably high accomplished performers once you set them free. Soundly with ability to specialize in things no “normal“ person could ever do.

They just don’t work well in a 8-5 glass tower with cubicles and computers.

Equally, I’ve seen the damage done with amphetamines and ADHD diagnosed “patients”.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
The traditional classroom as it’s been structured for the last 60 years is the wrong place for these kids.

If this is the case, then why is it that this "condition" has only been diagnosed for the past 30...or so? This was never a problem back when I was growing up in any of the classes that I was in. I would argue that 99% of the time the behavior issues are solely because of piss-poor parenting and "time-outs" as opposed to real and effective discipline. It is no coincidence that the logarithmic rise in these diagnoses correlates with the culture-wide change in the parenting paradigm that happened in the 90s. This is an environmental issue and not a psychiatric issue. Hence medicating these kids borders on criminal IMO.

quote:

ADHD is only a problem in (public) schools with (young) women who don’t know shit about boys/men, trying to make them sit still and act like little girls.

I didn't have a male teacher until high school. All of them old gals that taught us did just fine. Of course, they were our parents' ages and knew damn well the difference between boys and girls and how to treat each.

Hey Gus, maybe you’re just not old enough?

Time-outs for punishment era was well passed my youth. Corporal punishment was very common when I was young.


Nearly 60 years ago, it was called “hyperactivity ” (in the late 1960s) and people were applying children with Ritalin doses to get them to conform to classroom behavior standards set and run by women.

Epidemic by the 1970s, leading into the 1980s and on and on and on…

I don’t think it’s a new phenomena…

It’s only new and how we recognize it and name/ID it as a “problem”.

70s for me, and corporal punishment was used freely in school and (moreso) at home. We knew our limits from a very young age.

Maybe regionality has a lot to do with it as well as you sorta suggest, and your own experience demonstrates.

Again, I think it’s a cultural problem about individual differences in the way we think/wired, and regionality would certainly be a huge variable.

I would imagine that growing up in Montana somewhere is very different than growing up in Chicago.

That seems to support the theory that male students may be over diagnosed for ADHD based on natural physical behaviors exhibited by males.

Boys are more active, therefore boys need controlled, ergo ADHD pills are needed to control them....

The other coin is that parents, wanting better grades and less activity drug their hyperactive kids, mostly boys to reduce the issues of dealing with kids. Like TV and iPads in cars, sitting them in front of the Wii, etc anything to reduce the stress (parents and teachers) of dealing with an active kid.

The study confirmed my expectation - that the meds make things easier for the teachers, not that they do anything positive for the kids.

Our son had done well in school (Montessori, private) until his time in the first through third classroom. The lead teacher was convinced he had ADHD and suggested we talk to our pediatrician. The pediatrician laughed and said, “Knowing the two of you, I’m surprised it has taken this long. Short answer: BS. Long answer: Here’s two names & numbers, either is fine. One has a doctorate in education, the other is a neurologist. Either will do a detailed evaluation of your child and give you a thick report that you can give the teachers to tell them what they need to do to teach your kid. I’ll be happy to bet you a larger sum of money that ADHD will not show up anywhere in the report. The best part of the report is that it will shut down the ADHD BS.”

The pediatrician was right.

The lead teacher was not a young woman, but she had issues dealing with boys. No issues at all with the daughter when she went through.

When we relocated years ago, a teacher in a local, highly esteemed public school system, indicated that 60% of little boys in their system were on Ritalin. Add to that, dig deep within your State's student funding formula for public schools, and you will probably find that schools with an ADHD kid receives more funding than they do for a non-ADHD kid. Also, when these same boys reach adolescence, Ritalin reacts opposite of what it does when they are young, so they are basically on Speed.

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Originally posted by Reedman:
Also, when these same boys reach adolescence, Ritalin reacts opposite of what it does when they are young, so they are basically on Speed.

This is absolutely not the case.

Many teens and adults with ADHD take stimulant medications to help manage ADHD symptoms.

Regardless of age, a person with ADHD on an appropriate dosage of stimulant medication will not get more hyperactive or act like “they are basically on speed” unless they either don’t actually have ADHD or have an extremely unusual response to the medication.

How do you teach 2 5th graders with ADHD along with 17 other 5th graders who don’t have ADHD? Serious question because these 2 students will take 50-70% of the teacher’s attention.