If you work with youths in Oklahoma, then you already know this intuitively or experientially. As mentors or mentoring staff in urban, suburban, or rural areas, we need to inform ourselves.
How? Read. Work with parents, school officials, juvenile services and others to serve the best interests of the youth.
Diagnoses of ADHD
increasing in Oklahoma elementary school students
About one in 10
school-age children in Oklahoma — and the nation — has ADHD, according to
figures provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's a
condition that makes it hard to focus and pay attention and can make it
difficult for a child to do well in school or behave at home.
Josiah Simons has
just finished eating lunch at Ridgeview Elementary School and he's on his way
to the nurse's office to take a pill for his Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder.
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| A Ridgeview Elementary student receives his dose of ADHD medicine on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013 in Oklahoma City, Okla. There is a prevalence of Oklahoma City Public School students who are being treated with ADHD medicine. Photo by Chris Landsberger, The Oklahoman |
Along
with daily doses of reading, writing and arithmetic, Josiah, 7, gets a daily
dose of Adderall, a stimulant that allows the second-grader to sit still and
pay attention in class.
“You can
immediately tell whether a child has taken it or not,” said Debbie Johnson,
health services administrator for Oklahoma City Public Schools and the mother
of a son with ADHD. “Typically they're more attentive and they can stay on task
longer. There's less anxiety.”
About
one in 10 school-age children in Oklahoma — and the nation — has ADHD,
according to figures provided by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. It's a condition that makes it hard to focus and pay attention and
can make it difficult for a child to do well in school or behave at home.
“You
watch children struggle with not being able to get all of the successes that
other kids get because they are always in trouble,” Johnson said. “They're the
ones who can't sit in their chairs or get their homework done.”
Dr.
William Graf, a pediatric neurologist and a professor at the Yale School of
Medicine, said that over the last 20 years the percentage of people diagnosed
with this disease has doubled.
He said
that while it is a complicated question, he feels ADHD is probably diagnosed
too frequently and too many people are taking medication to combat it.
“It's a
condition that has a treatment and the treatment has helped many people,” he
said. “But it's also a treatment that has the potential to be abused or misused
and needs to be closely scrutinized.”
Some
children with ADHD may be hyperactive or have trouble being patient. Others
have trouble controlling impulsive behaviors and act without thinking about
consequences.
“ADHD
does not just interfere with learning, but the symptoms can also cause problems
for children socially with their friends and at home with their families,” said
Anne Jacobs, an Edmond-based psychologist who treats children and adolescents
with ADHD. “The inability to wait your turn in a game or stop yourself from
interrupting peers can gradually cost children some friendships.”
About
5.2 million children ages 2 through 17 have ADHD, including about 72,000 in
Oklahoma, according to recent CDC data.
Many
more go undiagnosed because they don't have access to medical care or because
of the stigma attached to the disorder, said Dr. Mark Wolraich, medical
director for the OU Children's Physicians child study center.
“Clearly,
from past studies, there are a number of children who have the condition but
are not identified or treated,” he said. “Clearly, there remain children who
would benefit from treatment.”
While
the Oklahoma City School District doesn't specifically track students with
ADHD, Johnson said about 2 to 3 students take ADHD medication at each of the
district's 55 elementary schools.
“We've
got quite a few children receiving ADHD medication,” she said. “It's become
more of a norm than not.”
Johnson
was a school nurse for 19 years. The youngest of her three grown children was
diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school and “still has a lot of issues.”
“We
couldn't take him to church or go out to dinner and try to sit at a table,” she
recalled. “And forget about trying to take a trip somewhere in the car. It was
impossible.”
Some
parents of children with ADHD are conflicted because they don't want to
medicate their child but don't want to see them singled out for negative
behavior that often leads to isolation, Johnson said.
“Their
child is the one that others are going to stay away from,” she said. “The
negative reinforcement leads to low self-esteem, which of course, causes them
to lash out or they get really depressed.”
Josiah,
whose father and two brothers were diagnosed with ADHD, began taking Adderall
in the first grade. He takes a short-acting pill twice a day, after breakfast
and lunch.
“He was
restless. He couldn't sit still,” recalled Melodee Simons, Josiah's grandmother
and a longtime parent liaison at Ridgeview. “If you gave him a list of three
items to get, he could get two but he'd forget the third one every time.”
Josiah
became an honor roll student after he started taking the medication, Simons
said.
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