ADD
Have you ever had a conversation with a person and you can see that their interest seems to be drifting to somewhere else? There are many young people as well was adults who are members of a group whom suffer from this problem of wondering. They suffer from what is called ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Along with ADHD, is the disorder of ADD or Attention Deficit Disorder? Both are similar and can have an enormous impact on a child’s life.
According to Encyclopedia.com, ADHD and ADD is a “chronic, neurologically based syndrome characterized by any or all of three types of behavior: hyperactivity, distractibility, and impulsively. Unlike similar behaviors caused by emotional problems or anxiety, ADHD does not fluctuate with emotional states. Often diagnosed when a child begins school, ADHD is usually accompanied by learning difficulties and social inappropriateness. Treatment may include medication such as methylphenidate hydrochloride (Ritalin), which corrects neurochemical imbalances in the brain; sugar intake is no longer considered to be a factor. Also behavioral modifications therapy a way of teaching people the organizational techniques and coping strategies, which is one of the most effective ways to curb symptoms. Symptoms may decrease after adolescence, although adults can also have ADHD and ADD as well.” The most recent news about medications is that the first Lady and U.S Senate candidate Hillary Clinton responded to recent studies that show a doubling or possible tripling of the number of children under age four taking Ritalin, a drug that is believed to increase a child’s alertness by stimulating the central nervous system. Clinton has called for a plan that would create new government warning labels for such drugs, a national study of their use and a fall conference on children’s mental health.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a learning disorder in which psychiatrists have been looking into since the 1940’s. Serious studies were not started until the 1980’s and then “within the past several years, medical researchers have begun to clarify its symptoms and causes and have found that it may have a genetic underpinning. Today’s view of the basis of the condition is strikingly different from that of just a few years ago. We are finding that ADHD and ADD is not a disorder of attention, as had long been assumed, rather it arises as a developmental failure in the brain circuitry that underlies inhibition and self-control. This loss of self-control in turn impairs other important brain functions crucial for maintaining attention, including the ability to defer immediate rewards for later, greater gain.” (Barkley). Young children are most often diagnosed with ADHD in there early years of development. Russell A. Barkley is a doctor who diagnosed his young patient Keith with ADHD. Here is how Keith was acting before Russell Barkley saw him. “As I watched five-year-old Keith in the waiting room of my office, I could see why his parents said he was having such a tough time in kindergarten. He hopped from chair to chair, swinging his arms and legs restlessly, and then began to fiddle with the light switches, turning the lights on and off again to everyone’s annoyance-all the while talking nonstop. When his mother encouraged him to join a group of other children busy in the playroom, Keith butted into a game that was already in progress and took over, causing the other children to complain of his bossiness and drift away to other activities. Even when Keith had the toys to himself, he fidgeted aimlessly with them and seemed unable to entertain himself quietly.
Once I examined him more fully, my initial suspicions were confirmed: Keith had attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).” There are no known cures for ADHD. There are ways to help control it to a confinable disorder. CHADD is an organization that tries to help those children and adults with ADHD. It is a national non-profit organization that was founded in 1987 by a group of concerned parents. CHADD works to improve the lives of the people who live with a person suffering with ADHD and ADD through education, advocacy and support.
“Today, children and adults with ADHD and ADD have CHADD, the national organization with over 32,000 members and more than 500 chapters nationwide, to provide that support and information. Thanks in large part to the efforts of CHADD, AD/HD is now recognized as a treatable, yet potentially serious disorder, that affects up to 2.6 million school-aged children between the ages of 5 and 18, and an estimated 2-5 million adults. Today, children with ADHD can receive special education services or accommodations within the regular classroom when needed, and adults with ADHD may be eligible for accommodations in the workplace under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 guidelines issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1997.” (CHADD.com). “CHADD is a success story, inspired by the desire of countless parents to see their children with ADHD succeed. From one parent support group in Florida, the organization grew dramatically from year to year to its present status as the leading non-profit national organization for children and adults with ADD. CHADD’s first annual conference in 1989 attracted 300 attendees. The fourth annual conference, held in Chicago in 1992, drew over 2,500 people. Despite the growth in size and reputation, CHADD has not lost the passion and commitment of its founders. The organization still relies heavily on dedicated volunteers around the country who offer their support and encouragement to all those living with or affected by ADD.” (CHADD.com.).
Even though there is no cure for ADD and ADHD there are ways in coping with the destructive disorder. I had the privilege to go see a speaker by the name Michael Asher, an East Brunswick psychologist at The Middlesex County Educational Service Commission on March twenty-eighth. This seminar was so informative he disguised behavioral management for students with ADD and ADHD, how to properly diagnosis, and important facts. He said there are four ways to detect ADD and ADHD. First, extensive history has to be taken because there are serious genetic connections. Secondly, questionnaires are sent to people who are involved in that child’s life. Thirdly, you must observe that child in a classroom environment. Finally, a CPT test, which is continuous performance test to measure audio and visual difficulties. Important decisions in that child’s life such as college and the background of the disorder was also touched on. Recently they discover that a disorder is a defect in the brain but it also is caused by the lack of glucose, which causes the abnormalities in the structure and function of an ADD or ADHD brain. He also stressed that there is no cure, but studies do show that the disorder decrease as the child approaches adolescences. When deciding to send them to college wait until age twenty, they are more mature then. We have to remember a child of nine with ADD or ADHD will behave like a six year old socially and emotionally. A child might be fine cognitively but not emotionally. He was so right when he talked about teacher having to help with children with this disorder because they need extra time and attention. He also said not to single out these children but to make them feel like everyone else. He suggested sending ADD and ADHD to camps such as W.I.S.E. and Stepping Stone Day Camp. These are camps to help them socially and to help them to focus on developing social-emotional skills through group training, individual attention, recreational activities, and academic instruction. This past summer, I had the opportunity to be around children with ADHD and ADD. I was a counselor at a day camp. I was with some of these kids from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm. To watch the behavior of some of these children with ADHD and ADD was remarkable. They, at the most, could sit down at one activity for 10-15 minutes, before they where bored. Whether they were boys or girls they were always on the go. I could see how they were affected by the disorder most when it was time to sit and listen to someone. Children with ADHD and ADD cannot sit still for a long time. When it came time for the camp talent show these children where usually standing the back of the group fighting with one another. In a camp setting like the one I was in over, the summer it was very common to have more then one child in a group with ADHD or ADD. One of the members of the staff I worked with, my friend Josh, had a group of 3rd grade boys of which half the group was hyperactive. This was the group that was always in trouble usually for their behavior. They were uncontrollable and not even the director talking to them helped. When this group walked around camp, they were never in any order and you always knew they were approaching without even seeing them. Now Josh and his co-counselor Andrew tried everything in their power they could think of to get these boys in line, but nothing worked. The boys always played the game, monkey see monkey do. If they saw one of the boys in the group acting up then they all started to act up. This type of behavior happened not only in Josh and Andrew’s group, but also in many other groups throughout the camp. Camp is a social setting where they do things for enjoyment, I cannot imagine working with them on an academic lever.
My mom, on the other hand, has to teach these children everyday. Many of them take medication before they leave the house for a first dose, and then have to go to the medical center to get another one or two times during the course of the day to take another dosage. As the medication wears off the student becomes agitated, disruptive, antsy, and can no longer focus on what is being taught. Often they become the class clowns for attention and to steer focus off of the academic setting. For the next twenty- thirty minutes after the child goes for his medicine he becomes completely lethargic. You would not know it was the same child. Thus during an academic setting of eight hours, they are really only attentive about half the time. That is why most of those students take untimed tests. According to Adam Rogers of Newsweek, “Even in a classroom of 30 preteens, it’s not hard to spot the one with problems. He’s staring out the window instead of listening, or tearing around the room instead of finishing that art project.”
After reading, going to seminars, gathering information, and speaking with actual teachers I can fully understand the disorder. I had no idea how serious and complicated it all really is. It is a whole different lifestyle because people lose jobs because of the disorder, they are impulsive and impatient, they have frequent mood swings and short tempers and relationship are restrained. It doesn’t just affect their academic life it affects relationship with others, their career, and other everyday life experiences. It’s not something that will just go away, there is no cure. One thing is certain: ADD and ADHD, if left untreated, can block people from leading healthy and productive lives by sabotaging their self-confidence and blocking their willingness to succeed. I think that there are several issues and arguments to be made with ADD and ADHD. Doctors are prescribing Ritalin at the drop of a hat. It is a very serious drug and should be carefully looked into before prescribing a drug like Ritalin. Two million out of the five million living with the disorder were diagnosed as a child. No one really knows how serious this disorder really is. It causes great depression, social difficulties and character problems. It’s not just a learning disability it is a serious disorder. After seeing what it is like for these children through camps, and interacting with these children it is very hard on them. After watching an ADD child sit on the side as everyone else plays is very disturbing.
And why does he sit on the side, one of the other boys called him a “freak.” Not only is it hard for me to understand trying to explain that to a seven-year-old kid, who just wants to be like the other children. The toughest part for ADD and ADHD children is being singled out from the other kids. They have to sit right next to the teacher’s desk because they don’t pay attention or they won’t stop walking around the room. Learning more about the disorder had helped me understand more about the disorder and has helped me understand how to deal with it and to make an environment more comfortable for kids who have the disorder.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder are something that everyone comes in contact with at some point in his or her life. It is a disorder everyone should feel comfortable with incase they come in contact with it. Fortunately, as more and more children are being diagnosed with it, there is a larger turnout from society to help them. No one wants to see a child struggle through school and life because of a disorder they cannot control.
ADHD (Early Child) – Learning and Memory
The consideration of the Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder widely referred to as (ADHD) and its effects on the memory on the children is very imperative specially with regards of the including the children in the future visionary and development purposes. Common memory theories exhibited by the children under the effects of the ADHD includes the availability of the heuristic which indicates that recent issues are felt as more reasonable and likely while choice –supportive bias influence the dictation of memories that help in designing of decisions that seem well. The ADHD may alternative propagate the counterfactual thinking which reads that we can handily transform the temporary memories. ADHD may further influence the essence of the false recognition as words can change what human remember. As a primary kindergarten teacher the hurdles underwent by the children with this complication is very intrinsic in nature.
The value of the transformation of the children to become society fitting individual especially consideration to economic, political and social congruity is very much imperative. Attention-deficit hyperactivity complications are an increasingly recognizable term in neighborhood communities. It represents the preponderance of patients frequenting child psychiatry health centers in Hong Kong (Berry, 2008). The pervasiveness this complication in Hong Kong is approximately 6.1% in Primary segment 1 pupils and around 3.9% in their adolescent. The statistics coincidentally are similar to reports undertaken worldwide. However, reports worldwide have shown some extents of disturbance on the data obtained in the adolescent epoch of ADHD offspring.
Rarely do the center ADHD symptoms persevere and problems may become apparent in forms including: disruptive behavior, educational under-achievement, drug abuse, and communal maladjustment. Unlike individualistic societies in the West, child upbringing in Chinese cultures is majorly influenced and altered by Confucian ideology, which emphasizes on societal standards and interpersonal accord (Millichap, 2010. Most Chinese parents are visibly more authoritarian and apply greater Control on their children.
Academic accomplishment is emphasized, reliance is encouraged, and hostility is strongly fated. Chinese kids are given more homework as compared to children in west and they spend supplementary time getting after-school training. Warning signs of ADHD thus compel additional confrontations for Chinese family children. Chinese culture believes parents to be directly responsible for apposite behavior of their kids; having a behaviorally troubled child is relevant to examination of the adolescent outcome of the ADHD rampant in the Chinese children. Following a cohort study conducted by a Hong Kong teaching Hospital in which main participants were children who were diagnosed with ADHD complications following the manual of the mental disorder conducted between the year 1998 and 2003 (Berry, 2008). Main result procedures Data on psychopathology, intellectual attainment, law-breaking, substance misuse, and other psychosocial oriented functioning composed from numerous informants and bureaucrat records. Presentation of topics was contrasted with a group of population controls. In a total of 150 kids with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder were evaluated and 6 years after preliminary intake evaluation in 14 years average age and a follow-up rate ranking 86% in compilation (Wender, 1998). In Comparison with controls enlisted their entirely externalizing and compounded internalizing conflicts were contrastingly 4 and 1.5 multiple as regular. Most adolescents exhibiting attention-deficit hyperactivity complications were noted to likely to engage in smoking cigarettes and underlying use of the illicit drugs. This factor would eventually tragically hamper their educational achievement process. Their educational attainment was beneath age norms with additional fourth repeats of grades; approximately 7% of the children are reported to have been detained by the police in contrast with none of the pupils listed as the controls.
They encountered compounded tribulations in comparison and are exposed to more complicatedness in the relative’s surroundings and social predicament–solving (Wender, 1998). There were insurmountable discrepancies notable between parent and patient issued reports about their conditions of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder warnings signs, and well documented and recorded youth information of delinquency. Local Chinese children with symptoms of the ADHD are exposed to the far risks of the multiple forms of the adolescents maladjustment and their profile outcome is similar to the typical cases reported in the Western world. The far-reaching effects of the ADHD are mostly felt as a usual source of shame to the parents which confronts the extensive urge amongst the parents to object to the contemplation of seeking help from the experts.
Research indicates that most Chinese school have high tendency of referring their children to the professional for check with regards to the amplifying rates of the ADHD. The recommendations of the professionals vary much with cultural contexts. schizophrenic victims in most emergent countries were revealed to have a enhanced prognosis in comparison to more recoveries and a few comparable relapses in contrasted in developed nations. Childhood developmental process is considered a dynamic and continual process that entails nature and nurture and thus the importance of the imperative socio-cultural environment cannot be overestimated. Given the variations in psychosocial framework, it is hasty to assume that ADHD scuttle a similar path in Chinese kids as in the West (Jensen & Cooper, 2002).
There is longitudinal study on the Chinese ADHD children and the development effect this case remains a central clinical question that clinicians and parents answer to. This research was calculated to portray the early on adolescent outcome of a methodically diagnosed grouping of Chinese ADHD kids in Hong Kong, and to contrast them with societal controls. Hyperactive contents were entailed from the commencement of the hospital concerning the children and the adolescent of the psychiatric of the Queen of Mary Hospital. Children with the ADHD underwent well standardized and subsequent comprehensive assessment in the day hospital were inaugurated and subsequent training (Strauss, Sherman & Spreen, 2006).
The current cohort entailed of all Chinese ADHD kids who attended the daytime hospital commencing from January 1998 to notable December 2003. The model diagnosis was typically based on well outlined diagnostic and corresponding statistical Manual that elaborates on Mental Disorders or criteria of ADHD by applying the clinical and historical ways, standardized questionnaire rankings from teachers and pupils’ parents thus displaying well –structured and clinical observations that have been compiled in eight half-day sessions and corresponding consensual decisions undertaken in the weekly team meetings. Review of medical records recognized 222 ADHD themes in the aforementioned period Patient exposing harsh sensory or motor human dysfunction, mental growth retardation, autistic disarray, and those under study at primary school level at the occasion of summary were excluded. In a follow-up evaluation, the participants were aged between the years 12 and 16. They were located by letter and followed by a handset call. The procedure of securing the subject enrollment was modified from the Cambridge Study for Delinquent Development (Strauss, Sherman & Spreen, 2006). Concurrently an average of the five phone calls was conducted to each subject or his parents.
Long and remoteness calls, internet cell phone, and emails were entailed in contacting the subjects who learned abroad. Eleven participants were not contacted since they rebuffed the calls made to them or they had migrated to other countries. The typical reasons for snub (n=21) incorporated bad memories, agonize about stigmatization, or concern regarding privacy. Concurrently, data concerning 190 (86%) of the focus were successfully consolidated. The average follow-up epoch was 6 (ranging 3-9) years and data of about 19 topics were disqualified from the analysis since they were older than required age of 16 years or were still in process of studying while in primary schools. In the follow –up duration, a neighborhood control group was enrolled from dual local secondary school levels or a co-educational boy’s school. The double schools were entailed in the initial and second banding of the whole education structure informing that that they registered more rationally competent learners and one class was haphazardly selected from every level of Secondary classes of 1 to 3 extrapolating an extra class (Gozal & Molfese, 2005).
Under this criterion, 270 learners were randomly chosen, and 238 parent-learners dyads (88%) were fruitfully recruited. This data were not well analyzed if a learner was older than 16 years in group (n=8) or had a psychiatric mind in the past (n=2). In compilation there were 171 boys and 57 girls in a group for contrasting. In consideration of the procedural outlining of the ADHD and the control concepts completed their evaluation at the day hospice and their learning schools, correspondingly. Informed documented consent was recovered from the subjects and their respective parents or even legal guardians. The research regarding adolescent psychopathology was evaluated by the child’s behavior (Jensen & Cooper, 2002). The report has been defined for validation for use by the use amongst the children especially in the Hong Kong society (Marchetti, 2007). Compilation of an excellent test-retest reliable set up is highly imperative and criterion validate. Inclusion of the age and gender –leveled local norms were established. The clinical notable case was definable by the T-score amongst the 64 or beyond broadband and cumulative complications scores of either CBCL or even the YSR.
The notable self and even parental reporting amongst the ADHD symptoms or warnings was analyzed by the 18 respective items in the ADHD checklist. Memory issues and consolidated antisocial behaviors are rampant amongst most kids with ADHD thus compelling the ever burgeoning statistics on the police cases reported to the laws safeguarding institutions . Official records of unlawful offences, detention and sentences were recovered from Hong Kong Police (Marchetti, 2007). Concurrently, a reported Misconduct Scale in terms of the (Misconduct Score) conducted to gauge the extents of the frequency involvement with inclination to the 17 well determined as the deviant behaviors. Earlier local and entailed cross –cultural studies had demonstrated and shown high internal consistency of the misconduct scale.
The inclusion of ADHD research informed of the compounding effects of the drinking, use of the illicit substances and smoking as the wider influence of the far reaching impacts of the ADHD the study by 95 000 secondary school learners (Gozal & Molfese, 2005). On the other hand, 28 local normative data regarding the past and regular application of use of the multiple substances were presented. The general academic performance of the Hong Kong informs that attainment test is regional wide standardized academic assessment and evaluative for all secondary students of the local regional schools. The students were eventually allocated percentile ranks ranging between 1 and 100 in accordance to their peers. The test provided well and objective standardized and above level adjusted information for segmented subject’s academic performance.
Reference
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- Marchetti, G. (2007). Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal affairs – the trilogy. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univ. Press.
- Strauss, E., Sherman, E. M. S., & Spreen, O. (2006). A compendium of neuropsychological tests: Administration, norms, and commentary. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press.
- Millichap, J. G. (2010). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder handbook: A physician’s guide to ADHD. New York: Springer.
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