<p>New York Times. This time, LOW income kids.</p>
<p>Attention Disorder or Not, Pills to Help in School</p>
<p>Interesting article. I’d hope that a higher priority was making sure the kids are well fed.</p>
<p>I read about an elementary school with mostly low income students who received free lunch (and breakfast). On Fridays the school sent home a sack of groceries for the family - attendance was especially good on Fridays. It sounded like a great idea.</p>
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<p>I have read that HS and college students not diagnosed with ADHD take these drugs to improve performance. Do these drugs really improve performance? If so, should all children take these drugs? </p>
<p>Has school sometimes become like professional sports with regard to performance enhancing drugs?</p>
<p>I don’t have any insight as to the use of these drugs for low-income elementary school students, but I can tell you that DS reports they are widely used at his college. He says that he will not use them, just like he will not use sports performance-enhancing drugs, because he recognizes that both have side effects. He says that the kids who use “study drugs” tend to be the ones who procrastinate doing homework/studying, then use them to cram at crunch time. Probably not unlike the use of amphetamines in previous generations, though perhaps more selective and effective.</p>
<p>Adderall is a compound of amphetamines; Ritalin (methylphenidate) is similar in effects and side-effects. These are controlled substances: it is illegal to use them without a physician’s prescription and it is illegal to sell or provide them to anyone without such a prescription. There are very good reasons for these restrictions, and no one should take these powerful medicines unless they are monitored by a physician.</p>
<p>The misuse of stimulant medicines is rampant, especially among middle class adolescents in high school and college. Some obtain the prescriptions by faking the history and symptoms.
Others obtain the medicines from friends, who in other contexts would be called dealers.</p>
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<p>Yes, but only if the kid also wants to improve performance. </p>
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<p>No. Preferably, NO children should take these drugs. There’s a million things a district could do to improve the performance of its students… Despite being inexpensive, this is one of the worst options. Hell, in my mind it’s even preferable to just let them fail out. I don’t know if it should be fully illegal or simply a prescription as it currently is, but it should absolutely never ever be anything a physician recommends for the hell of it. </p>
<p>If I was dictator, this Dr. Anderson would be in prison.</p>
<p>My daughter’s roommate from last year used adderall all the time.
She would party and put off doing work and studying, then she would pop her adderall and stay up for two days straight, getting all the work done. She would get great grades and ace tests, and then sleep for three days straight.</p>