A boy named Tom once wrote, "I remember I used never to be able to get along at school." He was at the bottom of the class and felt that the teachers "did not sympathize with [him], and that [his] father thought [he] was stupid." Tom complained that other kids in school distracted him. Tom greatly favored experimental learning over theoretical classroom discussions. Luckily, Tom's mother saw he had potential and decided to home school him. She "encouraged him to explore things he found interesting." He read voraciously and was interested in many subjects. Tom ran away from home at the age of twelve and began "a long procession of short-lived jobs." At age seventeen, he held four different jobs in one year and he was fired from each one due to his "inattentiveness to the duties or routine of the job". Yet, Tom would never be prescribed Ritalin or diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. (Hartmann 134-5)
For several years the Christian Science Monitor has voiced staunch protest against the use of prescription drugs to treat restless children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and other behavior problems. A staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor, Brad Knickerbocker (May 1999) quotes the United Nations' International Narcotics Control Board as stating that as many as 30 to 40% of all children ages one through 18 are taking Ritalin for behavior problems. Admittedly, that's a frightening number since only an estimated 5 to 15% of the entire population - adults included - of the United States has ADD (Hartmann 1995). Among the complaints against use of psychotropic medicines for children is the argument that there is no information available about the long term use of these medications.
Knickerbocker also takes issue with the methods used to diagnose attention deficit disorder stating "the scientific symptoms attached to such behavior can be fuzzy and therefore controversial." To support his opinion he quotes several criteria from Edward Hallowell and John Ratey's 1994 publication Driven to Distraction such as clumsiness, nervousness and impatience, stating that "many of these characteristics ... amount to nothing more than rambunctious, boy-like behavior." Knickerbocker links the use of medications to teenage drug abuse and school shootings, such as in the case of Columbine High School in Littletown, Colorado. Eric Harris, believed to be the mastermind of the horrid massacre, was taking Luvox, an antidepressant, for a few months before the shooting occurred. Overcrowded classrooms compounded by busy family life, as well as working mothers’ who struggle to provide for their families while keeping their homes intact, also bear part of the blame. Overall, the Christian Scientists have come out overwhelmingly against medicating children with attention deficit disorder and other behavior problems stating, "Most boys are Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer ... and if Huck and Tom were alive today and going to school, they'd be drugged." The Monitor's stance seems to maintain that drug companies are conspiring with educators to stamp out childhood.
While the arguments against the use of Ritalin and other psychotropic drugs are vast in number, professional clinical experience is showing evidence that these medicines really do help children with attention deficit disorder. A recent study shows that Ritalin helps children with attention deficit make quick decisions and manage flexibility between tasks-skills that are required for quick decision making and negotiation. (Barlow)
Dr. Hallowell has compared medication for children with attention deficit disorder to eyeglasses for the nearsighted. He states "they act like internal eyeglasses, increasing the brain's ability to focus on one task over time." (Hallowell 40)
Tom Hartmann recalls many stories of adults with add who claim, "Ritalin or Dexedrine had saved their lives." Yet, Tom Hartmann also wrote that "people [with ADD] use drugs to deal with the difficulty of living in a [non-attention deficit] society" and the answer is not only to use medications but to also "find ... jobs, school situations, and life situations ... which can enable them to be successful." (Hartmann 84-86)
As for Ritalin's contribution to school violence, consider this illogical progression of thought concerning the Columbine Massacre. According to news reports, Eric was proscribed Luvox, an antidepressant related to Prozac, several months before the massacre. Yet evidence has shown that he and his partner in crime, Dylan Kleibold, had been planning the mass murder of their fellow students and teachers for well over a year, and even had a web site detailing their plans. (CNN) Our logicians progress to the following:
Eric Harris, a student, perpetrated a school shooting.
Ritalin causes students to perpetrate school shootings. Amazingly, it isn't known if Harris actually took the medication and toxicology tests showed no evidence of drugs or alcohol in Harris or Kleibold at the time of death. Yet, Knickerbocker drew a connection between the use of Ritalin and violent behavior in his article.
Knickerbocker has also taken diagnostic criteria that noted professionals such as psychiatrist Dr. Edward Hallowell use to diagnose ADD totally out of context. Hallowell and Ratey stated unequivocally in their book that it is an absolute necessity to seek a professional diagnosis before deciding that one has attention deficit disorder. Furthermore, they also state that attention deficit is only a problem if it is actually causing disruption in a person's life. Many people with ADD manage to cope very well and exploit the traits of risk-taking, intelligence and creativity to their benefits. Edward Hallowell believes he himself has ADD, and yet he has managed to become a very highly respected and renowned psychologist and studied at no less than Harvard Medical School!
Thom Hartmann reiterates the normality of ADD many times throughout his own book, ADD: A Different Perception. Hartmann explains his own strikingly valuable twist on the attention deficit equation: Anthropological Perspective.
Hartmann helps us take a look at the different levels of attention abilities as they vary from person to person. He shows that in our general population we have people who range from highly attentive to minimally attentive. Hartmann supports his claims well, and carries his audience through history from 10,000 years ago to the present. Ten thousand years ago human society was based on hunter-gatherer societies that were nomadic. Gradually our species developed into societies were based on farming. Traits that are usually associated with attention deficit were great assets in a nomadic society.
ADD is neither a deficit or a disorder. It is ... an inherited set of skills, abilities, and personality tendencies which would enable a Hunter or warrior or lookout to be eminently successful-and would condemn a Farmer or an accountant to certain disaster. (Hartmann 41-42)
His view gives much support to the idea that attention deficit is not so much as a disorder as human survival trait that also has many benefits such as creativity, entrepreneurship, and ingenuity.
Our goal as parents should be to evaluate all the treatments and behavior modification programs available to us and choose those methods which will allow our children's self-esteem to thrive in the most healthy environment. Dr.'s Hallowell and Ratey suggest teaching the child with ADD and or Opposition Defiance Disorder negotiation skills. In his book The Explosive Child, Ross W. Greene, Ph.D., shows us how learning negotiating skills can greatly improve the behavior of children who have a low threshold for frustration. Greene demonstrates the applicability of negotiation skills in the ongoing treatment of a wide range of behavior disorders including attention deficit, oppositional defiant disorder, and Tourette's syndrome. He also demonstrates that the skills can be taught most successfully to children ranging four to twelve years old.
The need for teaching negotiation skills has also become apparent to professionals in the prison system, whom note an overwhelming number of prisoners with ADD who have grown into criminals as a result of not receiving proper guidance and help in their younger years.
T. Dwaine McCallon, M.D., Medical Director, Buena Vista Correctional Facility, and Assistant Chief Medical Officer of the Colorado Department of Corrections notes a Utah study conducted by Dr. Paul Wender. In the study it was discovered that about 24% of male inmates have attention deficit with or without hyperactivity. Yet, due to his personal experience with inmates and the juvenile justice system, McCallon believes that the number of prisoners with attention deficit in medium security facilities is about forty percent! He and his colleagues employ a program that proscribes the use of medication to allow the prisoner to gain control over his impulsive activities, adopt life skills such as anger and frustration control, and develop job skills.
If your ADHD is so disabling that you have found yourself living in a remote walled prison of over 1,000 men, then it is unlikely that you will progress toward rehabilitation without the aid of medication. Stimulant medicine can greatly enhance the ability to learn how to learn to develop caution and judgment, and to learn a job skill. (McCallon)
McCallon states that the results have been stunning. After completing this program, graduates have had a two year recidivism rate under 10% for either parole violation or a new criminal charge. Contrast this to the "usual 53-58% recidivism rate nationwide." According to McCallon, most of the men he and his colleagues diagnosed with Tourette or ADHD were treated in childhood-for one or two years! They were told they would grow out of it. McCallon states that he has had many troubled parents tell him that they had been told their son had "a character problem and more severe discipline would change it." McCallon's message to parents is that we must persevere with continuing education and developing negotiation skills "before someone like [him] has to treat your child 'inside the walls' and behind razor wire."
Remember Tom? I mentioned him at the beginning of this article. He lived a long time before the term "attention deficit disorder" was ever brought into common use, and before Ritalin was ever proscribed. Yet, the man who invented the telegraph when he was 15 years old and later went on to invent the stock ticker, the electric light bulb, the phonograph, the movie projector, the alkaline battery, and the microphone is widely believed to have had attention deficit. (Hartmann 136)
Thomas Edison succeeded because as a child his mother allowed him flexibility and provided him with the love and nurturing environment that enabled him to develop a healthy self-esteem and grow into a confident, adventurous risk-taker. Would Tom be taking Ritalin if he were alive today? Probably he would in order to stay in school. I hope his more modern mother would still give him the acceptance and love he would need to get through life. An examination of the life of Thomas Edison allows us a peek at the greatness people with attention deficit can accomplish and shows us that attention deficit does not have to remain a "disorder". It's our choice.
Works Cited
Barlow, Jim. "Ritalin helps children with ADHD maintain normal reaction Time." EurekAlert! 31 July 2000. 8 May 2001 .
CNN, "Affidavit: Columbine shooter posted threat on Web" April 10, 2001. May 1, 2001.
CNN, "Columbine shooter was prescribed Anti-Depressant" April 29, 1999. May 1, 2001.
Greene, Ross W., Ph.D., The Explosive Child. New York : HarperCollins, 1998.
Hallowell, Edward. Driven to Distraction. Simon and Schuster, 1994.
Hartmann, Thom. Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception. Grass Valley: Underwood Books, 1995.
Knickerbocker, Brad. "Using Drugs to Rein in Boys" Christian Science Monitor. 19 May 1999. Downloaded 8 May 2001 .
McCallon, T. Dwaine, M.D. "If He Outgrew It, What Is He Doing in My Prison?" Speech transcript. Date unknown. 9 April 2001 .
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