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>ADHD is heritable Doesn't make it a disorder. >But 70 - 80% of children quickly show improvements in response to stimulant therapy very quickly. They also s
by faeriechangling 5y ago
>ADHD is heritable
Doesn't make it a disorder.
>But 70 - 80% of children quickly show improvements in response to stimulant therapy very quickly.
They also show improvements if they don't have diagnosed ADHD and take the drugs, as I've already cited. This says more about the drugs than the medical model of ADHD.
>That's worth a try for such a debilitating condition that sees a third of its patients drop out of high school and 5 - 10% graduate college at all.
I just don't see any reason why more and more students wouldn't take simulants so long as they can access them and tolerate them, which ought to push up standards, which ought to increase the pressure to use them. I'm generally supportive of stimulant use, but using drugs to pump grades is pretty much the LEAST compelling reason to take stimulants. I think stimulants are great to, help you cook meals, stay organized, keep your finances in order, things like that. begin with... academics.
I also don't fundamentally see low academic achievement as proving disorder. To me, I think the biggest reason something associated with low academic achievement is considered a disorder, is that the people who write the DSM and ICD are all academics, who see people with ADHD as their lessers.
- themacguffinman 5y agoStudies show that if you don't have ADHD, stimulants don't actually improve your school performance. This has been trialed, it does not beat placebo [1]. The very study you cited [2] shows that at best, there's some evidence it improves performance in rote memory tasks in patients without ADHD, not the complex memory usually needed for academic achievement (the study literature explicitly point this out, this is not just my own speculation). There's a significant difference between how it affects ADHD and non-ADHD patients. Low academic achievement is a huge handicap in modern society whether you or psychologists like it or not. And it's not just low academic achievement. Executive function impairment cuts across so many things. Expect huge elevated risks in teenage pregnancies, poverty & debt from financial mismanagement, divorces, inability to hold a job, violent conflict and arrests. Expect an overall life expectancy 13 - 20 years lower than the average. Go ahead, thumb your nose at societal expectations, it won't change the measurably worse life outcomes experienced by those with ADHD. That's what makes it a disorder. [1] https://chadd.org/adhd-weekly/dont-have-adhd-meds-wont-improve-grades/ https://chadd.org/adhd-weekly/dont-have-adhd-meds-wont-impro... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489818/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489818/