Are we at war with ADHD? David McMillian talks with co-author Richard Scheffler about his book “The ADHD Explosion – Myths, Medication, Money and Today’s Push for Performance.” Together they explore how the recents changes in the health care sector and the push for excellence in standardized tests resulted in a rise of ADHD diagnosis in children and adolescents.

Listen more here.

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The movie “Sister” raises awareness for ADHD and mental illness while shedding light on the quick-to-diagnose quick-to-medicate approach that has become routine in our country. “The message of the film is that every child is an individual and every diagnosis, whatever it is, should be done on an individual basis and not this mass diagnosis which is going on,” said co-writer Todd Camhe. Camhe and David Lascher wrote the character Billy as a vehement opposer of drugs who suddenly takes his adopted sister Niki off the meds she had been on since the age of 5.

But the team behind Sister is careful to balance this perspective through the character of a school psychiatrist (John Heard) who speaks on behalf of the many children who have thrived on medication. What results is an insightful debate through storytelling that will be sure to provoke a dialogue among viewers. “We consulted with leading experts and really treated the disorder in a very serious way,” said Camhe. “I don’t want to pretend that we have all the answers,” added Lascher. “This is one story. If there’s any message it’s: Take a closer look.”

In fact, Lascher and Camhe started the Our Kids First Foundation to raise awareness and spark discussion about ADD, ADHD, and other related conditions. “This is just a first and in ways small but important step to raise that awareness,” said Scott. “I think a lot of people are going to relate. Everybody knows someone that’s going through one of these issues.” It’s true. With ADD and ADHD becoming more common diagnoses, (as scientific advisor to the Foundation Dr. Steven Hinshaw writes his new book The ADHD Explosion) we all seem to know someone affected by it. “Our hope is that people connect with [the movie] and it gets them talking, sharing their stories, their experiences,” said Camhe.

Read more of this post on The Parents Perspective blog here.

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By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times

“The ADHD Explosion: Myths, Medication, Money and Today’s Push for Performance,” released this week by Oxford University Press, chronicles the steep increase in ADHD diagnoses in the United States over the last two decades. The new book offers provocative evidence that economic pressures and government policies — not just concern for children’s welfare — are behind the increase in diagnoses of the psychiatric disorder marked by hyperactivity, disorganization, impulsiveness, inattention and poor academic performance beginning in childhood.

Click here to read Hinshaw and Scheffler’s Q&A with L.A. Times reporter Melissa Healy.

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By Kate Lunau

In their forthcoming book The ADHD Explosion, Hinshaw and Scheffler—a psychologist and health economist, respectively, at the University of California at Berkeley—examine the causes behind the startling and rapid rise in diagnosis rates of ADHD, a neurobehavioural disorder that has somehow become epidemic. In the U.S., more than one in 10 kids has been diagnosed; more than 3.5 million are taking drugs to curb symptoms, from lack of focus to hyperactivity. While ADHD typically hits middle-class boys the hardest, rates among other groups are steadily rising, including girls, adults and minorities. Kids are being tested and diagnosed as young as preschool. In North Carolina, as many as 30 per cent of teenage boys are diagnosed. Scheffler says, “It’s getting scary.”

Via Maclean’s “Is ADHD a mental health crisis or a cultural one?”

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Berkeley, Calif. — The writing is on the chalkboard. Over the next few years, America can count on a major expansion of early childhood education. We embrace this trend, but as health policy researchers, we want to raise a major caveat: Unless we’re careful, today’s preschool bandwagon could lead straight to an epidemic of 4- and 5-year-olds wrongfully being told that they have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Continue reading this op-ed at The New York Times, “Expand Pre-K, Not ADHD.”

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Introducing millions of 3-to 5-year-olds to classrooms and pre-academic demands means that many more distracted kids will undoubtedly catch the attention of their teachers. Sure, many children this age are already in preschool, but making the movement universal and embedding transitional-K programs in public schools is bound to increase the pressure. We’re all for high standards, but danger lurks.

Continue reading Hinshaw and Scheffler’s op-ed via the Dallas Morning News, “How to expand pre-K without creating ADHD epidemic.”

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Classroom Concerns: Book links ADHD Diagnosis and Education Policy

The ADHD Explosion co-author Richard Scheffler was interviewed on Fox News Live this morning about the surge in ADHD diagnoses and the role education policy plays.

Watch the interview here:  Richard Scheffler on Fox & Friends, 2/23/14

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In the past two decades, the number of children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder has nearly doubled. One in five American boys receives a diagnosis by age 17. More than 70% of those who are diagnosed—millions of children—are prescribed drugs.

A new book, “The ADHD Explosion” by Stephen Hinshaw and Richard Scheffler, looks at this extraordinary increase. What’s the explanation? Some rise in environmental toxins? Worse parenting? Better detection?

Drs. Hinshaw and Scheffler—both of them at the University of California, Berkeley, my university—present some striking evidence that the answer lies, at least partly, in changes in educational policy.

Via The Wall Street Journal, “Are Schools Asking to Drug Kids for Better Test Scores?”

Also see this related Wall Street Journal video, an interview with UC Berkeley Psychology Professor Alison Gopnik: “The ADHD Explosion: Is Educational Policy to Blame?”

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CONTACT
Susan Lamontagne, 631.899.3825 or slamontagne@iqsolutions.com
Audrey Pernik, 240.221.4242 or apernik@iqsolutions.com 

School policy may fuel dramatic increase in ADHD diagnoses among children in U.S.

Differences in state-by-state education policy could be driving a growing number of ADHD cases among school children in the U.S., according to new research funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

In a new book, The ADHD Explosion, Stephen Hinshaw, PhD, and Richard Scheffler, PhD, recipients of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research, examine the overall marked increase in ADHD diagnosis over the past decade, along with significant regional differences in the number of ADHD cases diagnosed. They find that education policy could be a major factor fueling the trend.

Click here to read the full Robert Wood Johnson Foundation press release.

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A study co-authored by Stephen Hinshaw, a psychologist at UC Berkeley, showed that gains in academic performance among students with ADHD who took medication for it were not enough to close the test-score gap between those with ADHD and those without. And the gains faded over time, Hinshaw said, even if they continued taking the drugs.

via “Medication: The Smart-Pill Oversell” in Nature, International weekly journal of science

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