Do ADHD Statistics Help?
I often stay away from numbers and ADHD statistics on ADHDaction.com. This because they can often be misleading. Statistics are useful for finding trends and addressing needs in large populations. They have a flaw of being sliced and diced in order to show a trend that might not actually be there. Either that or they are so confusing that you need a degree in math to understand them. Knowing all that, there are some statistics in the United States that may give an idea of just how big ADHD is. From the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) website • 4.5 million children 5-17 years of age have ever been diagnosed with ADHD as of 2006. • 3%-7% of school-aged children suffer from ADHD. Some studies have estimated higher rates in community samples.17.8% of school-aged children were reported to have an ADHD diagnosis by their parent in 2003. • Diagnosis of ADHD increased an average of 3% per year from 1997 to 2006. • Boys (9.5%) are more likely than girls (5.9%) to have been diag
