Word: adhd
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What's better for a child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder--behavior therapy or medications like Ritalin? The answer is, well, complicated. A new report shows medication alone or combined with therapy is decidedly more effective than therapy alone in reducing overt symptoms of adhd--the off-the-wall jumpiness and inattentiveness that exhausted parents know all too well. But combining drugs with behavior therapy seems to benefit kids in ways that drugs alone don't--like enabling them to make friends more easily and even score higher on achievement tests...
Increasingly, it looks as though children with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder, rather than being brats by choice, are really governed by a medical condition. According to a study in the current issue of the medical journal the Lancet, children with ADHD may have a lower-than-normal amount of the chemical dopamine, which is associated with concentration and motivation. ADHD children, says the report, have an average of 70 percent more dopamine transporters in their brains than other children - evidence, researchers think, that these brains developed the extra transporters in a vain effort to compensate for a lack of dopamine...
...Still, there remains a question of cause and effect: Do kids have ADHD because their brains don't produce enough dopamine, or do their brains not produce enough dopamine because of external factors? "Would this problem afflict our children if we were still out on the frontier battling elephants?" asks TIME science writer Christine Gorman. "Probably not." Many attribute the symptoms of ADHD - short attention span, fidgetiness, lack of motivation - to modernity's sensory overload: Perhaps the brain is merely compensating for the five hours of electronic media the average child absorbs each day. And we thought this information revolution...
...report released Tuesday by the National Institute of Mental Health concludes that not only is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder real, it's treatable - but only if you take your medicine. Coming down largely on the "nature" side of nature vs. nurture, the NIMH says that ADHD is most effectively combated through a combination of therapy and medication, but that the medication is the more important portion of the equation...
Critics say the ADHD "epidemic" - which, depending on who's giving the diagnosis, can cover nearly any child who's ever nodded off in class or can't stand waiting in lines - is merely a social byproduct of modernity: Children raised on cable television and video games have short attention spans. But by siding with medicine as the treatment of choice, the NIMH says that there's a clear biological component that can be chemically modified. That's not to say that every time a kid acts up we should drug him. "This is not just handing out Ritalin...