14 ms·

Youngest Kids in Class at Higher Risk of ADHD Diagnosis

82 points by daegloe 11y ago

sjclemmy 11y ago
This doesn't surprise me. My youngest is a July baby and was constantly in trouble up to around the age of 11, for being a bit silly and immature. We, as parents, got to realise this and would often say, "If he was in the year below, his behaviour wouldn't be unusual."
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
cheez 11y ago
This is some Malcolm Gladwell-level stuff... Damn.
- askafriend 11y ago
  Can you expand on your criticism? I've heard people offhandedly criticize Gladwell's work but I've never really gotten a full explanation of why they dislike his style.
  - cheez 11y ago
    I can't, because my neurons misfired. I was thinking freakonomics :)
Noge_Sako 11y ago
Removing actual firm discipline for all the young boys has been a disaster. We replaced strict and perhaps unpleasant discipline in favor of medicine, and its worse long term side effect profile.
- afarrell 11y ago
  > Removing actual firm discipline What are some concrete examples of disciplinary tactics we should resume using?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- benologist 11y ago
  You say strict but don't you really just mean threatening children with violence? The last time someone told me to stand still so they could hit me as hard as they could with a cane was when I was 7 or 8 years old. That's not education. Real educators, much like real democracy, do not rely on fear and violence to control others.
  - adrusi 11y ago
    I definitely understand why using fear to control children is a bad thing, but as for violence, it's at the root of all power anyway. Whenever you impose a disciplinary sanction, it's implicit that if the sanction is not respected, it will be replaced by an alternative, at least as harsh sanction, and eventually the alternative sanction will be violent. Fear is clearly not a great way of controlling your children, but no one does it in any other way. If instead of corporal punishment you discipline your child by revoking privileges, you're still using threats and fear. The alternative is to reason with your child, to present a convincing argument for why they should listen to you. But kids aren't (always) rational actors, so that doesn't always work. Both hitting your child and grounding your child are based on fear and violence. They each have their disadvantages. Hitting your child might end up teaching them that hitting people is OK, grounding your child gives them a lot of time to build resentment and keeps them cooped up with negativity and inactivity so that they're more likely to get into trouble again. I'm not sure which I would have chosen as a kid, but now I'd choose corporal punishment.
    - true_religion 11y ago
      While it's often pointed out that children are not rational actors, I'd also like to include that parents are not rational actors all the time either. Often people want to impose a rule on their children without properly evaluating it because its what they were taught, and has become part and parcel of their socialization. Other times people must impose a rule on their children due to government regulation (e.g. you can't leave children under X age home without someone over Y age responsible for them). In those cases, people fail to explain their guiding logic because no one likes to say "I have to do this, the government is making me do it through threat of jail time" and thus their justification---both to themselves and their children---comes off as flimsy.
drpgq 11y ago
Is there anywhere that divides up their younger grade classes into who is born in the first half of the educational year and who is born in the second half? That could help somewhat although the teacher of the second half kids probably is going to have a tough time.
- DanBC 11y ago
  England has very recently allowed summer born children to defer. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/389448/Summer_born_admissions_advice_Dec_2014.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm... http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/sep/08/parents-of-summer-born-children-get-right-to-delay-start-of-school http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/sep/08/parents-of-... It's a bit confusing.
  - jeffwass 11y ago
    I don't see how that solves the issue, as it just moves (w/ optionality) the cutoff from 1st Sep back a few months. Meaning if everybody opted in, the spring kids would become the youngest in class, instead of late summer kids. Edit - I see this helps ensure kids don't start Reception (ie, the equiv of Kindergarten in the US) too early. But it also shifts the point of youngest back a few months, so in later years, the kids born in spring season will be the least mature in class, and judged in this regard relative to the others.
    - ryandrake 11y ago
      Exactly, it just changes which group of students are in the "too early" group. When I start a new job, they don't say, "Well, your job offer was made on 12-May, but our fiscal year starts in April, so you'll have no choice but to wait until 1-Apr to start work." The solution likely involves abandoning the model of childhood education consisting of fixed, arbitrarily-long cycles beginning on arbitrarily-chosen dates, progressing linearly. But when you leave it up to voters, abandoning "The Way Things Were Always Done" is about as impossible as curing cancer.
  - 11y ago
amelius 11y ago
Perhaps astrology has some truth to it after all :)
fweespee_ch 11y ago
> The youngest students were between 20 percent and 100 percent more likely to get the diagnosis or ADHD medication than were the oldest students in the cohort, says Helga Zoëga, an epidemiologist at the University of Iceland who worked on the Icelandic and Israeli studies. > "Within that age range there is a huge difference in developmental and social and emotional maturity," says Dr. Adiaha Spinks-Franklin, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at Texas Children's Hospital who was not involved in any of the studies. "A 6-year-old is just not the same as a 7-year-old." > And yet a first-grader might stand shoulder to shoulder with another student nearly 12 months her elder. "And the way we diagnose ADHD is we talk to the parent about the child's behavior, and we mail the teacher questionnaires," Spinks-Franklin says. "The teacher will be comparing the child's behavior relative to other children in the class." That is disturbing. It is clear they aren't taking age into account except at the broadest levels when handing out ADHD medication. This rings dangerous close to "That kid is too much trouble, just medicate them and move on."
- eruditely 11y ago
  ADHD is a developmental disorder, they're 30% behind their peers anyways in exec functioning(front part of brain) in development, it's called "Barkley's 30% rule" It's very severe and bad but goes away if you just take your meds. So if you're 18, you're when people were at 12.5 in your ability to perceive time/planning. It's worse than having low intelligence, EF deficits. ""By adolescence, these chronic and cumulative experiences with school failure, learning disorders, school misbehavior, and sometimes lower intelligence begin to generate other adverse educational outcomes. For instance, the academic outcome of the hyperactive (ADHD) adolescents was considerably poorer in Barkley and Fischer’s Milwaukee follow-up study at the teen follow-up than that of the typically developing adolescents followed concurrently. At least three times as many hyperactive (ADHD) children had failed a grade (29.3 vs. 10.0%) or been suspended (46.3 vs. 15.2%) or expelled (10.6% vs. 1.5%) (Fischer, Barkley, Edelbrock, & Smallish, 1990). Others have also identified such high educational risks in longitudinal studies dating back as much as 40 years (Ackerman, Dykman, & Peters, 1977; Mendelson, Johnson, & Stewart, 1971; Stewart, Mendelson, & Johnson, 1973; Weiss, Minde, Werry, Douglas, & Nemeth, 1971; Wilson & Marcotte, 1996). In another sample of clinic-referred teenagers with ADHD, a similar risk for school retention and suspension was documented (Barkley, Anastopoulos, Guevremont, & Fletcher, 1991). Almost 10% of the hyperactive sample followed into adolescence had quit school at this follow-up point in the Milwaukee Study, compared to none of the normal sample (Barkley, Fischer, et al., 1990). Fischer and colleagues (1990) also found that the levels of academic achievement on standard tests were significantly below normal on tests of math, reading, and spelling, falling toward the lower end of the normal range (standard scores between 90 and 95)." (Quoted from the 4th edition)" "Substantially fewer hyperactive than control children had ever enrolled in college (21 vs. 78%) or were currently attending at this follow-up point (15 vs. 66%). These findings were reaffirmed 6 years later at the age 27 follow-up (Barkley et al., 2008). In the Canadian follow-up study, approximately 20% attempted a college program, yet only 5% completed a university degree program, compared to over 41% of control children (Weiss & Hechtman, 1993). The longest running (30-year) follow-up study of hyperactive children into midlife likewise indicates that less education is an outcome of childhood ADHD, with 30% either not completing high school or getting a general equivalency diploma (GED), compared to just 4% of the control group (Klein et al., 2012). These findings demonstrate that the educational domain is major in terms of impaired functioning and reduced attainment for children growing up with ADHD." (quoted from the 4th edition handbook) linked below http://www.filedropper.com/russellabarkley-attention-deficithyperactivitydisorderahandbookfordiagnosisandtreatment-theguilfordpress2014 http://www.filedropper.com/russellabarkley-attention-deficit... http://www.amazon.com/Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder-Fourth-Diagnosis/dp/1462517722/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457913239&sr=1-1&keywords=russell+barkley+handbook http://www.amazon.com/Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disord...
BurningFrog 11y ago
This is just one of several disadvantages for kids born towards the end of the year. One logical solution is to have two classes per year. Kids born Jan-June start in the fall, the rest the following spring.
- RhysU 11y ago
  Another, deliberately distasteful, one would be to incentivize reproducing to ensure one's family doesn't run afoul of the cutoffs.
  - tlarkworthy 11y ago
    That's Valentine's day, hence the September skew ...
    - phillc73 11y ago
      Or move to the southern hemisphere where the school year matches the calendar year.
Spooky23 11y ago
It's a great illustration of the lack of rigor around this stuff. My college provided significant benefits to ADHD diagnosed students. Rather than take finals in stadium seating, you got a personal, air conditioned office, received unlimited time and could use reference material. A few of my friends found a "Do you need Ritalin" quizzes in a magazine, went to a doc-in-the-box and got the diagnosis. They sold the Ritalin and got better grades.
- icanhackit 11y ago
  you got a personal, air conditioned office, received unlimited time and could use reference material [...] They sold the Ritalin and got better grades As unfair as that seems to the students who took their finals in stadium seating, that's a pretty sweet hack. The system is fucked up, but I can't help but admire your friends deciding to use it to their advantage.
  - sweetHack 11y ago
    > a pretty sweet hack. Yeah, the kind that gets people hopelessly addicted to amphetamines.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - unimpressive 11y ago
    >that's a pretty sweet hack. Really? Lying about having serious developmental disorders is a 'sweet hack' now? I mean, the comments below are overstating things but the danger of amphetamine addiction (especially for people who are using the meds off prescription and are more likely to do especially risky behaviors like snort it) is there and selling the Ritalin is a felony and everything about this story is actually pretty terrible.
    - icanhackit 11y ago
      > Lying about having serious developmental disorders is a 'sweet hack' now? Your perspective on this will depend on whether you lean towards legalizing substances and taxing them. I personally think the prohibition of drugs does far more damage than consumption, and I consider this scenario to be similar to the easy access to medical marijuana - all it took was filling out a quiz and getting an easy diagnosis. Reselling marijuana is illegal, but it's an everyday occurrence that fills DEMAND. > using the meds off prescription and are more likely to do especially risky behaviors like snort it As long as you support the legality of alcohol, your worry about someone hurting themselves on drugs ignores the everyday harm already done by the most dangerous yet easily acquired behavior-altering substance. As for snorting amphetamines - people have been snorting, smoking, and imbibing things since the early days of humanity. It won't be going away soon and, until it affects you directly, it's none of your business really.
bsder 11y ago
ADHD -- middle class children with behaviors that annoy elementary school teachers If they're poor, you call them thick. If they're rich, you get them a tutor. If they're middle class, you medicate them.
- ThrustVectoring 11y ago
  Or middle class children with behavior that annoys their parents. Well, it's both that and a legitimate medical condition. The problem is that the medication that works for ADHD also works for suppressing childish behavior that authority figures find annoying. Everyone involved are fallible humans that respond to incentives, and often the incentives align for teachers, parents, and psychiatrists to medicate children into compliance.
  - crapolasplatter 11y ago
    Or kids who actually have a problem. ADHD is not only hyper activity. Many have an attention disorder with no hyper activity issue. Actually those are the most at risk because they seldom stand out or are called out for having a problem ,except with their grades.
maujsdb 11y ago
With luck, they've been rendered sunken-cheeked speed freaks with no teeth. No one ever bothers to draw a line, and connect the dots between the ritalin trend of the 90's and the Faces Of Meth that cropped up just after the turn of the millenium.
- icanhackit 11y ago
  With luck, they've been rendered sunken-cheeked speed freaks with no teeth. Why would you wish that on anybody? That's not a particularly enlightened attitude.
  - maujsdb 11y ago
    Didn't say it was good luck. ;)
- dang 11y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11279597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11279597 and marked it off-topic.
foota 11y ago
I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid in elementary school but I didn't want to take the medication (Or I may have just been being contrary...). and now as a junior in college I'm considering talking to a doctor to see whether medication might be able to help me focus. I find myself constantly unable to fin-
- eruditely 11y ago
  ""By adolescence, these chronic and cumulative experiences with school failure, learning disorders, school misbehavior, and sometimes lower intelligence begin to generate other adverse educational outcomes. For instance, the academic outcome of the hyperactive (ADHD) adolescents was considerably poorer in Barkley and Fischer’s Milwaukee follow-up study at the teen follow-up than that of the typically developing adolescents followed concurrently. At least three times as many hyperactive (ADHD) children had failed a grade (29.3 vs. 10.0%) or been suspended (46.3 vs. 15.2%) or expelled (10.6% vs. 1.5%) (Fischer, Barkley, Edelbrock, & Smallish, 1990). Others have also identified such high educational risks in longitudinal studies dating back as much as 40 years (Ackerman, Dykman, & Peters, 1977; Mendelson, Johnson, & Stewart, 1971; Stewart, Mendelson, & Johnson, 1973; Weiss, Minde, Werry, Douglas, & Nemeth, 1971; Wilson & Marcotte, 1996). In another sample of clinic-referred teenagers with ADHD, a similar risk for school retention and suspension was documented (Barkley, Anastopoulos, Guevremont, & Fletcher, 1991). Almost 10% of the hyperactive sample followed into adolescence had quit school at this follow-up point in the Milwaukee Study, compared to none of the normal sample (Barkley, Fischer, et al., 1990). Fischer and colleagues (1990) also found that the levels of academic achievement on standard tests were significantly below normal on tests of math, reading, and spelling, falling toward the lower end of the normal range (standard scores between 90 and 95)." (Quoted from the 4th edition)" "Substantially fewer hyperactive than control children had ever enrolled in college (21 vs. 78%) or were currently attending at this follow-up point (15 vs. 66%). These findings were reaffirmed 6 years later at the age 27 follow-up (Barkley et al., 2008). In the Canadian follow-up study, approximately 20% attempted a college program, yet only 5% completed a university degree program, compared to over 41% of control children (Weiss & Hechtman, 1993). The longest running (30-year) follow-up study of hyperactive children into midlife likewise indicates that less education is an outcome of childhood ADHD, with 30% either not completing high school or getting a general equivalency diploma (GED), compared to just 4% of the control group (Klein et al., 2012). These findings demonstrate that the educational domain is major in terms of impaired functioning and reduced attainment for children growing up with ADHD." You get remission of symtoms very frequently if you take your meds, it works great. there's no way you can "overcome" it as you're a) time myopic (look it up) b) cannot execute knowledge you have acquired.
tibbetts 11y ago
This article fails to admit the possibility of mistaken non-diagnosis caused by the same phenomenon. It would be interesting to see the relationship between being old for grade and late (eg adult) diagnosis of ADHD.
- nommm-nommm 11y ago
  What? Yes, it does mention this. "But perhaps older, more mature-looking students are just being underdiagnosed and not get help they might need, he says. The studies didn't look into that."
eruditely 11y ago
"By adolescence, these chronic and cumulative experiences with school failure, learning disorders, school misbehavior, and sometimes lower intelligence begin to generate other adverse educational outcomes. For instance, the academic outcome of the hyperactive (ADHD) adolescents was considerably poorer in Barkley and Fischer’s Milwaukee follow-up study at the teen follow-up than that of the typically developing adolescents followed concurrently. At least three times as many hyperactive (ADHD) children had failed a grade (29.3 vs. 10.0%) or been suspended (46.3 vs. 15.2%) or expelled (10.6% vs. 1.5%) (Fischer, Barkley, Edelbrock, & Smallish, 1990). Others have also identified such high educational risks in longitudinal studies dating back as much as 40 years (Ackerman, Dykman, & Peters, 1977; Mendelson, Johnson, & Stewart, 1971; Stewart, Mendelson, & Johnson, 1973; Weiss, Minde, Werry, Douglas, & Nemeth, 1971; Wilson & Marcotte, 1996). In another sample of clinic-referred teenagers with ADHD, a similar risk for school retention and suspension was documented (Barkley, Anastopoulos, Guevremont, & Fletcher, 1991). Almost 10% of the hyperactive sample followed into adolescence had quit school at this follow-up point in the Milwaukee Study, compared to none of the normal sample (Barkley, Fischer, et al., 1990). Fischer and colleagues (1990) also found that the levels of academic achievement on standard tests were significantly below normal on tests of math, reading, and spelling, falling toward the lower end of the normal range (standard scores between 90 and 95)." (Quoted from the 4th edition) ADHD IS real and really bad and it goes away on meds, your brain is underdeveloped 30% compared to your peers, in exec functioning. So if you're 18, you're at 12.5 on average. It's called Barkley's 30% rule. It's serious but responds great to meds, STOP believing the anti-adhd hype.
im3w1l 11y ago
> the difference in diagnosis rates vanished by the time the students reached their teenage years Makes me think this isn't that big a deal
peleroberts 11y ago
Once upon a time no such reference letters existed, you had slow kids, fast kids and middle of the road kids. All of a sudden kids are getting the labels as if they belong on supermarket shelves. An old schooler would say there's a cure for that, either bad parenting, not eating the right foods or balanced diet, bad sleeping pattern. Or basically some parents just like to get extra government money to support their own needs. (I know a family that's done this - and it's disgusting) What's next?
conceit 11y ago
Backronym to Age Dependent H. [Age] Deficiency/Disorder?
damla 11y ago
The thing is, the youngest child is not just taken to the specialists with the suspect of ADHD, it really is diagnosed with ADHD. Gifted children also diagnosed frequently with ADHD, they even have a name for it, twice exceptional. The ADHD comes to me like a deviation from the social standarts. What's normal, and what's not. For most children, ADHD is not a cause of worry until school age. The normal student is defined by current education system. ADHD comes to me like being gay, you are not sick or nothing's wrong with you, just different than the average, and have problems with fitting in the current social standarts.

82 points by daegloe 11y ago

This doesn't surprise me. My youngest is a July baby and was constantly in trouble up to around the age of 11, for being a bit silly and immature. We, as parents, got to realise this and would often say, "If he was in the year below, his behaviour wouldn't be unusual."

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

cheez 11y ago

This is some Malcolm Gladwell-level stuff... Damn.

askafriend 11y ago
Can you expand on your criticism? I've heard people offhandedly criticize Gladwell's work but I've never really gotten a full explanation of why they dislike his style.
- cheez 11y ago
  I can't, because my neurons misfired. I was thinking freakonomics :)

Noge_Sako 11y ago

Removing actual firm discipline for all the young boys has been a disaster. We replaced strict and perhaps unpleasant discipline in favor of medicine, and its worse long term side effect profile.

afarrell 11y ago
> Removing actual firm discipline What are some concrete examples of disciplinary tactics we should resume using?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
benologist 11y ago
You say strict but don't you really just mean threatening children with violence? The last time someone told me to stand still so they could hit me as hard as they could with a cane was when I was 7 or 8 years old. That's not education. Real educators, much like real democracy, do not rely on fear and violence to control others.
- adrusi 11y ago
  I definitely understand why using fear to control children is a bad thing, but as for violence, it's at the root of all power anyway. Whenever you impose a disciplinary sanction, it's implicit that if the sanction is not respected, it will be replaced by an alternative, at least as harsh sanction, and eventually the alternative sanction will be violent. Fear is clearly not a great way of controlling your children, but no one does it in any other way. If instead of corporal punishment you discipline your child by revoking privileges, you're still using threats and fear. The alternative is to reason with your child, to present a convincing argument for why they should listen to you. But kids aren't (always) rational actors, so that doesn't always work. Both hitting your child and grounding your child are based on fear and violence. They each have their disadvantages. Hitting your child might end up teaching them that hitting people is OK, grounding your child gives them a lot of time to build resentment and keeps them cooped up with negativity and inactivity so that they're more likely to get into trouble again. I'm not sure which I would have chosen as a kid, but now I'd choose corporal punishment.
  - true_religion 11y ago
    While it's often pointed out that children are not rational actors, I'd also like to include that parents are not rational actors all the time either. Often people want to impose a rule on their children without properly evaluating it because its what they were taught, and has become part and parcel of their socialization. Other times people must impose a rule on their children due to government regulation (e.g. you can't leave children under X age home without someone over Y age responsible for them). In those cases, people fail to explain their guiding logic because no one likes to say "I have to do this, the government is making me do it through threat of jail time" and thus their justification---both to themselves and their children---comes off as flimsy.

drpgq 11y ago

Is there anywhere that divides up their younger grade classes into who is born in the first half of the educational year and who is born in the second half? That could help somewhat although the teacher of the second half kids probably is going to have a tough time.

DanBC 11y ago
England has very recently allowed summer born children to defer. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/389448/Summer_born_admissions_advice_Dec_2014.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm... http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/sep/08/parents-of-summer-born-children-get-right-to-delay-start-of-school http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/sep/08/parents-of-... It's a bit confusing.
- jeffwass 11y ago
  I don't see how that solves the issue, as it just moves (w/ optionality) the cutoff from 1st Sep back a few months. Meaning if everybody opted in, the spring kids would become the youngest in class, instead of late summer kids. Edit - I see this helps ensure kids don't start Reception (ie, the equiv of Kindergarten in the US) too early. But it also shifts the point of youngest back a few months, so in later years, the kids born in spring season will be the least mature in class, and judged in this regard relative to the others.
  - ryandrake 11y ago
    Exactly, it just changes which group of students are in the "too early" group. When I start a new job, they don't say, "Well, your job offer was made on 12-May, but our fiscal year starts in April, so you'll have no choice but to wait until 1-Apr to start work." The solution likely involves abandoning the model of childhood education consisting of fixed, arbitrarily-long cycles beginning on arbitrarily-chosen dates, progressing linearly. But when you leave it up to voters, abandoning "The Way Things Were Always Done" is about as impossible as curing cancer.
- 11y ago

amelius 11y ago

Perhaps astrology has some truth to it after all :)

fweespee_ch 11y ago

> The youngest students were between 20 percent and 100 percent more likely to get the diagnosis or ADHD medication than were the oldest students in the cohort, says Helga Zoëga, an epidemiologist at the University of Iceland who worked on the Icelandic and Israeli studies. > "Within that age range there is a huge difference in developmental and social and emotional maturity," says Dr. Adiaha Spinks-Franklin, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at Texas Children's Hospital who was not involved in any of the studies. "A 6-year-old is just not the same as a 7-year-old." > And yet a first-grader might stand shoulder to shoulder with another student nearly 12 months her elder. "And the way we diagnose ADHD is we talk to the parent about the child's behavior, and we mail the teacher questionnaires," Spinks-Franklin says. "The teacher will be comparing the child's behavior relative to other children in the class." That is disturbing. It is clear they aren't taking age into account except at the broadest levels when handing out ADHD medication. This rings dangerous close to "That kid is too much trouble, just medicate them and move on."

eruditely 11y ago
ADHD is a developmental disorder, they're 30% behind their peers anyways in exec functioning(front part of brain) in development, it's called "Barkley's 30% rule" It's very severe and bad but goes away if you just take your meds. So if you're 18, you're when people were at 12.5 in your ability to perceive time/planning. It's worse than having low intelligence, EF deficits. ""By adolescence, these chronic and cumulative experiences with school failure, learning disorders, school misbehavior, and sometimes lower intelligence begin to generate other adverse educational outcomes. For instance, the academic outcome of the hyperactive (ADHD) adolescents was considerably poorer in Barkley and Fischer’s Milwaukee follow-up study at the teen follow-up than that of the typically developing adolescents followed concurrently. At least three times as many hyperactive (ADHD) children had failed a grade (29.3 vs. 10.0%) or been suspended (46.3 vs. 15.2%) or expelled (10.6% vs. 1.5%) (Fischer, Barkley, Edelbrock, & Smallish, 1990). Others have also identified such high educational risks in longitudinal studies dating back as much as 40 years (Ackerman, Dykman, & Peters, 1977; Mendelson, Johnson, & Stewart, 1971; Stewart, Mendelson, & Johnson, 1973; Weiss, Minde, Werry, Douglas, & Nemeth, 1971; Wilson & Marcotte, 1996). In another sample of clinic-referred teenagers with ADHD, a similar risk for school retention and suspension was documented (Barkley, Anastopoulos, Guevremont, & Fletcher, 1991). Almost 10% of the hyperactive sample followed into adolescence had quit school at this follow-up point in the Milwaukee Study, compared to none of the normal sample (Barkley, Fischer, et al., 1990). Fischer and colleagues (1990) also found that the levels of academic achievement on standard tests were significantly below normal on tests of math, reading, and spelling, falling toward the lower end of the normal range (standard scores between 90 and 95)." (Quoted from the 4th edition)" "Substantially fewer hyperactive than control children had ever enrolled in college (21 vs. 78%) or were currently attending at this follow-up point (15 vs. 66%). These findings were reaffirmed 6 years later at the age 27 follow-up (Barkley et al., 2008). In the Canadian follow-up study, approximately 20% attempted a college program, yet only 5% completed a university degree program, compared to over 41% of control children (Weiss & Hechtman, 1993). The longest running (30-year) follow-up study of hyperactive children into midlife likewise indicates that less education is an outcome of childhood ADHD, with 30% either not completing high school or getting a general equivalency diploma (GED), compared to just 4% of the control group (Klein et al., 2012). These findings demonstrate that the educational domain is major in terms of impaired functioning and reduced attainment for children growing up with ADHD." (quoted from the 4th edition handbook) linked below http://www.filedropper.com/russellabarkley-attention-deficithyperactivitydisorderahandbookfordiagnosisandtreatment-theguilfordpress2014 http://www.filedropper.com/russellabarkley-attention-deficit... http://www.amazon.com/Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder-Fourth-Diagnosis/dp/1462517722/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457913239&sr=1-1&keywords=russell+barkley+handbook http://www.amazon.com/Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disord...

BurningFrog 11y ago

This is just one of several disadvantages for kids born towards the end of the year. One logical solution is to have two classes per year. Kids born Jan-June start in the fall, the rest the following spring.

RhysU 11y ago
Another, deliberately distasteful, one would be to incentivize reproducing to ensure one's family doesn't run afoul of the cutoffs.
- tlarkworthy 11y ago
  That's Valentine's day, hence the September skew ...
  - phillc73 11y ago
    Or move to the southern hemisphere where the school year matches the calendar year.

Spooky23 11y ago

It's a great illustration of the lack of rigor around this stuff. My college provided significant benefits to ADHD diagnosed students. Rather than take finals in stadium seating, you got a personal, air conditioned office, received unlimited time and could use reference material. A few of my friends found a "Do you need Ritalin" quizzes in a magazine, went to a doc-in-the-box and got the diagnosis. They sold the Ritalin and got better grades.

icanhackit 11y ago
you got a personal, air conditioned office, received unlimited time and could use reference material [...] They sold the Ritalin and got better grades As unfair as that seems to the students who took their finals in stadium seating, that's a pretty sweet hack. The system is fucked up, but I can't help but admire your friends deciding to use it to their advantage.
- sweetHack 11y ago
  > a pretty sweet hack. Yeah, the kind that gets people hopelessly addicted to amphetamines.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- unimpressive 11y ago
  >that's a pretty sweet hack. Really? Lying about having serious developmental disorders is a 'sweet hack' now? I mean, the comments below are overstating things but the danger of amphetamine addiction (especially for people who are using the meds off prescription and are more likely to do especially risky behaviors like snort it) is there and selling the Ritalin is a felony and everything about this story is actually pretty terrible.
  - icanhackit 11y ago
    > Lying about having serious developmental disorders is a 'sweet hack' now? Your perspective on this will depend on whether you lean towards legalizing substances and taxing them. I personally think the prohibition of drugs does far more damage than consumption, and I consider this scenario to be similar to the easy access to medical marijuana - all it took was filling out a quiz and getting an easy diagnosis. Reselling marijuana is illegal, but it's an everyday occurrence that fills DEMAND. > using the meds off prescription and are more likely to do especially risky behaviors like snort it As long as you support the legality of alcohol, your worry about someone hurting themselves on drugs ignores the everyday harm already done by the most dangerous yet easily acquired behavior-altering substance. As for snorting amphetamines - people have been snorting, smoking, and imbibing things since the early days of humanity. It won't be going away soon and, until it affects you directly, it's none of your business really.

bsder 11y ago

ADHD -- middle class children with behaviors that annoy elementary school teachers If they're poor, you call them thick. If they're rich, you get them a tutor. If they're middle class, you medicate them.

ThrustVectoring 11y ago
Or middle class children with behavior that annoys their parents. Well, it's both that and a legitimate medical condition. The problem is that the medication that works for ADHD also works for suppressing childish behavior that authority figures find annoying. Everyone involved are fallible humans that respond to incentives, and often the incentives align for teachers, parents, and psychiatrists to medicate children into compliance.
- crapolasplatter 11y ago
  Or kids who actually have a problem. ADHD is not only hyper activity. Many have an attention disorder with no hyper activity issue. Actually those are the most at risk because they seldom stand out or are called out for having a problem ,except with their grades.

maujsdb 11y ago

With luck, they've been rendered sunken-cheeked speed freaks with no teeth. No one ever bothers to draw a line, and connect the dots between the ritalin trend of the 90's and the Faces Of Meth that cropped up just after the turn of the millenium.

icanhackit 11y ago
With luck, they've been rendered sunken-cheeked speed freaks with no teeth. Why would you wish that on anybody? That's not a particularly enlightened attitude.
- maujsdb 11y ago
  Didn't say it was good luck. ;)
dang 11y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11279597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11279597 and marked it off-topic.

foota 11y ago

I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid in elementary school but I didn't want to take the medication (Or I may have just been being contrary...). and now as a junior in college I'm considering talking to a doctor to see whether medication might be able to help me focus. I find myself constantly unable to fin-

eruditely 11y ago
""By adolescence, these chronic and cumulative experiences with school failure, learning disorders, school misbehavior, and sometimes lower intelligence begin to generate other adverse educational outcomes. For instance, the academic outcome of the hyperactive (ADHD) adolescents was considerably poorer in Barkley and Fischer’s Milwaukee follow-up study at the teen follow-up than that of the typically developing adolescents followed concurrently. At least three times as many hyperactive (ADHD) children had failed a grade (29.3 vs. 10.0%) or been suspended (46.3 vs. 15.2%) or expelled (10.6% vs. 1.5%) (Fischer, Barkley, Edelbrock, & Smallish, 1990). Others have also identified such high educational risks in longitudinal studies dating back as much as 40 years (Ackerman, Dykman, & Peters, 1977; Mendelson, Johnson, & Stewart, 1971; Stewart, Mendelson, & Johnson, 1973; Weiss, Minde, Werry, Douglas, & Nemeth, 1971; Wilson & Marcotte, 1996). In another sample of clinic-referred teenagers with ADHD, a similar risk for school retention and suspension was documented (Barkley, Anastopoulos, Guevremont, & Fletcher, 1991). Almost 10% of the hyperactive sample followed into adolescence had quit school at this follow-up point in the Milwaukee Study, compared to none of the normal sample (Barkley, Fischer, et al., 1990). Fischer and colleagues (1990) also found that the levels of academic achievement on standard tests were significantly below normal on tests of math, reading, and spelling, falling toward the lower end of the normal range (standard scores between 90 and 95)." (Quoted from the 4th edition)" "Substantially fewer hyperactive than control children had ever enrolled in college (21 vs. 78%) or were currently attending at this follow-up point (15 vs. 66%). These findings were reaffirmed 6 years later at the age 27 follow-up (Barkley et al., 2008). In the Canadian follow-up study, approximately 20% attempted a college program, yet only 5% completed a university degree program, compared to over 41% of control children (Weiss & Hechtman, 1993). The longest running (30-year) follow-up study of hyperactive children into midlife likewise indicates that less education is an outcome of childhood ADHD, with 30% either not completing high school or getting a general equivalency diploma (GED), compared to just 4% of the control group (Klein et al., 2012). These findings demonstrate that the educational domain is major in terms of impaired functioning and reduced attainment for children growing up with ADHD." You get remission of symtoms very frequently if you take your meds, it works great. there's no way you can "overcome" it as you're a) time myopic (look it up) b) cannot execute knowledge you have acquired.

tibbetts 11y ago

This article fails to admit the possibility of mistaken non-diagnosis caused by the same phenomenon. It would be interesting to see the relationship between being old for grade and late (eg adult) diagnosis of ADHD.

nommm-nommm 11y ago
What? Yes, it does mention this. "But perhaps older, more mature-looking students are just being underdiagnosed and not get help they might need, he says. The studies didn't look into that."

eruditely 11y ago

"By adolescence, these chronic and cumulative experiences with school failure, learning disorders, school misbehavior, and sometimes lower intelligence begin to generate other adverse educational outcomes. For instance, the academic outcome of the hyperactive (ADHD) adolescents was considerably poorer in Barkley and Fischer’s Milwaukee follow-up study at the teen follow-up than that of the typically developing adolescents followed concurrently. At least three times as many hyperactive (ADHD) children had failed a grade (29.3 vs. 10.0%) or been suspended (46.3 vs. 15.2%) or expelled (10.6% vs. 1.5%) (Fischer, Barkley, Edelbrock, & Smallish, 1990). Others have also identified such high educational risks in longitudinal studies dating back as much as 40 years (Ackerman, Dykman, & Peters, 1977; Mendelson, Johnson, & Stewart, 1971; Stewart, Mendelson, & Johnson, 1973; Weiss, Minde, Werry, Douglas, & Nemeth, 1971; Wilson & Marcotte, 1996). In another sample of clinic-referred teenagers with ADHD, a similar risk for school retention and suspension was documented (Barkley, Anastopoulos, Guevremont, & Fletcher, 1991). Almost 10% of the hyperactive sample followed into adolescence had quit school at this follow-up point in the Milwaukee Study, compared to none of the normal sample (Barkley, Fischer, et al., 1990). Fischer and colleagues (1990) also found that the levels of academic achievement on standard tests were significantly below normal on tests of math, reading, and spelling, falling toward the lower end of the normal range (standard scores between 90 and 95)." (Quoted from the 4th edition) ADHD IS real and really bad and it goes away on meds, your brain is underdeveloped 30% compared to your peers, in exec functioning. So if you're 18, you're at 12.5 on average. It's called Barkley's 30% rule. It's serious but responds great to meds, STOP believing the anti-adhd hype.

im3w1l 11y ago

> the difference in diagnosis rates vanished by the time the students reached their teenage years Makes me think this isn't that big a deal

peleroberts 11y ago

Once upon a time no such reference letters existed, you had slow kids, fast kids and middle of the road kids. All of a sudden kids are getting the labels as if they belong on supermarket shelves. An old schooler would say there's a cure for that, either bad parenting, not eating the right foods or balanced diet, bad sleeping pattern. Or basically some parents just like to get extra government money to support their own needs. (I know a family that's done this - and it's disgusting) What's next?

conceit 11y ago

Backronym to Age Dependent H. [Age] Deficiency/Disorder?

damla 11y ago

The thing is, the youngest child is not just taken to the specialists with the suspect of ADHD, it really is diagnosed with ADHD. Gifted children also diagnosed frequently with ADHD, they even have a name for it, twice exceptional. The ADHD comes to me like a deviation from the social standarts. What's normal, and what's not. For most children, ADHD is not a cause of worry until school age. The normal student is defined by current education system. ADHD comes to me like being gay, you are not sick or nothing's wrong with you, just different than the average, and have problems with fitting in the current social standarts.