But how are the poor pharmaceutical companies supposed to make money if not enough kids are diagnosed with things they don’t have?
A child that is easily distracted, fidgety and interruptive in school might not have a clinical case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but might rather just be acting his or her age, posit researchers behind two new studies of diagnosis trends.
Kids whose birthdays fall around school enrollment cutoff dates can find themselves as either the youngest or oldest among their peers, depending upon which side of the date they fall on. And that coincidence of the calendar can make a significant difference in a child’s chances of getting diagnosed with ADHD, according to the new research.
Two separate studies, both set to publish in a future issue of the Journal of Health Economics, found that students whose birthdays fell just before their school’s age enrollment cutoff date—and thus were among the youngest in their class—had a substantially higher rate of ADHD diagnoses than students who were born just a day or two later and were the oldest in the grade below.
[…]
After reviewing U.S. diagnosis and treatment records across a decade, she and her colleagues found that “being young for [a] grade more than doubles the change that a student is diagnosed with or treated for ADHD.” And as they pointed out in their paper, “ADHD is an underlying neurological problem and incidence rates should not change dramatically from one birth date to the next.”
This idea is already spreading. In our community’s school there were 20 children out of 100 voluntarily held back from 1st to 2nd grade. Most of these kids were cut-off kids. The principal seems to be a big supporter of holding back the younger kids who have attention problems.
My own child is a cut-off kid, but he already reads at 6th grade level, so we we were more concerned with him being bored. We had to talk to his 2nd grade teacher about getting harder books as the ones she keeps in the class are far too easy.
While I am sure some kids get misdiagnosed with ADD and ADHD, they are real conditions that affect a lot of people. It’s hard for someone who does not have either to understand what it’s like living with one of them. I’m 32 years of age and have had ADD my whole life. I can tell you that ADD and ADHD affect everyone differently and there are many levels of severity depending on each case. Medication works for some people and for some it does not. The human mind is a complex thing.
ADHD drugs are really over prescribed. They are stimulants, but act as depressants for ADHD kids. When over prescribed, they still make normal kids hyper.
Wonder why kids are hyper? All the games we played in recess are banned. Tag, cops and robbers, and dodge ball are all banned. Some schools even banned running on the play ground. Ridicules.
Meh. I was a year younger than my classmates all the way through school (my dad’s theory: she walks, she talks, she’s going to school) and graduated at 16. Nuns with rulers kept me in line.
Graduating at 16 really stunk because no one would hire me for a grown-up job and I would get stopped in public places as a truant.
If ADD had been invented back when I was a kid, I’d probably have been so diagnosed. But it wasn’t and I wasn’t and I just gyrated all the time. So did lots of other kids.
Dad had a cure. Most of the time, he wore it around his waist. It worked though, even without it actually touching me. When Mom threw Dad out of the house, I was back to gyrating all the time. Oh, well.
Bye the way, I’m going to bet that Obama would be diagnosed as ADD if it had been invented back when he was a kid. He’s two years older than me so I know it wasn’t.
Some kiddies don’t benefit from prison in their early years. They need to be outside exploring their environment-tracking down the Wooly Mammoths and throwing rocks at the Greater Auk. When they blow off that excess steam, then let them join society.
One size does not fit all.
It may well be that some students so ladled started school too young.
It may be that some have simply been indulged and spoiled rotten.
Some may have other clinical mental health issues or been abused in some manner.
The real thing in full glory is rather less common and if you get one you are going to know it in no uncertain terms.
I pray for the parents. I pray for the child. I pray for everyone unfortunate enough to have to share space with them.
Sounds like some scientists read “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell and thought to themselves “You know, maybe timing couldn’t just give certain people a snowballing advantage, it could give a different group of people a snowballing disadvantage!”.
If you haven’t read it, it’s gold.