A good week for studies of relevance to
lots of parents.
First one is a report published in the
Canadian Medial Journal done right here in BC, a review of the records of over
900000 kids, and the researchers concluded that the younger a young child is in
his grade, the greater his (way more boys are diagnosed with behavior disorders
than girls) of being diagnosed with ADHD.
The reason?
Probably because immature behaviour by
younger kids is deemed to be disruptive by some of the adults caring for kids
who are months older (at that point in life a few months represents a pretty
substantial difference in how long kids have been alive and attuned to what’s
expected).
The fallout?
This diagnosis follows that child for a
long time, likely life, and many (probably most, these days) of these kids are
put on behaviour-modifying medication to help them fit in, which they simply
don’t need.
This study just screams at us – as I have
been saying for many years - that we simply don’t have strict or exact enough
criteria for the diagnosis of ADHD (indeed, for many behavior problems) so that
many kids are mis-labelled and over-diagnosed with a “behaviour problem” mostly
because the adults taking care of that kid cannot amalgamate that end-of-the-bell-curve
behavior into that setting.
