Study: Attention deficit disorder abused
By S. S. Buzbee - AP Education Writer (2/15/95)

Washington (AP) - Somedays, teacher Carol Hincker says she actually gets dizzy staring out at her class of sixth-graders. The kids are wiggling so much, their desks sway back and forth.

"I tease them (that) I feel like I'm on the ocean," says Hincker, special education teacher at Golf Middle School in Morton Grove, IL.

It's certainly nothing new for teachers -- children who can't stop fidgeting, who seem constantly distracted, or have trouble concentrating. Most children act that way sometimes.

But in recent years, more and more youngsters in the U.S. with severe attention problems have been diagnosed with a condition called Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).

And to the dismay of many, in 60-90% of such cases, they're being prescribed medicine to curb the problem.

In its first report on the disorder today, the Education Dept. advises schools and parents the medicines like ritalin, although often highly effective, simply aren't enough.

"Parents and teachers should not use medication as the sole method of helping the child," the report says.

Many researchers are going even further - warning that ADD is diagnosed to often, or that medicines like ritalin have become a "silver bullet".

"We shouldn't be prescribing medicine simply because that's the easiest way to go," says Dr. Marl Stein, who runs a University of Chicago clinic for children and adults with the disorder.

Stein and other researchers see the problem is the lack of money to pay for good evaluations of students to determine who actually has ADD.

The education dept. and some republican members of congress say they will look at whether too many children are diagnosed as needing special education when the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is re-examined later this year.

In its report, the Education Dept. stresses that parents, teachers and psychologists should work together to evaluate children. They must ensure that poor hearing, learning disabilities or even stress at home aren't causing attention problems.

But Stein says comprehensive evaluations are rarely done. He recaps the case of one child diagnosed after a five-minute meeting with a psychologist. Later, the child was found to have borderline mental retardation.

Many teachers and parents contend it's good that children are now diagnosed with a disorder and given a medication that can immediately help them, rather than just being labeled as bad or underachieving.

"Before, when kids had behavior problems, parents were ashamed," says teacher Hincker. "Now people are saying, "It's OK for my kid to have this there's a treatment for this. Let's get to it."

The danger is that too many people may jump on the bandwagon says Robert Reid, an assistant professor of special education al the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. In one town he has studied, the number of children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder sky rocketed after a new pediatrician moved in.

"The problem is there's no objective diagnosis. It's all subjective," Reid says.