Is Ritalin The Answer?
...National Alliance, 1)
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a condition that becomes apparent in some children in the preschool and early school years. It is hard for these children to control their behavior and/or pay attention. It is estimated that between three and five percent of children have ADHD, or approximately two million children in the United States. This means that in a classroom of 25 to 30 children, it is likely that at least one will have ADHD.
“The very first written description of ADHD was in 1845 by a German psychiatrist, Dr. Heinrich Hoffman. His description was not in a medical journal or paper, but rather in a book of children's poems. Unable to find any suitable books to read to his four year-old son, he wrote and illustrated a series of poems for children, entitled Struwwelpeter” (Rodgers, 1). The result was a book of poems, complete with illustrations, about children and their characteristics. "The Story of Fidgety Philip" was an accurate description of a little boy who had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
It was not until 1902 that Sir George F. Still published a series of lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in England in which he described a group of impulsive children with significant behavioral problems, caused by a genetic dysfunction and not by poor child rearing; children who today would be easily recognized as having ADHD. Since then, several thousand scientific papers on the disorder have been published, providing information on its nature, course, causes, impairments, and treatments. A child with ADHD faces a difficult but not insurmountable task ahead.
Despite all of the problems inherent to ADHD and the negative publicity it has received, having Attention Deficit Disorder has as many positive aspects as it does negative. People with ADHD typically are able to hyper-focus, meaning they...
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