Are you guys talking about ADHD or bratty behaviour?

I have been a part of many discussion forums. A few weeks ago I started a thread and was attacked because I didn't post again with two days. I don't think I am the one who is engaging in rude behavior.

No one really knows what ADHD is or even if it really exists. Before you label me a crackpot, please consider the following facts.

1. Ritalin and Adderal have been banned in several countries including South Korea, Japan, and Canada. Doctors in other countries have refused to ban it but have made it a very rare prescription.

2. Physically there is very little evidence for the existence of ADHD. Some claim that the dopamine levels in the body are evidence of ADHD (kids with it usually have much lower levels). The problem is that dopamine is highly influenced by diet as well as genetics. The other line of evidence focuses on brainscans. Supposedly, kids with ADHD have very different looking brains than a "normal" person. However, very few children are ever diagnosed on the basis of a brainscan and the scan can really mean different things.

3. A study by the University of Australia found very high correlations between fast food diets and ADHD. When confronted with this, some doctors started suggesting that ADHD causes people to eat fast food (because it couldn't possibly be the other way around!).

4. Many of the original researchers of ADHD believed that it would only be a fraction of percentage of the population.

In other words......the definition of ADHD and the existence of ADHD are up for debate. No one doubts that there are kids (and adults) who behave this way but we aren't sure that they are behaving this way because of ADHD.

Should we so sure?

In the last twenty years, ADHD diagnoses have skyrocketed. During that same period of time, use of video games and cell phones by kids has also dramatically increased. Isn't it possible that our attention spans are being worn down by this technology? Most kids on a cell phone go from one thing to another in rapid succession. One minute they are texting a friend, then they are surfing the web, then they are making a call, then they are playing a game. In some cases, they are doing several of these things at once.

And we wonder why so many of them can't concentrate on a simple task?

With piano, you must also concentrate on many things. However, these is a key difference (no pun intended). The things you learn in a piano piece all come together to make a whole. A student might learn the right hand, then the left, then both together, and then focus on rhythm, pedaling, dynamics etc. Eventually, the mind fuses all of these disparate elements together.

So, if behavior can destroy attention spans, couldn't it also enhance it?

No, sometimes it just kills them.

In my last one Keys, I was talking about bratty behavior and a lack of discipline. I do believe though, as did our pediatrician, that for starters, discipline is mandatory and on top of that, I also believe as does he, that, in and of itself in some cases, will eliminate the need for medicine.

Add to that, TWO parents instead of one. Slam me for saying that if you want but, I am a strong advocate of 2 parents, not one with 12 babies living off from the system.

I've been married 33 years to my first and only wife. 1 is enough!!! LOL! KIDDING HON! Good thing she doesn't read here. Gary you don't tell on me either!

Music is good for kids. It enhances their ability to learn. Studies have been done, I can't tell you where to find them but, I know that Yamaha did one many years ago and kids that had music, not just piano lessons but music, somewhere, did better in math than kids that had none at all.

I deleted that paragraph Keys... Thanks for making me aware of it.

Keys knows what I meant but, some others might not..... Hard to write exactly what is being thought on paper and even harder to write it so that everyone knows what you mean.

Just curious as to which university this was. As far as I'm aware there's no "University of Australia".

When I referred to bratty behaviour, I was asking which type of student problem was being discussed, not whether any poster here was being bratty. Ed was quoting Jerry, and was talking about popular ways of life, shouting things from rooftops - it sounded like bratty behaviour rather than ADHD was being discussed, so I asked which topic was being meant.

I believe all the cell phones, texting and video games are causing children who do not have ADHD to behave as if they do. That doesn't change the fact that it exists, it just makes it harder for the average person to tell who does and does not genuinely have it and easier for people to assume its the problem and not look any deeper. I never went through the huge battery of tests some people do for an ADD diagnosis, but my brother did. He was diagnosed with ADHD with some other learning disorders as a child. Our family did not eat much fast food (couldn't afford to)our access to junk food was limited and the diagnosis came well before we aquired our first Atari 2600 so the video games didn't cause it. Back then you also didn't have every family physician labelling the child and writing out the prescription for Ritalin just because someone was at their wits end. My parents had to take my brother to the Cleveland Clinic for the initial evaluation and then yearly to keep his prescriptions current.

Learned behaviors like music lessons and structured activities can enhance attention span in someone with ADHD not because it gets rid of or prevents ADHD but because it helps to teach coping strategies that can be used by the person to help organize themselves and focus their attention where they want and need it to be instead of on whatever stray stimuli show up in the environment.

I don't want to divert from the topic, but I am sure that there are more than a few single parents reading these threads. There is nothing inherent in raising children alone that makes a person into a poor parent, nor are all couples good parents. If there is a good partnership of course it's a lot easier.

Addendum: Jerry thanks - you're the greatest.

Which is exactly why we should not be prescribing them every time little Johnny won't sit still and listen. There are risks associated with every medication and if more consistant discipline or a more structured environment or daily routine is likely to yield good results medication should not be used first. Too many are taking it as the easy way out and its being given to kids who don't even have ADHD to begin with.

I meant to say a university in Australia. Here are links to the studies-

http://www.playattention.com/category/adhd-food-additives/

Thanks.

You have to be super careful about using the word "prevent" in the United States, or you could be accused of false advertising.

Kspriggs, I see you have done a fair bit of reading, and it's nice to see a real dialog going. Have you worked with people who have ADHD (as opposed to someone fidgety)? I'm wondering whether you got feedback from any of them? Like you suggest, I suspect that a lot of people being labeled with this disorder are actually just responding to the modern environment. That would leave a very few who actually do have the disorder and need to take special measures. At the same time, who knows if things might not be made worse even for these people through our environment?

Some recent studies in the US have linking ADHD to sleep deprivation. Not surprised!

Two points: first from study and general reading.
The regions of the brain which process language also process music - not really surprising considering that both are heard. Processing also involves responding to emmotions which are "available" through language and music therefore it would not be surprising that music will have an effect on behaviour.
The second is an observation from teaching for 15yrs at a senior boys boarding school: Every boy ate the same food but there was still about three percent of kids who were what one would call "different" in as much as their behaviour was not in all respects normal when seen against the general overall run of the mill.
There was no facility for psychlogical assesment of these boys. But food could not reasonably be held responsible for their differences.

Ahhhh,never mind just another rant about a naughty child in the store. I deleted it instead.

Such knotty naughts are hard to weigh on any scale, Jerry.

hahaha, you read it eh??? The little stinker! I so badly wanted to just say to the mother, you know??? It really IS okay to discipline your child you know???

I didn't get to read the earlier comment but the sentiment of this comment is one very dear to my heart right now. I just can't wait for the school year to end.

Wow, offensive.

And for the record, the social constructionist/medicalisation critique of diagnoses does not mean they 'don't exist'.

It doesn't mean that they exist either. The psychological/medical community has a burden of proof and it has failed.

By the way, you might want to learn how to spell big words before you start using them. It's medicalization with a z....

What is true, and where I agree with you, is that a lot of people who are intelligent and energetic may be labeled with a condition that they do not have. If they are given an activity where they can use that intelligence and creativity, then their supposed hyperactivity disappears. They never had a "problem" in the first place.

Have you studied this area?


The writer shows a location of Melbourne, Australia. You are citing spelling conventions for American English. These conventions are not universal. It's the same reason why I receive cheques and you receive checks, and why I have neighbours and you have neighbors.

As a person with ADHD and who has read alot of the literature on it, im here to tell you that the disorder exists. ive seen it in a few celebrities and people ive come across. The national institute of mental health and many universities have numerous studies on the disorder. Im tired of people saying the disorder does not exist and it is an excuse for parents to use. I must admit that sometimes parents will collude with bad doctors to get a diagnosis to get their kids off the hook for something. But that shouldnt take away from its validity as a brain disorder.

As for preventing ADHD, i think you can alleviate some of the symptoms of ADHD with piano lessons. But it is my understanding that you do not develop it, it is inherited. All i know is that someone with ADHD will have to overcompensate in certain areas to be at a functional level.

I am pretty sure that is the way they teach it at the University of Australia .

kspriggs, wow. Just wow.

keystring has responded to this politely, so I don't need to add in my few cents worth, but seriously, you're having a go at someone's spelling when their spelling is faultless?

I'm currently involved in professional development/study on the cluster of giftedness, Asperger's Syndrome and ADHD. There has been very little research done on profound giftedness and sometimes highly gifted children are misdiagnosed as being ADHD, and children on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum can similarly be misdiagnosed. But misdiagnosis does not mean that the cluster of capacities and incapacities that makes up ADHD does not exist.

Further, for those who are trained in helping these children (and adults, although adults are less likely to be seeking ongoing support the way parents of children are/do) there are simple ways of determining the difference between a behavioural problem and issues to do with executive function, arousal, sequencing, central coherence and so forth.

I'm not in any way an expert in this field, but I've been astonished at the extraordinary difference occupational therapists can make working with children who struggle with executive funtion and central coherence and so on. I've observed about 15 hours so far with a specialist occupational therapist with a view to relating these techniques to my piano teaching practice - it has been an inspiration learning how to recognise markers of different processing problems and then techniques for helping children develop skills they lack in these regards.

Trying to deal with these issues as a behavioural issue results in no progress, and that's because the behavioural problems are the symptom of deeper problems which have nothing to do with discipline or parental failings.

That is interesting. Do you have more info on that? I've worked with a couple of high-functioning autistic kids before, but I guess they're just not hyperactive.

http://www.amazon.com/Different-Minds-Children-Asperger-Syndrome/dp/1853029645/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340868048&sr=8-1&keywords=gifted+adhd+asperger%27s+syndrome

and

http://www.amazon.com/Misdiagnosis-Diagnoses-Gifted-Children-Adults/dp/0910707677/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1340868083&sr=8-2&keywords=gifted+adhd+asperger%27s+syndrome

are two books that have a wealth of insight....

Hmmm, I might try that again with link links, not just threads - I'm busy for the next 90 minutes getting my 5 year old to bed!