The Overdiagnosis of ADHD Millions of children each year are taken to their local doctor's office to treat what their parents describe as restlessness and hyperactivity. More often than not, they will be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The growing epidemic of ADHD has left researchers puzzled by its increase of diagnoses each year. From 2003 to 2011, diagnoses increased by an average of five percent each year (Data and Statistics, 2016). This many children having ADHD is highly unlikely, and researchers have been discovering the causes for the rise in diagnoses. ADHD is being overdiagnosed because test scores now affect funding for schools, proper evaluations are not performed, and the educational system expects too much from children. …show more content…
American schools now rely on standardized test scores to prove that they deserve funding. This leaves them to utilize all measures possible to ensure students will improve their scores. Often times an ADHD diagnosis will be recommended by schools so that the school can receive all the benefits of a diagnosis. Although students are given tools to put them equal with their classmates, in “some states [schools] [are] allowed to take students diagnosed with ADHD out of the pool that was used to judge [their] school” (Novotney, 2014).This increase of ADHD diagnoses became apparent whenever funding was impacted by standardized tests.The “No Child Left Behind Act” is a program that makes school funding be affected by how well students perform on standardized tests. Four years after this program was put into effect it was found that the rate of ADHD diagnoses had increased by 22 percent (Koerth-Baker, 2013). With their funding at stake, schools resort to influencing students to be diagnosed with
But if this information could be collected accurately, then it would open the doors to a new solution. The optimal outcome of increased or redistributed funding would be to identify and address unequal education from a young age to prevent a plateau in mathematics and reading capabilities. Nonetheless, older students that appear to have fallen behind deserve a second chance too, so creating school systems in which extra funding is provided for the specific use of social workers and promotion of better mental and physical health. Designating extra counselors and specialists to schools where most students would not need the resource would not be cost effective, but concentrating specialists into a single school and rezoning at-risk neighborhoods or pinpointing individual students for intervention
A child’s ability to learn and critically think has taken a back seat to the amount of standardized testing in today’s schools which become the priority. In my opinion there are too many test and not enough thought and creativity happen in the school systems today. My children have four standardized test throughout one school year. They have taken away all recess in order to have the additional fifteen minutes a day to prepare them for these test. This year they implemented the early arrival secession in order to access an additional fifteen to twenty minutes more achieved by students arriving at school mandated to report immediately to their assigned class.
The Hechinger Report mentioned a “modest degree of improvement” in early 2016. This can also be attributed that many school districts are more focused on exceling in the yearly examinations and teach year-round on how to pass the test and not on how to understand the information being taught. The higher the percentage of passing students, the more recognition the school receives under the Every Student Succeeds Act grants. Consequently, the over enthusiasm of a school district in Atlanta, Georgia showed evidence of teachers who were inflating test scores in order to obtain better numbers for the district. This seemingly high success rate came attached to bonuses for the 11 teachers involved.
I. Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, more well-known as ADHD, is a disorder that affects 9% of children in the U.S. When left untreated, ADHD can lead the sufferer to be unable to cope in school or socially and possibly leads to depression. ADHD is a hyperactivity disorder with many symptoms that can be treated through therapy, emotional counselling, and use of medications. II. There is a plethora of symptoms when it comes to ADHD. A. Symptoms are separated into two categories, one is inattentiveness and the other is hyperactivity 1.
They believe that it is biological and were not created from injuries to the head, and during pregnancy. Whereas too generally physicians in America feel it is a neurodevelopmental disorder. With France’s approach to the treatment of ADHD the world will become a complete advancement when trying to restore
Many school systems have now begun to offer rewards to students who do well on test, writing papers, etc. The sole purpose of this method is to motivate kids to work harder in school on their exams and assignments. Although, this method seems to be a positive idea, it has become a controversial topic. While many think this idea encourages students to take the test more seriously, many others believe that the policy is unfair to students who struggle academically.
Moreover, the percentage of U.S. children diagnosed with ADHD is projected to increase at the very least by 5% per year. The point stands, is childhood ADHD an epidemic? And if so, what is the cause
The aim of the No Child Left Behind Act is to insist that schools focus on the lesser performing students, trying to boost their scores. However, this notion of helping the weak almost entirely omits the needs of the top performing students whose skills are dulling as they must wait for the lesser performing students to catch up. Even for the lesser performing students, there is no incentive to achieve any higher than the bare minimum. Also, the test is flawed in the sense that even in a perfect world, not all students can be above average, someone has to fail.
The United States felt that just less than a decade of dropping significantly in math and reading, it cannot just be the student’s faults. The government made an emphasis on the schools districts as a whole creating a focus on testing in
Standardized tests under No Child Left Behind have caused school systems to surrender quality education for test scores. These tests have set strict guidelines on what is deemed important and what is not by the state; they are the sole measurement of academic success in students. As Monty Neill states in his article, “much of what is important cannot be tested with a paper-and-pencil test of a few hours’ duration” (Neill). The law also falsely assumes that increasing test scores should be the immediate goal of
Says Tkachuck. “We have to make a judgment call at some point, and like I said we use a lot of different methods when measuring ADHD, so hopefully that kind of weeds out a lot of individuals hoping to benefit from the perks of ADHD. It can be very hard though and misdiagnosis happen.” According to a research, article published The National Center
No Child Left Behind In 2001, the 107th United States Congress enacted the “No Child Left Behind” policy, an act focused around enhancing education across the entire country. The legislation created both state- and nation-wide testing standards across multiple subjects, including history, math and reading comprehension. President George W. Bush described the law as the “cornerstone of my administration.” Clearly, our children are our future, and “Too many of our neediest children are being left behind.”
After learning Brad’s vignette it was only natural to smile to see how brilliant of a young man he is becoming. The first thing I learnt from this vignette was that because Brad may be prone to getting distracted while doing school work isn not an excuse. However, Brad knows about how ADHD affects his studies and does not use it as an excuse for letting his grades get down. It seems that Brad works hard on everything he does and sees ideal grades from the work he puts in. Secondly, I never knew that students with ADHD were prone to having speech-learning difficulties.
(Foley, M 2011) “National estimates indicate an ADHD prevalence rate
Though I saw the difference right after hearing both of the children speak, the big differences started when the children where asked if they liked school. The boy in the video responded with yes, while the girl responded with no. Once that question was asked, the girl’s answers continued to be more negative than positive when answering the questions given. These are just a few reasons why I believe that the girl is the one that has ADHD. Though she has been diagnosed,