NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/psycholo/4880

Text File | 1992-12-30 | 3.4 KB | 69 lines

Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Path: sparky!uunet!news.uiowa.edu!hobbes.physics.uiowa.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!rpi!sarah!cook!psinntp!psinntp!newstand.syr.edu!rodan.acs.syr.edu!mdkline
From: [e-mail] (Mark D. Kline)
Subject: Re: ADD
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 09:45:06 EST
Lines: 58

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Eric Lee Green) writes:
>I have been giving that exact same advice for the last six years. I have
>been a classroom teacher for exactly four months now. 'Nuff said. As a
>private citizen I will tell people flat out that they should not take
>Valium unless all other approaches have failed. I see no reason why, as a
>private citizen, I should not say the same about Ritalin. Drugs should be a
>last resort, not a first resort. The only place where I would say "drug
>first, talk later" would be for major depression or psychosis, where
>there's plenty of controlled studies showing that drug therapy is the
>safest and most effective treatment.


>However, that's as a private citizen. As a teacher, I make no attempt to
>tell the parents of my students whether they should drug their kids or not.

This way of speaking makes medication sound positively evil; nobody wants
to "drug" their child.   The question is, do medications have a favorable
risk benefit ratio for a particular child?   To be on drugs or not to
be on drugs is not the real issue - the real issue is what is best for
a child's well being.  Taking prescription drugs in and of itself is
not a bad thing - is it?

Citizens have every right to opinions, no matter how they are formed or
on what they are based.  Citizens have every right to voice their
opinions.  However, you won't catch me giving my personal layman's
opinion as advice on educational matters on newsgroups devoted to such
topics.



>Thus Xanax is the world's best-selling drug for mild anxiety attacks, while
>cognitive behavioral interventions with equal or better results are applied
>only when a patient accidentally comes across a psychologist familiar with
>such interventions.

This is apples and oranges.  It is not bad that drugs make money for drug
companies.  School textbooks make money for publishing houses.
It is bad if drugs are overprescribed or misprescribed.

>Which isn't to say that behavioral techniques are necessarily as effective
>as Ritalin for treatment of ADHD. As far as I know, there have been no
>studies comparing the effects of a well-designed behavior modification
>system with the effects of Ritalin where ADHD is concerned. Current state
>of the art in applied behavior analysis is very tedious and time-consuming,

No doubt economic considerations shape the research agenda...

>From what I've read, Ritalin doesn't produce permenant stunting of growth.
>I.e., it doesn't cause the growth plates to harden. Still, I'd suggest that
>you read any decent recent text on adolescent psychology for a discussion
>of the relationship between physical development and emotional health. It

It is certainly true that adolescents who are late bloomers are at a
psychological disadvantage to their peers who have more hair in the
armpits at age 15.  It is not clear that Ritalin treatment delays
puberty onset or course or growth in height.