ADHD Medication does not improve academic performance or learning
A recent study out of Florida International University found out that children on ADHD medications did not learn more or perform better academically than a non-medicated control group.
If this is to be the case, then it would seem like the primary reason for medicating children with ADHD is to influence behavior.
Perhaps this makes teachers’ lives easier, reduces classroom disruption, increases family stability, there are many axillary effects of ADHD medication not evaluated in this study but are discussed.
Insights like these are key for parents deciding whether or not to medicate their children in the classroom and can be scarce when reviewing impacts of psychotropic medications.
- The prevalence of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) increased to 11.0% of US children in 2011
- Two-thirds received pharmacotherapy [1].
- This was a 41% increase relative to the prevalence in 2003 [2].
Has education changed much from 2003 to 2011? Likely not. Has something changed with children? Hard to say.
1 in 3 young adults ‘experiences a mental illness’ according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness in 2020.
Is this increased need for diagnostics and therapeutics suggesting that something might not be working for today’s youth or that we are getting more scientific about identifying suboptimal behavior and treating it?
Every decision made is a constant assessment of compromise and trade off whether made consciously or unconsciously.
Research like this can help people be more transparent about the decisions and be freed of incorrect assumptions that we know little of the long terms effects.
Mental health, consciousness, behavior, awareness, emotional states, in many ways these are both the oldest and newest frontier of spirituality and science.
Both scientific and ancient approaches combined can guide through uncertainty.
-Adam @thatmhg
