Word: ritalin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...deny Ritalin works," says J. Zink, Ph.D., a Manhattan Beach, Calif., family therapist who has written several books on raising children and who lectures extensively around the country. "But why does it work, and what are the consequences of overprescribing? The reality is we don't know...
...parents, even harder than the abstract social questions are the very personal ones they confront when they see or hear that their child is struggling. Will Ritalin help? Will it change her personality? Is it fair for me to make this choice for him? Does it send the signal that she is not responsible for her behavior? Is the teacher suggesting it just to make her own day easier? Will he have to take it forever? What if all children would be a little happier, perform a little better if they took their pills like vitamins every morning...
...convene a kind of science court to sort through the evidence and arguments on all sides. So last week in Bethesda, Md., several hundred doctors, experts and educators gathered for a long-awaited consensus conference held by the National Institutes of Health to examine the data on how well Ritalin works. Conclusion: very well--better than researchers imagined--but in ways and for reasons that are still not entirely clear...
...real consensus that emerged was how much we still need to learn. The experts warned that not enough is known about the risks and benefits of long-term Ritalin use; that there is too little communication between doctors, teachers and parents; and that a pill alone is no magic bullet. Some combination of behavioral therapy and medication seems to be most helpful for children with the severest problems, but there is no data to determine what combinations work best...
...parents took Erin to a psychiatrist just before her fifth birthday. "He saw us for 45 minutes," Charlene says. "He read the teacher's report. He saw Erin for 15 minutes. He said, 'Your daughter is ADHD, and here's a prescription for Ritalin.' I sobbed." Charlene had a lot of friends who did not believe in ADHD and thought maybe she and Tim were just being hard on Erin. "I thought, 'Maybe there is something else we can do,'" Charlene says. "I knew that medicine can mask things. So I tore up the prescription." Tim thought that...