Education Law

Juicing for grades?

A new government funded report shows that students with ADHD who are on medication perform better on standardized tests than students who aren’t taking anything to treat the issue. According to one of the researchers:

“Our study found that the children with ADHD who used the medication were several months ahead of their nonmedicated peers in reading and math, which is significant because early progress in school is critical to ongoing academic success,” Scheffler said.

Scheffler said children with ADHD who are left untreated do poorly in school, with higher dropout rates and more substance abuse, arrests and social isolation.  “They’re labeled as bad kids,” he said in a telephone interview. “Drugs are part of the answer. But we need parent involvement, understanding what this is and how to work with the kid. We need the school to be involved. We also think that special services like tutoring need to be made available.”

The Reuters article also points out that boys are more likely to be labeled as ADHD than girls.  There has been a lot of debate over drugs and students for a long time.  Many think that we over-drug students, while if you ask many teachers, they might say more students are eligible for testing.  ADHD does not qualify a student for special education assistance, oftentimes they are listed as “other health impairment” and get very limited services from the school they attend.  These medications may help, but there are questions over the long term effects.  One thing BoardBuzz certainly agrees with from the article-it takes more than the school system to help students struggling with ADD and ADHD.  Parents, students, and schools need to work harmoniously to help the students who need assistance.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on April 27, 2009 (boomark / email).