IUBio

Brain clues to attention disorder

David Longley David at longley.demon.co.uk
Thu Dec 25 07:04:03 EST 2003


In article <wRyGb.243$d4.233 at newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net>, k p 
Collins <kpaulc@[----------].invalid> writes
>I could not disagree more strongly.
>
>First, I did not say or imply that Children 'should be
>abandoned' by doing nothing.
>
>I said exactly the opposite. Care for the Children by
>teaching them, to the degree possible how nervous systems
>process information, and why they process information as
>they do [I've had success with 8th graders. With Younger
>Children the teaching would have to occur through examples
>on the parts of Adults who, themselves, have learned how
>nervous systems process information.]

Whilst *some* of the 2-2.5% of school age kids on medication in the USA 
for ADHD may ideally be better managed without medication (estimates of 
incidence of ADHD are, I believe, between 1-5%), it is extremely 
difficult and resource demanding to just use behaviour management 
techniques with such kids. They are often in normal schools, and it just 
takes one per class, or 60 per school of 1200 to make ordinary teaching 
of kids all but impossible. Whatever one would *like* to do, 
practicalities account for the way things are actually done.

Think this through in terms of resources. It has little to do with 
"understanding". We could know everything about the brain and we might 
still have the same problems of behaviour management. The idea of 
teaching kids about how their brains (*might*) work (as if we knew, and 
as if our theories of need for stimulation were that coherent) seems 
somewhat naive to me.

Such individual variation is perhaps only to be expected, and whilst 
channelling such kids into different, more apposite classes of school 
activity might be part of a broader solution, despite all its 
unattractive features, medication for many seems at present to a 
necessary evil.

>
>This is not 'doing nothing', and doing it this way has
>enormous advantages over resort to drugs - be-cause the
>Child who learns how and why nervous systems process
>information as they do simultaneously acquires a very useful
>set of cognitive 'tools' that are universally-applicable within
>interactive dynamics, not the least of which is with respect
>to comprehension of the 'blind'-automation that is inherent
>in aggression.
>
>More below.
>
><orkeltatte at hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:84da9680.0312240036.54fbf491 at posting.google.com...
>> Okey!
>>
>> Trying to leave the microcosmos just for a little while and put a
>> clinical view on this topic.
>> I have´nt read all threads , so if I am repeating any earlier
>> discussion or point of view, please bear vith me.
>>
>> As a clinician , prescribing any treatment, it always come to waying
>> the risks against the benefits in a long term as well as short term
>> timeperspective. There are a substantial body of evidence on treating
>> children diagnosed as ADDH with amphetamine and metamphetamine , where
>> we find on long term follow-up , that the child has a great benefit
>> with treatment regarding academic achievements, family function,
>> sociability,etcetera,etcetera. as opposed to the untreated wich has a
>> signifiquant risk of future criminal behavior and drugaddiction.
>
>Here, from the perspective from which I am addressing the dynamics
>that have been referred to as 'ADHD', your use of "untreated" connotes
>"allowed to languish without understanding".
>
>Of course such is an instability-inviting circumstance.
>
>Of course Children allowed to languish in the absence-of-understanding
>will succumb to behaviorally-injurious circumstances into which they
>have 'blindly' wandered
>
>But such 'blind'-wandering is just not in the position I've taken.
>
>> In a
>> Swedish material it has been found that 50% of the heroineaddicts
>> (intravenous) was diagnosed with ADDH in adulthood. 40% of the
>> inmates> in prisons had a neuropsychiatric condition. and so on.
>
>What is substantiated to come first, being allowed to languish in
>absence-of-understanding or prison? Drug use or 'ADHD'?
>
>> The problem lies in the fact that all mechanisms on cell level and
>> transmittorinteractions are not fully understood (wich this board is
>> an excellent example of) and the long-term consequences on the
>> immature and developing brain still are to a great extent unknown.
>
>The effects of teaching Children how nervous systems process
>information, and why they process information as they do, are
>known, and strongly-positive with respect to a Child's welfare.
>
>> Anyway it is my strong opinion that the benefits from treatment
>> strongly outmatches the today known risks , and that it is morally and
>> ethically  impossible to refuse treatment with these drugs.
>>
>> orkeltatte
>
>It's 'funny', I can verify that such is True with respect to the
>position I've discussed, and there's no guessing inherent.
>
>k. p. collins
>
>

-- 
David Longley



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