Your Kid Might Not Need To Be On Ritalin

In May 2006, I had the privilege of speaking at the "Learning and the Brain" conference co-sponsored by Harvard University. I wish I could say that my presentation was the most interesting, but it wasn't. Not by a long shot. The most interesting presentation by far, I thought, was given by MIT professor John Gabrieli.

Dr. Gabrieli's team somehow obtained permission to give powerful ADHD medication to normal children. These researchers also obtained permission to withhold ADHD medication from boys (and a few girls) who undeniably did have ADHD. Then Dr. Gabrieli's team tested both troups, on and off medication, to see how well both groups could learn with and without the medication. There was an audible gasp in the audience when Dr. Gabrieli showed us the crucial slide: medication for ADHD improved the performance of normal kids by the same degree that it improved the performance of kids with ADHD. That's a tremendously important finding.

Many times I've been asked to provide a second opinion of a boy who's already been diagnosed with ADHD. The parent come to me for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the in-laws have told them that their song doesn't need, or shouldn't take, medication. Sometimes the parents have seen something scary on TV about these drugs. So I evaluate their son, let's call him Jake. Several house later, after doing the evaluation, I have sometimes said, "Mrs. So and so, Mr. So and so, I'm just not convinced that Jake really has ADHD." One of the parents answer, "But the other doctor prescribed Adderall, and it's made such a difference. Jake is doing so much better since he's been on the medication. He's much less figety in class. The teacher says he's much better behaved and more focused. And his grades are up."

In other words, these parents - and Jake's doctor as well, in this case - are using the response to medication to confirm the diagnosis. "If mediation for ADHA helps Jake to learn better, doesn't that mean that Jake probably has ADHD?" As many of us have long suspected, and as Dr. Gabrieli's study confirms, the answer to that question is no. These medications - Ritalin, Concerta, Metadate, Dexedrine, Adderall, and other stimulants - are likely to improve the perfoamce of a normal child just as much as a child who truly has ADHD. Just because these mediactions improve a child's performance in class, doesn't not mean that the child has ADHD.

- Dr. Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D, Boys Adrift, pages 88,89.

You can purchase this book here. As a parent of two young boys, I am finding it fascinating.