Some doctors are prescribing stimulants like Adderall, medicines created to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, indiscriminately to low-income kids who are doing badly in school, a new New York Times article says.
Michael Anderson, the doctor that Alan Schwarz interviewed for the article, says these stimulant medications, help kids stay focused, decrease their acting up in class, and improve their grades. The article says:
"I don’t have a whole lot of choice," said Dr. Anderson, a pediatrician for many poor families in Cherokee County, north of Atlanta. "We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive to modify the kid’s environment. So we have to modify the kid."
Dr. Anderson is one of the more outspoken proponents of an idea that is gaining interest among some physicians. They are prescribing stimulants to struggling students in schools starved of extra money — not to treat A.D.H.D., necessarily, but to boost their academic performance.
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3 comments:
Nothing more than drugging a kid into submission-a chemical lobotomy. I don't want to hear any excuses but no way should a child ever be drugged up. All it does is to teach children that everything can be fixed by taking a drug. If a child has a problem then the problem needs to be dealt with and not a bandaid/drug used.
That's why we have the new workforce of today. There's always a reason I don't have to keep up,and a lousy excuse is as good as any. Long as I have something to blame it on. and hey, vote for Blowbama, too! He's my blamer in chief mentor.
If a child has a problem then the problem needs to be dealt with and not a bandaid/drug used.
October 12, 2012 1:47 PM
What would you suggest they use to deal with the problem?
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