Do French Kids Get ADHD? Yes

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has become an increasing commonplace childhood malady, affecting somewhere between 5 to 9 percent of American children ever year. Back in 2012, a blog was written claiming it explained the reason “Why French Kids Don’t Have ADHD.” In the article, Dr. Marilyn Wedge made the astonishing claim that while American children suffered ADHD prevalence rates of around 9 percent, French children have a prevalence rate of “less than 0.5 percent.” The only problem with this claim? It’s not true. The article appeared on Psychology Today, that bastion of lowest common denominator, pop psychology content, and it remains one of their most shared articles on social media. You’d think that at some point in the intervening 6 years since it was written, somebody would’ve checked and verified the article’s claims. It certainly would’ve been easy, as it only took a few minutes to debunk the claim with a study by Lecendreux and colleagues (2011) that examined the prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and its associated features among children in France. “Earlier studies point to the prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to be similar around the world,” the researchers noted. “There is, however, a wide variety in estimates. The prevalence of ADHD in youth has never been examined in France.” So they set out to conduct a systemati...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: ADHD and ADD Children and Teens Disorders Minding the Media Psychology Research Adhd In Children ADHD in France ADHD in French French children Source Type: blogs