Wednesday, September 24, 2008

ADHD crazy!

So apparently 365,000 children in the UK have ADHD. This would mean that roughly a quarter of UK children have Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Does anyone else think that's INSANE and suggests, more than anything else, either that the diagnostic procedure is faulty or that the diagnosis is pointless.

If this is something that affects so many young people, I really think it can't he a serious problem. Maybe we need to look nito whether this is an adaptive trait rather than a flaw? Or perhaps we should start picking out children who have blonde hair as well - after all, a lot of them will 'recover' as they approach adulthood.


p.s. While crisps on ricecakes is unarguably carborrific it's no substitute for a crisp buttie and far messier.

1 comment:

CyberMage said...

I have five kids. The third one has been diagnosed with ADHD and I fought that diagnosis hard. Unfortunately it turns out to be true.

We were told that the best diagnosis was to try a low dose of Ritalin and see what happened (after all the psychological testing was done.) That's because Ritalin will stimulate the concentration areas of the brain and allow an ADHD person to focus better. For a _normal_ person, it will actually make you hyper.

Before meds, she couldn't finish a single school assignment on her own. With low dose meds it's still a struggle to help her concentrate but it's not nearly as bad.

Personally I agree with a somewhat recent study that links increase of ADHD and autism with early age TV viewing. I wonder how much of some of these new diseases are environmentally caused by our "technological advances" in the past few decades.