An imaging study was just completed with 1000's of kids diagnosed with ADHD, and lo and behold:
Researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health and McGill University, using imaging techniques, found that the brains of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder developed normally but more slowly in some areas than the brains of children without the disorder.
The disorder, also known as A.D.H.D., is by far the most common psychiatric diagnosis given to disruptive young children; 3 percent to 5 percent of school-age children are thought to be affected. Researchers have long debated whether it was due to a brain deficit or to a delay in development.
Doctors said that the report, being published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, helps to explain why so many children grow out of the diagnosis in middle school or later, often after taking stimulant medications to improve concentration in earlier grades.
So the findings suggest that ADHD is largely a developmental issue, specifically around timing of certain cognitive processes. The Cerebral Cortex eventually matures - it grows up and so does our cognitive abilities. Hopefully, this will result in less parents dragging their kids to the Neurologist and insisting that they pump their kids full of Ritalin or some other stimulant. I'm not saying the med doesn't work but I've seen too much in the way of excessive application of this particular drug.
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