I ran across a “Room for Debate” article, “Is the A.DH.D. Diagnosis Helping or Hurting Kids,” arguing whether or not the A.D.H.D diagnosis is actually helping or hurting kids. A.D.H.D. is a chronic condition that includes attention difficulties, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. There has been an increase in children diagnosed with A.D.H.D in recent years. People argue that we are misdiagnosing children because they can be too hard to handle or that we are helping them from struggling later on in life. Dimitri Christakis, author of “The Diagnosis Does a Disservice to Children,” claims that diagnosis is tricky because attention capacity exists on a spectrum, not from a list of behaviors that many children tend to have. The diagnostic tests are typically biased due to the fact that usually parents and teachers are the ones to assess the child rather than a doctor. Christakis believes that researchers should be aiming to find the best ways to maximize childrens’ ability to focus rather than treating A.D.H.D as a disease. Tanya E. Froehlich, writer of “Diagnosis Is Key to Helping Kids with A.D.H.D,” on the other hand, states that scientific evidence reveals the consequences of having A.D.H.D., such as impaired neurological connectivity and delayed maturation. She believes that children shouldn’t be diagnosed until a doctor can verify that their symptoms have been present throughout their childhood to their current age, but demonizing A.D.H.D can have terrible effects in a child’s life because we would then be denying them access to vital services. Access to medication treatment has been linked to reduced rates of substance abuse, delinquency, incarcerations, injury, and improved academic scores. Is the A.D.H.D diagnosis helping or hurting children? Are they being misdiagnosed just for being an active child? Should there be a standard diagnostic test or should the test be individualized?
Every child is unique in their own way, so naturally they are going to have different behaviors. Due to this, I think the test should be individualized and held across a certain period of time to make a final diagnosis. Also, if a child is wrongly diagnosed, they might lose opportunities because they have this "disease" and be placed in classes that hold back their development. In addition, children diagnosed may feel held back by their disease and that they can't get over it because it is who they are.
ReplyDeleteI think rates of A.D.H.D. diagnoses are not caused by people being unable to handle their children. Those people have always existed and they would not likely affect the increasing rates of this diagnoses. If there is an increase of people being unable to handle their children, it would likely be for the increase of children with A.D.H.D. rather than the other way around. The real cause of increased diagnoses of A.D.H.D. seems to be that it has become more popular for people to have children later in life. People are now often having children in their 40's meaning that by that age the parents' sperm and eggs have degraded in quality, causing many side effects to the baby which often happens to be A.D.D., A.D.H.D., and autism (as well as many MANY unlisted afflictions). The suggestion that waiting for a child to be diagnosed with A.D.H.D. until later in life is probably not the best course of action because by the time they are "old enough to be diagnosed" then it will already have become much harder to help the child with their lack of attention span or other afflictions. Diagnosing too late would mean that the child has already dealt with many of the problems that come with A.D.H.D. and they will continue to have those problems as they try to mature at a "normal" rate relative to most people - which slows the process of helping them by a lot. I think children should be diagnosed as young as possible, not too young, but definitely if there is some feeling in the parent that they may have it. Diagnosing too late would be a disservice to the child's social life, academic life, and mental well being. Diagnosing earlier also makes it easier to help the child without the use of harmful drugs they might abuse (I think the use of drugs to "help" a child mentally is way too risky to be done, by the way). The demonization of A.D.H.D. (the demonization of A.D.H.D. is more of a societal problem than a medical one and is a whole different conversation entirely) definitely makes it scarier to get your child to be diagnosed with A.D.H.D., but it is a necessary diagnoses for your child's future.
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