Study shows why children with ADHD should be reevaluated each year: Attention problems perceived by teachers are far less stable than we imagine

We examined this question in 3 samples of elementary school children with clinically elevated teacher ratings of attention difficulties, i.e., ratings that fell in the top 10% of the population for children their age. Participants in Sample 1 were 27 first graders, those in Sample 2 were 24 4th graders, and those in Sample 3 were 28 7- to 9-year-old children from the Multimodal Treatment Study of ADHD (MTA Study). Children in samples 1 and 2 did not have a formal ADHD diagnosis but were identified simply by having elevated teacher ratings of inattentive symptoms. Those from the MTA Study had all been carefully diagnosed with ADHD Combined Type; the children we selected were those who had been randomly assigned to the Community Care condition and who did not receive any medication treatment during the initial study period. As noted above, all children had elevated teacher ratings of inattentive symptoms at baseline. These ratings were obtained the following year from children’s new teacher so that the cross-grade stability of elevated ratings could be computed. On average, follow-up ratings were obtained 12-14 months later. Summary Results In all 3 samples, fewer than 50% of children were rated with clinically-elevated attention problems by their new teacher. The percentages were 37% of children in the 1st grade sample, 33% of children in the 4th grade sample, and 46% of children from the MTA sample. The percentage of children whose ratings of attention difficulties had decl...
Source: SharpBrains - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Attention and ADD/ADHD Cognitive Neuroscience Education & Lifelong Learning Health & Wellness Technology attention-problems children diagnoses diagnosis elementary school medication teachers Source Type: blogs