ADHD On The Rise?
ADHD seems to be on the rise, a new study says. Despite the fact that the simple piece of news that ADHD is rising is worrying, the main issue is that it is affecting children. It could be found in children as young as four year old and the overall child diagnosis has risen by 35 percent. So what is going on? Why this outburst all of a sudden?
Joel Nigg, the director of Psychology within Oregon Health & Science University, has explained that preschool diagnosing is known to be weaker due to instrumentation and guidelines, but there are expectations that ADHD develops a lot harder than expected.
The main issue is that these tests are not trustworthy. There is not much evidence nowadays that can support the amount of diagnostics that are established and approaching tender ages is extremely difficult. Thus, even if ADHD is expected to have risen drastically, and it might have, the situation might be less drastic than what we are led to believe.
Dr. Michael F. Troy also supports this belief. Dr. Troy is the Medical Director of Behavioral Health Services at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota and he mentions that the diagnosis in general becomes “less stigmatized” if people become aware of it and they accepted as “common diagnosis”. In short, if people see more and more of something, they get used to calling it something without giving too much attention to it anymore.
Nigg always advises that, in case children are having difficulty when it comes to learning, participating in group activities or when a not-so-good relationship is developing between the child and their parents, professionals should always be consulted and ask to intervene wherever it is necessary in order to help both the child and his family.
Dr. Troy also declared that ADHD is at the verge of the medical and psychological fields, “a description of behavior”. A child might have ADHD or he might have a series of other factors that contribute to a condition that is similar to ADHD, but it is not ADHD. He compared it to having a cough. You could have a simple cough or you might be coughing out of several different reasons.
So it is quite fair to say that, while ADHD rates have increased, it might not be as bad as we think it is. The ambiguous nature can mislead even specialists. Before concluding whether a child has ADHD or not, a thorough analysis must be done so that the parents will not live with the idea that their child is not as he should be and the child will not grow up knowing that he has something which he doesn’t really have.
Photo Credits potentialwithinreach.com/a>
