02-02-2005, 05:20 PM
http://www.mlive .com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/features-0/11073588364740.xml
Doctor questions beliefs on ADHD
Kids with attention problems might not have 'disorder,' he says
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
BY ANNE RUETER
News Staff Reporter
Rick Solomon doesn't hesitate to ask provocative questions. Take the title of his upcoming talk at a branch of the Ann Arbor District Library, "Does
ADHD Really Exist?"
It's that last D, for "disorder," that Solomon is adamantly against. Trained as a developmental and behavioral pediatrician, he recently left his faculty post in pediatrics at the University of Michigan to devote himself full time to a private center he has founded to promote his family-based approach to children's learning difficulties, including ADHD and autism.
At his talk Tuesday, Solomon will describe a different way for parents and educators to think about children labeled with
ADHD, and ways to help them learn.
"I don't deny there are some boys who do have problems with attention span," he says. "But just because you have a problem with attention span, does that mean you have a disease?"
Solomon takes issue with the ways doctors, schools and parents frequently deal with children who have problems paying attention.
Among his views:
# ADHD is vastly overdiagnosed.
# Medicines freely prescribed for ADHD are not appropriate for many children.
# The current widespread use of the ADHD label puts children who have very different types of attention problems, mild to severe, in the same box. He believes what each child needs is an individualized plan to identify specific attention problems and to help tap the child's natural eagerness to learn.
Karen Schulte, an assistant professor in special education at Eastern Michigan University, hopes to make it to Solomon's talk. Many professionals in her field tend to agree with Solomon's views, she says.
"There's a huge body of research growing, showing we're just overdiagnosing kids with attention deficit disorder," says Schulte.
In the talk, Solomon will draw from scientific studies and his own experience working with children who have difficulties in school. He says the label ADHD is too hastily applied to children who have a wide range of attention difficulties, but also strengths.
"I look at the whole child," he says. "I look at all the different minds that children have." Solomon is a fan of the ideas of educator Mel Levine, who promotes the concept that children have several kinds of intelligence.
Solomon wants his new center, the Ann Arbor Center for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, (http://www.aacenter.org), to help parents respond to their children's learning needs. He says he left the academic world to devote more time to the new center and to promote his "play project," a home-based approach for autistic children now in use at 20 centers nationally. He's been invited to describe that work on NBC's "Today" show. He would like to see his approach to family-based, individualized help for children labeled with ADHD also spread more widely.
Like Solomon, EMU's Schulte says it's useful to think of people lumped together under "ADHD" as people who in reality display a wide spectrum of attention abilities. Right now, she says, plenty of people considered to have attention deficit disorder have attention difficulties, but don't have the neurological irregularities or early signs - usually obvious by age 6 - that help define a real diagnosis of the condition.
Schulte sees other reasons behind the explosion in children labeled with ADHD that began in the 1990s. Outside school, she says, "We overload kids with all sorts of stimulation from the very beginning," especially visual pastimes like computer games and TV. Should we be surprised, she asks, "if you take a child used to all this visual input into a classroom, where all they're getting is audio input, and all of a sudden they have trouble paying attention?"
For insights into ADHD, Solomon looks at humans' long history as hunter-gatherers and farmers. "It's only in the last 70 years that we've had mandatory schooling," he says. Boys who eons ago excelled at responding to frequent stimuli now sit in rows in class and are told to concentrate.
"As we become this information-based society, the hunter-gatherer traits that served us so well have been cultured out of us," he says.
"It used to be that when a farmer had a hyper boy, other farmers would say, 'Can I borrow him?"'
Today, he says, "there are criteria for ADHD that one of these boys would fit."
For more on Solomon's work with children, visit http://www.aacenter.org. For more on the ideas of educator and author Mel Levine, visit http://www.allkindsofminds.org. Books of interest to parents of children with attention difficulties include Mel Levine's "A Mind at a Time" and "The Myth of the ADD Child" by Thomas Armstrong.
Reporter Anne Rueter can be reached at (734) 994-6759 or arueter@annarbornews.com
© 2005 Ann Arbor News. Used with permission
Doctor questions beliefs on ADHD
Kids with attention problems might not have 'disorder,' he says
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
BY ANNE RUETER
News Staff Reporter
Rick Solomon doesn't hesitate to ask provocative questions. Take the title of his upcoming talk at a branch of the Ann Arbor District Library, "Does
ADHD Really Exist?"
It's that last D, for "disorder," that Solomon is adamantly against. Trained as a developmental and behavioral pediatrician, he recently left his faculty post in pediatrics at the University of Michigan to devote himself full time to a private center he has founded to promote his family-based approach to children's learning difficulties, including ADHD and autism.
At his talk Tuesday, Solomon will describe a different way for parents and educators to think about children labeled with
ADHD, and ways to help them learn.
"I don't deny there are some boys who do have problems with attention span," he says. "But just because you have a problem with attention span, does that mean you have a disease?"
Solomon takes issue with the ways doctors, schools and parents frequently deal with children who have problems paying attention.
Among his views:
# ADHD is vastly overdiagnosed.
# Medicines freely prescribed for ADHD are not appropriate for many children.
# The current widespread use of the ADHD label puts children who have very different types of attention problems, mild to severe, in the same box. He believes what each child needs is an individualized plan to identify specific attention problems and to help tap the child's natural eagerness to learn.
Karen Schulte, an assistant professor in special education at Eastern Michigan University, hopes to make it to Solomon's talk. Many professionals in her field tend to agree with Solomon's views, she says.
"There's a huge body of research growing, showing we're just overdiagnosing kids with attention deficit disorder," says Schulte.
In the talk, Solomon will draw from scientific studies and his own experience working with children who have difficulties in school. He says the label ADHD is too hastily applied to children who have a wide range of attention difficulties, but also strengths.
"I look at the whole child," he says. "I look at all the different minds that children have." Solomon is a fan of the ideas of educator Mel Levine, who promotes the concept that children have several kinds of intelligence.
Solomon wants his new center, the Ann Arbor Center for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, (http://www.aacenter.org), to help parents respond to their children's learning needs. He says he left the academic world to devote more time to the new center and to promote his "play project," a home-based approach for autistic children now in use at 20 centers nationally. He's been invited to describe that work on NBC's "Today" show. He would like to see his approach to family-based, individualized help for children labeled with ADHD also spread more widely.
Like Solomon, EMU's Schulte says it's useful to think of people lumped together under "ADHD" as people who in reality display a wide spectrum of attention abilities. Right now, she says, plenty of people considered to have attention deficit disorder have attention difficulties, but don't have the neurological irregularities or early signs - usually obvious by age 6 - that help define a real diagnosis of the condition.
Schulte sees other reasons behind the explosion in children labeled with ADHD that began in the 1990s. Outside school, she says, "We overload kids with all sorts of stimulation from the very beginning," especially visual pastimes like computer games and TV. Should we be surprised, she asks, "if you take a child used to all this visual input into a classroom, where all they're getting is audio input, and all of a sudden they have trouble paying attention?"
For insights into ADHD, Solomon looks at humans' long history as hunter-gatherers and farmers. "It's only in the last 70 years that we've had mandatory schooling," he says. Boys who eons ago excelled at responding to frequent stimuli now sit in rows in class and are told to concentrate.
"As we become this information-based society, the hunter-gatherer traits that served us so well have been cultured out of us," he says.
"It used to be that when a farmer had a hyper boy, other farmers would say, 'Can I borrow him?"'
Today, he says, "there are criteria for ADHD that one of these boys would fit."
For more on Solomon's work with children, visit http://www.aacenter.org. For more on the ideas of educator and author Mel Levine, visit http://www.allkindsofminds.org. Books of interest to parents of children with attention difficulties include Mel Levine's "A Mind at a Time" and "The Myth of the ADD Child" by Thomas Armstrong.
Reporter Anne Rueter can be reached at (734) 994-6759 or arueter@annarbornews.com
© 2005 Ann Arbor News. Used with permission