Dr. Carol's Blog

New study connecting diet to ADHD: “We found a diet high in the Western pattern of foods was associated with more than double the risk of having an ADHD diagnosis compared with a diet low in the Western pattern.” And yet another reason to add Omega 3 to our and our children’s’ diets and cut down the junk food!

Science News

Western Diet Link to ADHD, Australian Study Finds

Science Daily (July 29, 2010) – A new study from Perth’s Telethon Institute for Child Health Research shows an association between ADHD and a ‘Western-style’ diet in adolescents.

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/ Reference

* South Beach diet http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/s/south_beach_diet.htm * Saturated fat http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/s/saturated_fat.htm * Mediterranean diet http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/m/mediterranean_diet.htm * Food groups http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/f/food_groups.htm

The research findings have just been published online in the international Journal of Attention Disorders.

Leader of Nutrition studies at the Institute, Associate Professor Wendy Oddy, said the study examined the dietary patterns of 1800 adolescents from the long-term Raine Study and classified diets into ‘Healthy’ or ‘Western’ patterns.

“We found a diet high in the Western pattern of foods was associated with more than double the risk of having an ADHD diagnosis compared with a diet low in the Western pattern, after adjusting for numerous other social and family influences,” Dr Oddy said.

“We looked at the dietary patterns amongst the adolescents and compared the diet information against whether or not the adolescent had received a diagnosis of ADHD by the age of 14 years. In our study, 115 adolescents had been diagnosed with ADHD, 91 boys and 24 girls.”

A “healthy” pattern is a diet high in fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains and fish. It tends to be higher in omega-3 fatty acids, foliate and fiber. A “Western” pattern is a diet with a trend towards takeaway foods, confectionary, processed, fried and refined foods. These diets tend to be higher in total fat, saturated fat, refined sugar and sodium.

“When we looked at specific foods, having an ADHD diagnosis was associated with a diet high in takeaway foods, processed meats, red meat, high fat dairy products and confectionary,” Dr Oddy said.

“We suggest that a Western dietary pattern may indicate the adolescent has a less optimal fatty acid profile, whereas a diet higher in omega-3 fatty acids is thought to hold benefits for mental health and optimal brain function.

“It also may be that the Western dietary pattern doesn’t provide enough essential micronutrients that are needed for brain function, particularly attention and concentration, or that a Western diet might contain more colors, flavors and additives that have been linked to an increase in ADHD symptoms. It may also be that impulsivity, which is a characteristic of ADHD, leads to poor dietary choices such as quick snacks when hungry.”

Dr Oddy said that whilst this study suggests that diet may be implicated in ADHD, more research is needed to determine the nature of the relationship.

“This is a cross-sectional study so we cannot be sure whether a poor diet leads to ADHD or whether ADHD leads to poor dietary choices and cravings,” Dr Oddy said.

ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed childhood mental health disorder and has a prevalence of approximately 5%. ADHD is known to be more common in boys.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by Science Daily staff) from materials provided by http://www.researchaustralia.com.au/ Research Australia.

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Journal Reference:

1. Amber L. Howard, Monique Robinson, Grant J. Smith, Gina L. Ambrosini, Jan P. Piek, and Wendy H. Oddy. ADHD Is Associated With a ‘Western’ Dietary Pattern in Adolescents. Journal of Attention Disorders, 2010; DOI: 10.1177/1087054710365990 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1087054710365990

This is an exciting time for the research with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. We are beginning to understand where and why AND what to do about it. We are having great success with helping students learn control over their attention.

Enjoy the article – I am interested in what you think.

Dr. Carol

What’s the Real Deficit in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder?

By Brenda Patoine

BRIEFING PAPER

Ann Whitman

Despite its moniker, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) might be better considered as a problem in the willful control of attention as opposed to a pure deficit in the ability to pay attention. That distinction, supported by a growing body of neuroscientific evidence aimed at rooting out the core physical basis of ADHD, is often lost on the lay public, including the parents and teachers who deal with the effects of the disorder in the home and classroom.

Parents of children with ADHD, for example, may find it hard to fathom that a child who can spend hours engrossed in a video game has a problem with attention. Teachers may be confounded by a student who is fully engaged in a music lesson but is distracted or disruptive in other classwork.

Martha Bridge Denckla, M.D., a clinician and scientist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins University, says she faces these kinds of questions regularly from parents who bring their children to the ADHD clinic where she practices. “I am constantly having to explain to parents that ADHD is not a deficit in the sense of say, a budget deficit or a thyroid deficiency, where you don’t have enough of something. Rather, it’s the control over attention.”

Denckla, who is a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, has found it useful to speak in terms of the allocation of attention when communicating with parents about ADHD, particularly those who argue that their child is, if anything, excessively attentive when it comes to something that they really enjoy, like playing a video game. The question, Denckla says, is: “Where is the child’s attention being allocated? Is it where it needs to be to meet the demands of home, school, and society?”

Allocating one’s attention appropriately for success in school requires a degree of willful control-what might be thought of as will power-to turn away from a preferred activity and focus on an activity that may not be as compelling or immediately rewarding.

This concept of attention allocation as it relates to ADHD is not new. Dana Alliance member Judy Rapoport, M.D., chief of child psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health, points out that a decades-long literature in the field of experimental psychology has used the term as a basis for understanding attention generally. But linking attention allocation as a behavioral construct to a specific locus or network in the brain is another matter entirely.

“One can talk about allocation of attention at the behavioral level, and we know what we are communicating, but for me, understanding attention requires linking behavior to brain,” says Dana Alliance member Michael Posner, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the University of Oregon and a leading expert on the neural pathways underlying attention. “It doesn’t look like the brain has an ‘attention allocation’ network; that’s just not how the brain organizes attention.”

The Neural Networks of Attention

At the brain level, attention is not a unitary construct-you cannot point to a specific locus on a brain scan and say this is where attention is located. Scientists have identified at least three major components of attention that are served by discrete but integrally connected neural networks. The “alerting network” handles initial arousal to some sensory stimuli in the environment that signals the brain to pay attention-akin to a warning system. The “orienting network” enables the brain to attend quickly to the source of the incoming stimuli. These two networks involve both cortical and subcortical parts of the brain, and are not unique to humans.

The third network, often called executive attention, enables the individual to decide which things to attend to among competing brain activity. It connects to areas of the brain associated with higher-level cognitive processes and serves as a kind of command and control center for the brain’s attentional resources. Centered in the brain’s prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate, the executive attention network is activated when performing tasks that require attention to one thing in the face of conflicting choices (homework vs. video game, for example), or when a nonhabitual response is involved. It is the system involved in the conscious control of attention, a cognitive function variously termed “effortful control” or “self-regulation.”

An inability or reduced ability to exercise willful control over the brain’s more primitive basic attentional resources is one of the leading theories about what goes wrong in ADHD. “It’s not that children with ADHD somehow don’t have the same amount of attention floating around in the brain,” says Philip Shaw, Ph. D., a scientist who studies ADHD at the National Institute of Mental Health. “A child who is not staying on task in school could be paying attention to what’s going on outside the classroom. So it’s not that they are not doing something that is attention-demanding; it’s just that their focus is on something other than what they’re meant to be doing.” From that perspective, he says, thinking about ADHD as a problem with the allocation of attentional resources makes sense.

The ability to self-regulate one’s attention relies heavily on the ability to consciously inhibit what might be a habitual or more immediately rewarding response and choose another that is more socially appropriate to the situation at hand. This concept of “response inhibition” is in fact widely recognized as one of the core deficits in ADHD, says Shaw, and is especially relevant to understanding the impulsive behavior that is a hallmark of ADHD.

Theories Abound on the Causes of ADHD

A failure of response inhibition, however, is by no means the only theory about what goes wrong in ADHD. Various other hypotheses have emerged recently in the ADHD literature, Shaw says. One theory holds that the disorder is primarily a problem with working memory-the ability to hold information in temporary storage long enough to act on it appropriately, while another group of theories centers around how information is processed in time.

“There are lots of psychological tests that show that ADHD kids just don’t get the timing of things quite right,” he says. “This would explain very nicely the impulsivity that is seen in ADHD; where they are not getting the very fine-grained timing of social interactions, for example.” In the classroom, this might manifest as blurting out the answer to a teacher’s query before one is called upon.

Another theory, championed largely by F. Xavier Castellanos, M.D., an ADHD researcher at New York University, postulates that the brain’s “default” or resting state, which is characterized by particular patterns of neural activity, may erroneously be in play during non-resting states in people with ADHD and these patterns interfere with normal information processing.

Each of these theories offers tantalizing clues about what might be going wrong in the brains of children with ADHD, but they do not answer all of the questions. “Our present state of knowledge is that there is no one core psychological deficit that we’ve been able to identify as yet that is at the heart of ADHD,” says Shaw. Part of the problem, he and other experts say, is that there is so much individual variability in the symptoms and behavioral manifestations of what is broadly labeled as ADHD. “As with other psychological disorders, there is no brain, blood, or psychological test that definitively identifies ADHD. We just don’t know what the core deficit is.”

New research explains why some children react so much more significantly to bullying than others. It is imperative that we intervene and stop the bullying. Programs that teach students how to deal with bullying are important but stopping bullying is even more important.

Gene Causes Victims of Childhood Bullying Suffer Aftermath Through Emotional Problems

by Rathi Manohar on July 25, 2010 at 11:46 AM

Child Health New

Description: Gene Causes Victims of Childhood Bullying Suffer Aftermath Through Emotional Problems

Besides the immediate physical and http://www.medindia.net/news/Gene-Causes-Victims-of-Childhood-Bullying-Suff er-Aftermath-Through-Emotional-Problems-71813-1.htm?utm_source=feedburner&ut m_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+allhealthnews+%28Medindia+Health+News%29& utm_content=Twitte> emotional distress that child victims of http://www.medindia.net/news/Gene-Causes-Victims-of-Childhood-Bullying-Suff er-Aftermath-Through-Emotional-Problems-71813-1.htm?utm_source=feedburner&ut m_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+allhealthnews+%28Medindia+Health+News%29& utm_content=Twitte> bullying face, researchers state that a http://www.medindia.net/news/Gene-Causes-Victims-of-Childhood-Bullying-Suff er-Aftermath-Through-Emotional-Problems-71813-1.htm?utm_source=feedburner&ut m_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+allhealthnews+%28Medindia+Health+News%29& utm_content=Twitte> genetic variation could cause the development of emotional problems later on.

Not all children who are bullied go on to develop such problems.

In the study conducted by Dr. Sugden and colleagues from Duke University and Kings College London, results showed that genetic differences in the 5-HTTLPR http://www.medindia.net/news/Gene-Causes-Victims-of-Childhood-Bullying-Suff er-Aftermath-Through-Emotional-Problems-71813-1.htm?utm_source=feedburner&ut m_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+allhealthnews+%28Medindia+Health+News%29& utm_content=Twitte> genes interact with bullying victimization to exacerbate emotional problems.

Second, the http://www.medindia.net/news/Gene-Causes-Victims-of-Childhood-Bullying-Suff er-Aftermath-Through-Emotional-Problems-71813-1.htm?utm_source=feedburner&ut m_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+allhealthnews+%28Medindia+Health+News%29& utm_content=Twitte> gene and environment interaction was strongest for frequently bullied children.

In the article, Sudgen and colleagues state, “This genetic moderation persists after controlling for children’s pre-victimization emotional problems and for other risk factors shared by children growing up within the same http://www.medindia.net/news/Gene-Causes-Victims-of-Childhood-Bullying-Suff er-Aftermath-Through-Emotional-Problems-71813-1.htm?utm_source=feedburner&ut m_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+allhealthnews+%28Medindia+Health+News%29& utm_content=Twitte> family environment.”

The study is reported in the August 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and http://www.medindia.net/news/Gene-Causes-Victims-of-Childhood-Bullying-Suff er-Aftermath-Through-Emotional-Problems-71813-1.htm?utm_source=feedburner&ut m_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+allhealthnews+%28Medindia+Health+News%29& utm_content=Twitte> Adolescent Psychiatry

http://www.medindia.net/news/Gene-Causes-Victims-of-Childhood-Bullying-Suff er-Aftermath-Through-Emotional-Problems-71813-1.htm?utm_source=feedburner&ut m_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+allhealthnews+%28Medindia+Health+News%29& utm_content=Twitte> Description: http://kona.kontera.com/javascript/lib/imgs/grey_loader.gif

(JAACAP).

Check out this study published in the journal Neuron.

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=153030#.TwXXoE jQhfw.email

Marcie Hoffman

Education Coordinator

Total Learning Centers

724-940-1090

Is homework affecting grades? According to neuropsychologist Dr. Dana Luck a student with an executive functioning disorder will have a tough time in school. They often seem disorganized. Homework, books, even personal items make it home some and not other nights. Even more frustrating is the nights they get all homework home but don’t get it back to school and turned in at the right time to the right class. That is often extremely difficult for the student with executive functioning issues.

Long term projects – those projects that are not due for three or four weeks can be the biggest challenges. Often just deciding on a topic seems like a huge stumbling block to the student. Once their topic is chosen, establishing a time frame to get all the pieces taken care of and actually completing them within the right time frame can be overwhelming.

Often students with executive functioning disorders have difficulties with all aspects of timing, figuring out how long something might take, getting starting, and following through in the right order. Initiation or just getting started can be a part of the problem. Part of the reason students have difficulty with initiation is they do not know where to start. Teachers and parents can view this as lazy and procrastination rather than a challenge with managing time. These tasks however seem so overwhelming and unmanageable students don’t even know where to begin.

When students find ordinary tasks take great effort it takes a toll on them. They can become irritable, hyperactive, forgetful, and fatigued. They learn to give up before they begin.

As homework is almost always a hot subject, students with executive functioning disorder should learn that setting up the homework is just as important as doing the work. Ten minutes in planning is time well invested to make it go more smoothly.

Did you know that most mental disorders start before age 14? It makes it even more important to help our students as soon as any symptoms are shown. The following are valuable tips from Victoria Costello. She is a great author and has many good articles out there. This one was on the Psychology Today website, December 2011.

So what can we do to be proactive about mental illness?

1. Create a “tree” of your family mental health history going back three generations, and record all known or suspected mental disorders and addictions. If relatives baulk at your digging into the past, point out that it’s for the safety of your children, and future grandchildren. Use the https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/fhh-web/familyHistory/familyHistory.action US Surgeon General’s online form for recording and storing your family mental health (and medical) history. It may be scary to see everything laid out but remember there is often a genetic link for addictions and mental disorders.

2. Learn about environmental agents that may cause miscarriages, birth defects or developmental problems later in http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/child-development childhood. The source may be a disease such as chickenpox, a prescription drug, or a household chemical.

3. Treat Yourself First. Think of your actions as an act of prevention for your child’s mental health. Recent research from Columbia University demonstrated that by treating a mother for depression her depressed or anxious child’s symptoms dramatically improved—without direct treatment!

4. Monitor your Child’s Behavior for Early Symptoms Most adult mental disorders start before the age of fourteen. If there is a high density of any single mental illness among your relatives, learn about its early signs; for example, social withdrawal for depression, or extreme http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/anger anger and aggression for conduct disorder, which can predict adolescent psychosis. Bring a child for a mental health evaluation as soon as symptoms linger for a month or more. Especially if there’s a family mental health history of depression, or a possible http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/suicide suicide, use any means necessary to stop your teenager’s use of http://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/cannabismarijuana marijuana, as it can trigger psychosis.

5. Talk About Thoughts and Feelings – As soon as your child begins to recognize her own thoughts and feelings and those of others, start an age-appropriate conversation about how emotions and minds work. Compare the spectrum of possible feelings and thoughts to the colors of a rainbow. This “normalization” of differences makes it more likely that your child will confide any future psychological problems to you and be less inclined to stigmatize others.

6. Have Zero Tolerance towards http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/bullying Bullying – Bullying of any kind is not okay. Sometimes children say they can handle it but really they are embarrassed. Remember that the abuse is much worse than embarrassment. Most schools have bullying policies. There are even laws against harassment. Stop the bullying!

7. Make http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/self-esteem Self Esteem a Priority – Remember this does not mean just saying nice things. It means finding strengths in your child. Consider renewing a commitment to family dinners; give everyone a role, which will help teach http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/teamwork teamwork.

http://alethalinheritance.com/about-the-book/ A Lethal Inheritance, A Mother Uncovers the Science Behind Three Decades of Mental Illness,

Psychology Today

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/awakening-psyche/201112/getting-happy http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/awakening-psyche/201112/getting-happy

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/awakening-psyche Awakening Psyche

Integrating body, mind and spirit in our collective consciousness.

by Victoria Costello

Getting to Happy

Leading psychology researchers offer tips for mental wellness.

Published on December 2, 2011 by http://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/victoria-costello Victoria Costello in http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/awakening-psyche Awakening Psyche

What can be changed if a child isn’t reading? Increase time spent – Torgeson says increase from 3x to 4x what others are spending. Make the groups smaller or even 1-1. Change to a more skilled teacher. Make certain there is a positive teaching atmosphere.

When we are concerned about attention weaknesses and ADHD we are often most concerned about a student’s ability to SUSTAIN their attention. We work to teach students to gradually increase the amount of time they spend paying attention to one item. Why? What makes or breaks school success is the ability to filter out background distractions so that working memory can be used effectively for efficient learning. This research helps us understand this important concept. Torkel Klingberg is a valued researcher and one of the core researchers that helped develop Cogmed, one of the most well respected interventions for improving working memory.

Brain Activity Related to Working Memory and Distraction in Children and Adults

1. http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/search?author1=Pernille+J.+Olesen&sortspec =date&submit=Submit> Pernille J. Olesen http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/5/1047#aff-1 1, 2. http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/search?author1=Julian+Macoveanu&sortspec=d ate&submit=Submit> Julian Macoveanu http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/5/1047#aff-1 1, http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/5/1047#aff-2 2, 3. http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/search?author1=Jesper+Tegn%C3%A9r&sortspec =date&submit=Submit> Jesper Tegnér http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/5/1047#aff-2 2, http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/5/1047#aff-3 3 and 4. http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/search?author1=Torkel+Klingberg&sortspec=d ate&submit=Submit> Torkel Klingberg http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/5/1047#aff-1 1

http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/5/1047 + Author Affiliations

1. 1Neuropediatric Research Unit, Department of Women and Child Health, Astrid Lindgren’s Children’s Hospital Q2:07, Karolinska Institutet, 171 76 Stockholm, Sweden 2. 2Division of Computational Biology, Department of Physics, Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden 3. 3Computational Medicine Group, Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, 171 76 Stockholm, Sweden

1. Address correspondence to email: torkel.klingberg@ki.se.

Abstract

In order to retain information in working memory (WM) during a delay, distracting stimuli must be ignored. This important ability improves during childhood, but the neural basis for this development is not known. We measured brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging in adults and 13-year-old children. Data were analyzed with an event-related design to isolate activity during cue, delay, distraction, and response selection. Adults were more accurate and less distractible than children. Activity in the middle frontal gyrus and intraparietal cortex was stronger in adults than in children during the delay, when information was maintained in WM. Distraction during the delay evoked activation in parietal and occipital cortices in both adults and children. However, distraction activated frontal cortex only in children. The larger frontal activation in response to distracters presented during the delay may explain why children are more susceptible to interfering stimuli.

We know that attention issues cause students to miss critical information when attempting to meet school, social, and work requirements. There are three interventions that work to help make attention issues less intrusive: behavioral therapy – mindfulness, medication/nutrition interventions and direct brain based interventions such as Cogmed and FACT (a program with specific exercises that teach someone how to pay attention). Investigate these to improve ADHD complications.

Healthline.com – Connect to Better Health

ADHD Complications

By the Healthline Editorial Team Reviewed by Stephanie Burkhead, MPH

http://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/facebook/offer?url=http://www. healthline.com%2Fhealth%2Fadd-adhd-attention-deficit-complications> http://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/twitter/offer?url=http://www.h ealthline.com%2Fhealth%2Fadd-adhd-attention-deficit-complications> http://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/digg/offer?url=http://www.heal thline.com%2Fhealth%2Fadd-adhd-attention-deficit-complications> http://addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=healthy1

ADHD is a chronic condition that can create serious difficulties for children, especially in school and in social situations.

Difficulty in School

Children with ADHD have problems paying attention in the classroom and remembering assignments, both of which can lead to poor academic performance. A child who suffers from undiagnosed ADHD may be unfairly judged as “stupid” or “impossible to teach”-a judgment that can lead to further academic failure. Unfortunately, high school dropout rates are about twice as high for children with ADHD than for others.

Children with ADHD may specifically have trouble interacting with adults and other authority figures, which may exacerbate problems in the classroom. Children with ADHD are more likely than others to develop oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), a pattern of hostile and defiant behavior directed towards authority figures.

Although ADHD doesn’t cause learning disabilities, they are more common in children with ADHD than in those without. School-aged children with ADHD may have a hard time with reading, spelling, writing, or math. Test-taking is a special concern; luckily, many schools allow special concessions for children with ADHD to have extra time on tests, especially state and national standardized tests. It’s also important to remember that especially gifted students tend to get ADHD more than other children. If you think your child has ADHD, it is essential that you work with your child’s teacher, school counselor, or other educational specialist to get any special requirements addressed.

Social Situations

Some children with ADHD have trouble interacting with peers. Because these children may have trouble taking turns, playing with others can cause problems and become more upsetting than fun or rewarding. Although ADHD does not cause anxiety or depression, both of these conditions are more common among children with ADHD than in others. Anxiety especially is common, and it can both cause and exacerbate worry and nervousness about being around, working with, and playing with others.

Because children-especially younger children-with ADHD tend to be active at inappropriate times, they are more likely to have injury-causing accidents.

One rare, but potentially serious, condition that can coexist with ADHD is conduct disorder. A child with conduct disorder may repeatedly lie, steal from others, act cruelly or violently towards others and animals, or destroy property. Children with conduct disorder are at a significantly higher risk for injury, depression, substance abuse, and incarceration.

Other Complications and Comorbidities

Although ADHD does not cause any of these conditions, children with ADHD are more likely than others to have:

* Bipolar disorder * borderline personality disorder * Tourette syndrome * Obsessive compulsive disorder

Read more: http://www.healthline.com/health/add-adhd-attention-deficit-complications#i xzz116xVgNdM> http://www.healthline.com/health/add-adhd-attention-deficit-complications#ix zz116xVgNdM

http://www.healthline.com/health/add-adhd-attention-deficit-complications

ADHD Complications

By the Healthline Editorial Team Reviewed by Stephanie Burkhead, MPH

http://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/facebook/offer?url=http://www. healthline.com%2Fhealth%2Fadd-adhd-attention-deficit-complications> http://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/twitter/offer?url=http://www.h ealthline.com%2Fhealth%2Fadd-adhd-attention-deficit-complications> http://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/digg/offer?url=http://www.heal thline.com%2Fhealth%2Fadd-adhd-attention-deficit-complications> http://addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=healthy1

ADHD is a chronic condition that can create serious difficulties for children, especially in school and in social situations.

Difficulty in School

Children with ADHD have problems paying attention in the classroom and remembering assignments, both of which can lead to poor academic performance. A child who suffers from undiagnosed ADHD may be unfairly judged as “stupid” or “impossible to teach”-a judgment that can lead to further academic failure. Unfortunately, high school dropout rates are about twice as high for children with ADHD than for others.

Children with ADHD may specifically have trouble interacting with adults and other authority figures, which may exacerbate problems in the classroom. Children with ADHD are more likely than others to develop oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), a pattern of hostile and defiant behavior directed towards authority figures.

Although ADHD doesn’t cause learning disabilities, they are more common in children with ADHD than in those without. School-aged children with ADHD may have a hard time with reading, spelling, writing, or math. Test-taking is a special concern; luckily, many schools allow special concessions for children with ADHD to have extra time on tests, especially state and national standardized tests. It’s also important to remember that especially gifted students tend to get ADHD more than other children. If you think your child has ADHD, it is essential that you work with your child’s teacher, school counselor, or other educational specialist to get any special requirements addressed.

Social Situations

Some children with ADHD have trouble interacting with peers. Because these children may have trouble taking turns, playing with others can cause problems and become more upsetting than fun or rewarding. Although ADHD does not cause anxiety or depression, both of these conditions are more common among children with ADHD than in others. Anxiety especially is common, and it can both cause and exacerbate worry and nervousness about being around, working with, and playing with others.

Because children-especially younger children-with ADHD tend to be active at inappropriate times, they are more likely to have injury-causing accidents.

One rare, but potentially serious, condition that can coexist with ADHD is conduct disorder. A child with conduct disorder may repeatedly lie, steal from others, act cruelly or violently towards others and animals, or destroy property. Children with conduct disorder are at a significantly higher risk for injury, depression, substance abuse, and incarceration.

Other Complications and Comorbidities

Although ADHD does not cause any of these conditions, children with ADHD are more likely than others to have:

* Bipolar disorder * borderline personality disorder * Tourette syndrome * Obsessive compulsive disorder

Read more: http://www.healthline.com/health/add-adhd-attention-deficit-complications#i xzz116xVgNdM> http://www.healthline.com/health/add-adhd-attention-deficit-complications#ix zz116xVgNdM Healthline.com – Connect to Better Health