The Overdiagnosis Of Adhd Essay Research Paper

The Overdiagnosis Of Adhd Essay, Research Paper

The Over-diagnosis of ADHD

In Bobby.s second grade classroom, his teacher threw up her hands and said, .That is it!. On that very morning, Bobby leaped out of his seat seven times to go sharpen his pencil, each time accidentally colliding into other students desks and chairs, sending papers and books plunging to the floor. Bobby screamed out comments to every slightly comical part of the book that the teacher read. His teacher.s last straw was when, after repeatedly kicking the desk in front of him, it toppled to the floor, spewing all it.s contents to the ground. This is a strong example of Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in the 90.s. However, most cases in which a doctor is brought in to rule if a child has ADHD are not like the previous example. A majority of these cases are with children in the gray area, not constantly showing the signs of ADHD, but showing signs only occasionally. This is where the over-diagnosis of children with ADHD comes into play, in that gray area.

Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder is a disorder composed of three major components: inattentiveness, impulsivity, and motor hyperactivity. Symptoms of these components include excessive fidgeting with hands or feet, repeated difficulty remaining seated, following through on instructions, extreme difficulty in attempting to play quietly, and excessive interruption of conversations, just to list a few. A child with ADHD can bear one or all of these features, depending on the severity of the case. These children usually have functional impairments in a variety of places including the home, school, and in relationships with fellow peers. These signs can come and go, being extremely prevalent one day and unnoticeable the next.

ADHD is a very complicated disorder. Most people have the false perception that this disorder is like a chronic ear infection or diabetes, where prescriptions of penicillin or continual injections of insulin will cure the ailment. Well, ADHD is different and is surprisingly unclear. There is no clear consensus on what the cause or causes of this disease are. There have been countless theories however, and all have been disproved through studies. There is no urine test, blood test, PET scan, or physical test or examination that can tell if someone does or doesn.t have ADHD. This translates into mass confusion when parents, teachers, and even doctors are called upon to diagnose a child with this disorder or not. Psychiatrists around the world say that, .about half the children who show up in their offices as ADHD referrals are actually suffering from a variety of other ailments, including learning disabilities, depression or anxiety-disorders that look like ADHD, but do not need Ritalin. Some seem to be just regular kids.. (Newsweek, pg.52)

It is estimated that ADHD effects two million children in the United States, this translates into three to five percent of all school-age children. Even more frightening, is that in some areas up to twenty percent of children have ADHD. However, these diagnoses are inconsistent. One reason for this enormous number of cases is due to the fact that there is not proper testing for ADHD before the diagnosis is completed. One family.s situation was published in an October 1998 issue of Time. The parents took their daughter, Erin to a psychiatrist just before her fifth birthday. The doctor saw the concerned parents for 45 minutes. During this time the doctor read the teacher.s report on Erin. Then he saw Erin for 14 minutes. After that short time span, he came to his conclusion, and said, .Your daughter has ADHD, and here.s a prescription of Ritalin..(pg. 6) The parents were astounded to here those words come out of his mouth, to prescribe a powerful drug like Ritalin after only a 15 minute meeting with their child to evaluate her condition. In a recent report in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine almost half the pediatricians surveyed said they send ADHD children home in an hour. (pg. .) Many of these doctors have those children walking back out of that door so quick with their new label of ADHD, that they do not even have time to contact the teachers, look at their educational records, or have the child meet with a psychiatrist, which is all very essential. Doctors are not taking the proper time to analyze a serious problem like ADHD.

One of the reasons that doctors rapidly diagnose ADHD is due to the persistence of parents. Doctors find themselves feuding with apprehensive parents that are worried that their child is ruining his/her future because of a bit of hyperactivity, or jitteriness that is apparent in the classroom or at home. They demand drugs from their doctors, and if they refused to fulfill their demand, they will find a physician that is more understanding of their views. Parents are getting to the point were they feel they need to mold their children into a little angel. They will go to any extreme, even drugs. to accomplish this. As Lawrence Diller states in Running on Ritalin, .In order for them to succeed, we make them take performance enhancers..(Diller pg. 96) What he is saying is that parents want their children to succeed so much that they are making them take .performance enhancers,. like Ritalin. What once was looked at as normal, children interested in different things and having different skills and tale