Essay on The Impact of a Label: ADHD

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has information and facts about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) that is located at http://www.cdc.gov/n cbdd/adhd/facts.html. The purpose of this webpage is to educate and teach people the concept of ADHD. The information found on CDC’s webpage are signs, symptoms, causes, diagnosis, treatments, and the different types of ADHD. I feel that the pathos, ethos, and logos rhetorical are used to help gather information about ADHD to formulate a better understanding.

Have you ever had a day when you feel like you were wired backwards? Do you ever feel like you are charged with so much energy that you will go mad if you don’t get it out? Do you find yourself reading a question and then rereading just to soak it in? For someone living with ADHD these are daily struggles. There are thousands of people who must carry this label and new diagnoses every day. Both children and adults are stricken by this disorder. Giving them the label causes greater problems than the disorder itself. Individuals with the label of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder experience increased peer related issues, have a higher documented rate of injuries inflicted, and are known as defiant and disobedient due to the implied

There has been ongoing discussion and debate over the years regarding ADHD, the research behind it and the validity of the subcategories within the disorder. This especially appears to be an issue surrounding that of the subcategory, ADHD-I. Dependent on the research study being completed, there are groups that believe it should be placed in its own classification requiring a separate diagnosis within the DSM. Others feel that the current categorization is accurate. Those in latter school of thought have worked to demonstrate that there has not yet been substantial evidence to warrant a separate category for ADHD-I and that the evidence in favor of such a change is flawed and inconclusive for various reasons. Either way, no matter the study, it is clear that additional research is required in this area.

After reading the articles Driven to Distraction and Lost in Translation, both from Today’s Parent magazine, I have learned many new things. I learned that it is sometimes not very easy to pick out a child with ADHD, even if it is your own child. It could take years to discover that a child has ADHD. It can be easily detected once the child has entered elementary school. One of the signs of ADHD is falling behind in school, or acting up and not being able to pay attention for long periods of time. This causes frustration for the child, the parents, teachers and the other students in the classroom. It is difficult for parents because they do not want to believe that their child has a disability. It is even harder

The education system today is more aware of students who face a diversity of disabilities than ever before. In a classroom, students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder are especially triggered to experience the disability due to the many physical or emotional stimuli. This disorder involuntarily inhibits a student’s control over most of his or her behavior, so this does not allow a student to experience the same quality of learning as his or her peers. In the article “Arranging the Classroom with an Eye (and Ear) to Students with ADHD”, Eric Carbone reports on avoiding predecessors that worsen the student’s disorder. Through a study on antecedent interventions, Eric Carbone found strategies to help teachers readily instruct students suffering from ADHD.

It is estimated that ADHD effects two million children in the United States, this translates into three to five percent of all school-age children. Even more frightening, is that in some areas up to twenty percent of children have ADHD. However, these diagnoses are inconsistent. One reason for this enormous number of cases is due to the fact that there is not proper testing for ADHD before the diagnosis is completed. One family?s situation was published in an October 1998 issue of Time. The parents took their daughter, Erin

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) comes to mind for Hurd when she was asked what disabilities she has been exposed to. She went on to explain about the Manifestation Determination Hearings and how the actions of the student could be because of their disability. If the student continues their behavior for several days during the school year the district is required to hold this meeting within the 10 days allowed.

When this author of attended elementary school, they had a confusing problem. No matter how much effort they put forward, or how hard they studied, they just seemed to be unable to get good grades. This was immensely discouraging. It made it feel as if they were stupid and there was nothing they could do about it. This was not the author's fault, because they had ADHD. Right now, the first treatment for ADHD is medication, problem with this medication is that it can become a crutch for the student to lean on and/or cause side effects that impact other parts of their health.Because of these issues, medication, while still a good treatment, should not be the first treatment a doctor point patients to.

In many cases, Adults who live with ADHD often do not seek medical help. They tend to adjust to the disability and blame themselves. Individuals believe they are either to lazy or “unintelligent”. The main misconception within these individuals is that they do not realize these symptoms were carried over from childhood. Many factors to this belief can be that they did not have the

“Every child’s needs are specific, and even if they share the same diagnosis as another student, that’s surely no guarantee that they will learn or relate in the same way.” (5, para. 21) In order for ADHD treatment to be effective, it must include a combination of counseling – individual or family- education, and behavioral therapy (2). A treatment plan that combines behavior management exercises and medications are the most effective interventions for ADHD children, adolescence, and teenagers, but they should always begin the treatment with behavior interventions – not medication (2;4).

Public schools receive a kick-back of sorts from their local governments for every child that is diagnosed with ADHD as it is labeled a disability and requires added funding in order to accommodate the disabled child. As stated in Attention Deficit Disorders and/ Hyperactivity, “This disorder must be treated biochemically, and resolved early in childhood. Otherwise, there is an increased rate of expulsion from schools, greater involvement in drug and alcohol abuse, higher motor vehicle accidents and greater tendency to crime. When these children reach their teenage years and begin to get into serious trouble then the question arises where did we go wrong as a society and a community. We need to look at the problem for what it really is. I saw a story on the television program 60 minutes about a month ago that talked about a kid who had grown to a teen with ADHD, they showed footage from his earlier years until the time of this report when he was 16 years old. This kid was totally out of control, he was recently expelled from a public school and his mother was fighting to get him re-instated. The school system resisted and told the mother she had to put the kid into a private school, and he was no longer welcome in their school system. She was noticeably upset with this decision, if this was not her child I am sure she would not have wanted a kid of his disposition around her children. The story leading to the expulsion

The 21st century brings upon a new era in most areas of life, including education and health care. What used to be a little known and obtuse disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), is now more well known and more commonplace than in previous decades and centuries. There are three specific classifications of ADHD and the paper will discuss that as well as other aspects of the disorder. Moreover, the paper will provide a close reading and analysis of interviews conducted with young people, children and teenagers, who have ADHD. In the interviews, the youth are specifically questioned as to what respect their ADHD affects their specific experience in education, as well as the affects in their general life experience.

The evaluation of ADHD from a clinician standpoint is that ADHD is a disorder. ADHD stands for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Disorders occur from childhood to adulthood and with treatments for daily interactions, improvement of ADHD symptoms occur as a child ages and reaches adulthood. Disorders are evaluated by the following persons; behavioral neurologist, psychiatrist, clinical or educational psychologist, nurse practitioner, or clinical social worker. Genetics have been linked to ADHD, with additional research and study of other possible causes and risk factors that may cause concern. Research also, suggest that ADHD runs in families because of genetics or external factors due to smoking or

There is a need to provide effective comprehension support for students labeled with ADHD. ADHD students struggle with comprehension and there is limited research on comprehension strategies for these student. This is a qualitative research study that proposes to find useful comprehension strategies for students with ADHD. The literature points to a need for further research in this area. The participants of the study are 1st to 4th grade teachers that teach students diagnosed with ADHD. The duration of the study will be approximately three months. The proposed data would be collected through questionnaires, interviews and focus groups. Data will be compared and analyzed throughout the study process. For each data collection method, narrative data collection and analysis will be performed. To meet triangulation, all notes from the interviews, questionnaires and focus groups will be examined, compared and coded for common themes. The study will conclude with a report listing useful strategies and intervention, the pros and cons found for each and the usefulness of each according to the data.

In a classroom of 30 children, 1-3 of them will be diagnosed with ADHD, and a quarter the of children with ADHD have serious learning disabilities such as: oral expression, listening skills, reading comprehension and/or math difficulties. (Ryan, 2010).