<p>You usually can’t get time accommodations from College Board or ACT unless you have been using them regularly for years under a 504 plan or an IEP.</p>
<p>You really can’t run out over the weekend and get a dx and then persuade a school to give you a 504 or an IEP the next week. That’s not how it works.</p>
<p>^^^ It doesnt necessarily require that the student have had the accomodations in place “for years”, but yes, agreed that the CB wont consider accomodations unless the student has qualified for them and used them in the school for at least 4 mos (that was the # last I heard some time back) before CB will consider the request.</p>
<p>Until you have lived with it, you know nothing.</p>
<p>A doc once put me on meds for it and it turned me into a zombie. I no longer take meds because it just doesn’t work very well for me. I instead point myself towards goals, like things i wanna do during the week and such.</p>
<p>There are several ADHD subtypes, and if medication is indicated, people sometimes have to try different ones and/or at different doses to get the best effect with the fewest side effects. You don’t have to live with it to know something about symptom management.</p>
<p>Instead of disciplining the child, just give it medication!</p>
<p>As the parent of a gifted kid who probably should have been evaluated more carefully for ADD, I think the real problem here is not the kids or adults who have ADD or ADHD but rather with our society’s response to their challenges. I also have a child with autism and I can say that from experiences there that our society simply isn’t advance enough to deal with differences of the mind. If its a physical difference that you can see, we can deal with it and go out of our way to make accommodations. But, like most diagnosis of the mind, since we cannot see it, we simply think most are making it up and not working hard enough to overcome it. My son does have ADD according to medical professionals, but the public school system chose to ignore his and my requests for help since they were reaping the benefits of his test scores and awards for their PR. Now, his grades aren’t really a true indication of his abilities and he will be made to pay to price thorugh denials to the types of colleges he wishes to attend. He will work twice as hard as others who cruised through school with his tutoring and on his coat tails. But, he now knows what he needs to do and is determined to do it. Too bad instead of simply labeling them to make public instruction easier for the administrators, we cannot just give them a better system of education which might use their great ideas, creativity and ability to assume risk and channel it in a constructive manner.</p>
<p>I think you guys are missing the point here: you are making the claim that because lazy children are given ritilin concerta or aderall and being diagnosed with ADD/ADHD that children with this actual condition just need to work hard. This is not true at all. I am a student with ADHD, and it is a struggle for me everynight to do my homework due to the fact that my meds have worn off. This is not to say that im lazy or not hardworking( or redundent hehe) rather it is to say that I sit down to do my homework but i continually get distracted. The medicine does make a difference. </p>
<p>Also, people have been making the claim that if a non add child is given a prescription he will automatically sucseed, this is not true. I know many kids on meds for add/adhd, some of which i believe need it others of which i beleive are just belowaverage ( just like my spelling is). The meds dont help the kids that are below average and can work wonders for true add/adhd children.</p>
<p>IN REGARDS TO “DISCIPLIN”, IT SIMPLY DOESNT WORK WIT ADD/ADHD KIDS I am 17 years of age and i still do stupid thoughtless things–such as yelling out in class, spilling things, talking to loudly–when i dont take my meds even though ive been " punished " for them my entire life, the problem with add/adhd ers is that they do not think through their actions, so there is no " if i do this than this will happen to me" thought process, so he or she will not think not to do something in order to avoid it.</p>
<p>Im not saying everykid out there with a prescription has a disorder, im just saying adhd is a real thing</p>
<p>Yakyu, we’re not talking about misbehaving, we’re talking about learning disabilities and all that goes with it. You’re coming at this with a very ignorant perspective. </p>
<p>Widget, good post</p>
<p>mikek – you are generalizing your personal experience with ADD to all those with ADD to claim that people are cruising through life.</p>
<p>My ADD son was tested at a 139-142 IQ at variuous ages in his life before being diagnosed with ADD. He has also “thought” differently, earned great grades and worked hard. </p>
<p>He is NOT lazy. Just the total opposite – multi-task to distraction. Since diagnosis he has been medicated. He has no school accomodations (he is too embarrassed). The meds have not “increased” scores for him nor have they suddenly made him an organized success, rather they have reduced a severe amount of frustration & stress. </p>
<p>I disagree ADD is overdiagnosed. It took us months of testing, considerable $$$ in private testing, and much input from teachers, coaches, etc. to get our diagnosis. We simply did not walk into our doctor’s office & receive a prescription.</p>
<p>My heart goes out to those who can not afford the in-depth evaluations.</p>
<p>I was diagnosed young but was never able to get medicated so I was forced to have to deal with having ADD. My parents knew something was wrong when I started school and it took the school 5 years to diagnose me. I struggled through elementary, middle, and high school because I would get detracted. In 3rd grade that had me drink coffee to see if that would help remedy the problem, it did not. No doctor would prescribe me medications either. Even now in college i have a hard time staying focused.</p>
<pre><code> As for those of you that do not have ADD and think that we are just lazy it just means your jealous and with you had an excuse. You don’t have it and don’t know what it is like to have to force your self not to pay attention to the things going on around you, it takes everything you have got some day to stay focused on your homework or to pay attention to your teacher. If you don’t have it don’t judge! If you been diagnosed and are taking drugs I and it is because you are lazy get off your ass! If I can do this by staying up late and pushing everyone of my friends away then you need to put forth the effort to realizing your own issues!
Yes some time I am lazy but it is only after i have gotten frustrated and after a little while i get back to my work. I don’t needs med I want to stay as close to the “normal” as possible. if you know some with this and are close to them ask them anytime you see them if you can help themin any way.their answer will probably be no but that fact that youasked will help them in a way unseen.
</code></pre>
<p>^^Isn’t it exhausting? I feel like I am constantly in a fog. I can’t take stimulant meds because I have an anxiety condition and they make me jump out of my skin, and nonstimulant meds make me sick. It’s a shame. When I was on focalin my quality of life was so much better because I wasn’t so exhausted all the time just from trying to focus. It’s SO hard to get through, it’s pretty obnoxious when people who work half as hard as I do accuse ME of being lazy.</p>
<p>Try protein. Sometimes some peanut butter on crackers helps me find a bit of clarity when trying to focus on an assignment. One of my doctors suggested it when I was a kid and I’ve fallen back to it a few times.</p>
<p>excuse but im pretty sure u have no idea what ur talking about and that statistic “90+% of the kids who are diagnosed with ADD/ADHD are just lazy” is pretty much the most juvenile thing ive ever seen im personally diagnosed with this disorder and its no walk in the damn park. BELIEVE ME! and for many it isnt a crutch its something we have to deal with every day so get ur facts straight and try a little empathy next time
PCE OUT btch!</p>
<p>Plenty of first time posters and others who suddenly feel compelled to voice their opinions on this subject it seems</p>
<p>ADD/HD is really a bogus disorder. The “problem” isn’t really much of a problem. Those who have taken a psychology course without a focus on psychiatry will know this to be true.</p>
<p>People pay attention to things that matter to them. This is an inherent human quality. Back in the day, we focused our attention of surviving by not being food and getting food (along with reproduction). We didn’t give our clearly present focus to other things. Nowadays, we see kids (mostly boys) diagnosed with this disorder because they don’t pay attention in class. Don’t you think this could be a problem with the system and not the student? School is definitely boring, especially when you are learning something you’d rather not (for example, I am in Calc BC because I want to go to college, I hate math). Therefore it is “unimportant.” What many many people fail to realize is that these ADD people are able to go into complete focus in certain areas, like watching tv or playing video games. I’ve seen it happen. “ADD” diagnosed patients able to spend 4 hours playing xbox live nonstop without medication. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the way a lot of the people here “with” ADD talk about their condition contributes to the problem. They talk about it like they are helpless to it, need the meds, can’t overcome it. That is a major fault of their parents, teachers, and doctors. By telling someone “you have ADD, you can’t concentrate” it gives them the feeling that they really can’t concentrate even if they wanted to. Drugging kids for ADD also seems to be the easy way out for their parents, who would rather not put in the time to raise the child correctly. “Oh my kid has ADD, not my fault he is doing bad in school, lets just get some Ritalin” such sorry excuses for parents. Sure there are the few that are ill, but I believe the majority of the problem is a faulty and boring educational system (k-college) and bad parents.</p>
<p>Also, the drugs for ADD used are basically methemphatamines. They don’t help you concentrate on life as a whole, they just let you hyper-focus on a few things at once. They don’t solve the problem, they contribute to it by 1) causing learned helplessness 2) creating dependency. Maybe if the school system was different, they wouldn’t need to just hyper-focus on a few tasks so they can get gold grades to go to that prime college. There is a school near Boston where there are no grades, classes, rules, ect. Kids are allowed to do what they want, learn what they want, they just have to be there. A few turned out ok, a few went on to become doctors and lawyers, others led normal lives. While I don’t agree with the entire concept of the school, not one of these children are diagnosed with ADD.</p>
<p>I don’t, however, believe there is absolutely no such thing as ADD, there is a small percentage of people who really care ticked by small distractions more than the rest. I still don’t believe drugs are the answer.</p>
<p>Finally to end this lengthy post, I’ll state that most ADD behavior is normal. I don’t like sitting in one place at a time, its boring and useless if I’m not doing something important. Most people don’t like to and don’t do things that are not interesting or difficult, they take a break and try again. Just go to the website for an ADD drug and take the test for “maybe having ADD,” you’ll find that everyone experiences those things on a daily basis.</p>
<p>cowman, you are so full of crap that it’s not even worth the effort to argue with you. You don’t have the slightest clue what you are talking about and have made an utter fool of yourself. Congratulations.</p>
<p>People at my school abuse the system constantly in order to get extra time in standardized testing. It is rather annoying. Kids who have never used extra time in class suddenly need it for a test they score, well, average on. </p>
<p>Parents who insist their kids can’t be average assume something else is wrong. Parents pay Psychiatrist to diagnose kid, kid gets extra time, everybody wins. </p>
<p>/Sigh, this is our the brave new world we live in.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>ADD is an extreme, exaggerated version of this “normal” behavior. That’s why it’s a disorder. Everyone has compulsions and obsessions, but only OCD people have it to such a degree that it interferes with daily life. Such is also the case with ADD</p></li>
<li><p>Learned helplessness and a cyclical processs of preventing recovery are not the same thing. Learned helplessness would imply that there was no real problem, only one that is created by suggestion. However, if there is a problem, these problems would make it really difficult to improve. How do you get physically organized if you are chemcially unable to effectively organize your thoughts?</p></li>
<li><p>The brains of people with ADD are different. They have different executive functioning patterns, for example. This has been proven. But maybe you didn’t choose to pay enough attention in your psychology class to know this. </p></li>
<li><p>People with recorded learning disabilities do better when given extended time. People who do not have learnign disabilities do just the same when given extended time. This is because people with learning disabilities need it, and those without do not (when both parties have studied the same amount).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>“People with recorded learning disabilities do better when given extended time. People who do not have learnign disabilities do just the same when given extended time. This is because people with learning disabilities need it, and those without do not (when both parties have studied the same amount).”</p>
<p>Do you have any proof to back this statement up? I’ve always felt I would score significantly higher on tests (esp. the SAT) if given enough time to review my work (esp. on the math section, where I tend to make 1-2 silly mistakes that I usually catch when I do things like homework)</p>
<p>abcdefg, there is at least one (and I think several) study published by ETS/The College Board that are consistent with the hypothesis that, on average, people with LDs do significantly better when given extended time and people without LDs do not. [I don’t know that this conclusion applies to all LDs]. Check the ETS website. The College Board would prefer a different conclusion – it would be much easier for them if they could demonstrate that extra time never helped or that everyone benefits equally. That would make their lives easier from both an administrative and legal standpoint. Because the studies conclusions clash with The College Board’s institutional interest, I accord them greater credence than if they found the opposite.</p>