Future Direction for the Field

Future Direction

Suggestions to Limit negative side effects of medication and ADHD labeling:
Jacobson (2002) suggests that instead of just labeling students hyperactive or distractible to look at his or her classroom behavior has a whole rather than several major instances. Jacobson discusses that while observing classrooms many times teachers would allow certain “non-hyperactive” students to engage in the same activities (such as talking to other classmates) as “hyperactive” students, but without the same repercussions. It is suggested that teachers implement more than one baseline for what is “normal” and not to constantly dismiss students that have been diagnosed with ADHD.
Conrad and Potter (2000) deal with the issues head on, of labeling children at a young age and the effect that it can have when this person is no longer a child but rather an adult. Unfortunately there are some cases in which a hyperactive child does not “outgrow” the symptoms associated with ADHD and have problems as adults. This is important to note with respect to future suggestions of ADHD treatment and medication because as aforementioned in the “effects of medications,” where Erler (2013) had suggested that medicating a child can have the negative effects.
Within the past decades and the explosion of media the diagnosis of ADHD has spread and attributed to restlessness, boredom and “criteria recognize the disorder without hyperactivity (Conrad & Potter, 2000).” This means that more and more “symptoms” that were not previous associated with ADHD have been lumped into those that are. The direction in which this diagnosis is moving toward is the medicalization of social problems. There is more expected of people today than there was a decade or two ago. This has lead to those unable to keep up feeling inadequate and as if there is something wrong with them.

A major future issue for all of these newly diagnosed children with ADHD is what is going to happen when they grow up? Are they going to use this as a crutch into adulthood or are they going to have the skills to “outgrow” it? These are just some questions of many that arise when social problems start to become medical problems. Loe and Cuttino (2008) pose questions similar to these and describe testimonies from past ADHD Adderall patients as better off without the medication.

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