Not strictly true. It can be argued that some of the behavioural symptons i.e. hyperactivity are a consquence of the attention deficit, and relative control of behaviour can be acquired. Having said that - temporal resolution in ADHD is poor, so saying sit there is five minutes (a short time) has the same consequences (for a normal kid) as - sit there for 2 hours. The ADHD child is more likely to perform the task if a clock with a second hand is used.

Thanks. I'll go tell her she's wrong.

Thanks. I'll go tell her she's wrong.

you do that
:eatbabies

My sons teacher tried to tell me he might have ADD. I simply said "Bullshit, he's bored. Maybe you should step it up a notch. " He was in the 2nd grade, and was put in with the third graders. He adapted, (as most kids probably would), and now he's in the gifted program.
Teachers cannot hope to compete with television. It changes images about every 1.5 second (watch a new cartoon). I wonder how much pre-natal drug use has to do with this though. I've met kids, young adults that were born to crack-heads, they are severly tempermental, and fearless. Seriously, I've been attacked by 5 year old crack babies. I would have to say drugs are the only hope for them, which is fucked seeing as how thats how they got that way in the first place.

Yes. It is a shame the way people abuse their unborn. My wife had one student who will ALWAYS be screwed up because MOM decided to drink alcohol like a fish and do drugs all 9 months of her pregnancy.

Because of that c-nt, those of us in the USA have to pay for HER abuse of her child. The girl is now 19, shows all the visual signs of FES, has an IQ so low she can't work.....she even tried the Armed Forces....I mean surely she could scoop sloop onto trays in a chow line or pack chutes, but she couldn't even do that. This girl woners the streets all hours; the Mrs and I have seen her out there.

And you know what pisses me off? Her mom tried to keep her home just to get her social security checks. Someone finally talked this girl into leaving home and getting some help so she could afford an apartment. This poor girl's worst enemy is her mom. If you don't have a good mom, life will be so much harder than it is.

The wife also teaches a kid whose mom was on meth during her whole pregnancy. This poor kid is so fucked up, I almost cried when she told me about what he does (or what he CAN'T do), what he looks like and all the problems he has.

Sorry I got off on a rant there. People who **** up their children = assholes who deserve to be taken out to the fields and shot.

you do that
:eatbabies

You didn't read the Bigfoot thread, did you?
She wears a size 10-1/2 (US) men's shoe.

She will break it off in my ass.

There's an interesting observation that amongst cocaine users, in treatment, the propotion of ADD/ADHD in that population is much larger than in the general population. These people are diagnosised whilst in treatment. However, the propotion of cocaine users who have ADD and have been on simulant medication is the same as the general population.

Correlation or causation?

While we are on the topic there is more than one kind of adhd http://www.add-adhd-help-center.com/add_types_inattentive.htm


This is the kind I have, I think I caught it from a toilet seat.

Buck, your wife isn't wrong. She's just oversimplifying the truth so that you can grasp what she's saying to you. If she asked you a technical question about what you do, you'd probably toss off an answer in less than 30 seconds. Would it be totally true? Probably not; you probably can't cover all the possibilities in that amount of time. But it would be true enough to make sense and express the idea.

I'm one research methods class from my Master's in SpEd, and I can see what your wife meant. But the other guy has a point. Most behavioral issues defy easy categorization, which is why autism is now diagnosed as a "spectrum disorder." They can't simply say that either you have it or you don't, so they tell you whether you fall on the spectrum and roughly where. Similarly, between kids with no real ADHD issues and kids who literally are incapable of self-control in any degree, there are millions of kids who have some of the tendencies or symptoms of ADHD but not all. They're distributed along a spectrum from "No ADHD" to "Severe ADHD" but only a few kids are actually on those two opposite ends of the spectrum. Most are somewhere in between, with the vast majority closer to the "No ADHD" end of the spectrum.
Bored yet?
This is why your wife gave you the short version.

No. She has her master's in SpEd too. I just have a BS in Sociology (no, I didn't play football at IU).

I think that waaaaay too many kids are medicated needlessly. Pharmaceutical companies are out for the profit motive. Their job is to move product.

AD(H)D is way over diagnosed, but its also a legitimate disorder. The biggest problem with AD(H)D is its virtually always diagnosed through clinical judgment instead of using a quantified method because of the cost:benefit ratio.

Because its often a band aid solution for little Johnny most parents aren't willing to go through a long, expensive neuropsychological evaluation when the family doctor, who you'd have to see to get the prescription in the first place, around the corner can make the diagnosis too.

You didn't read the Bigfoot thread, did you?
She wears a size 10-1/2 (US) men's shoe.

She will break it off in my ass.

The smily was meant to show what my wife would do if I tried to correct her in her area of knowledge.
When I said not strictly true, I meant it was true but not an absolute truth.

Correlation or causation?

A good question, not sure there is an answer. although this evidence would suggest that stimulant medication doesn't predispose drug dependencancy. An interesting observation -given the current wisdom that soft drugs lead to hard dugs.

The smily was meant to show what my wife would do if I tried to correct her in her area of knowledge.

She would eat your baby's brain?

She would eat your baby's brain?

just mine.

I wonder if there's any negative correlation between (supposed) ADHD and how much parents read to kids and encourage them to read? Listening to / reading stories need and promote good concentration skills. Not sure how TV would figure in, though.
Actually, the journal Behavioral Scientist had a publication covering this in hmmmm 04 maybe? I can actually take the time to dig through my stuff and cite this if anyone wants. Anyway, their findings were that children who watch tv at any significant amount (and this includes time they are doing other stuff while others are actively watching it) actually does cause some attentional issues.

Seems like the central idea was that children that watch tv before the age of 3 develop their visual systems in a different manner related to the frame rates of viewing TV. At the end I recall the article having a statement from the American Board of Pediatrics stating their opinion was children under the age of ~3-3.5 should not be exposed to TV at all.


My sons teacher tried to tell me he might have ADD. I simply said "Bullshit, he's bored. Maybe you should step it up a notch. "
You need a parent of the year award. While teachers are to be commended for doing what they do, in regards to AD(H)D it really needs to be driven into their head that a B.A. in early childhood education does not equal a M.D./D.O./Ph.D./Psy.D. in psychiatry, neurology, clinical psychology, or neuropsychology in terms of AD(H)D diagnosis.

Yes, the child may be hyperactive, but that doesn't mean the child has a mental illness. Maybe its boredom (like in your case), maybe he does it because the teacher reinforces his "bad" behavior in a way he finds stimulating, or maybe his mommy let him drink too much soda before school. Teachers keep on teaching and let qualified medical and mental health practicioners do the diagnosing.


There's an interesting observation that amongst cocaine users, in treatment, the propotion of ADD/ADHD in that population is much larger than in the general population. These people are diagnosised whilst in treatment. However, the propotion of cocaine users who have ADD and have been on simulant medication is the same as the general population.
Self-medicating in psychiatric populations is way more common than you might think. Both violence and self-mutilation are forms of self-medicaiton because sustaining an open flesh injury (others I'm not sure about as I'm not a physician) cause a serotonin release in the frontal lobes, which has a very well documented effect of lowering violent acts (even vets prescribe SSRI type antidepressants to overly aggressive animals).