Do medications really help academic performance for children and adults with ADD?
The National Institutes of Health in their study on ADD and psychotropics completed in the fall of 1998, stated that while there may be some behavioral benefits from the use of psychotropics, there is NO long term academic performance increase. In other words, while there may be some short term behavioral benefits, and academic performance may improve in the short term, over time (several years), the childs underlying cognitive problems becomes more apparent and academic performance slumps. Psychotropics do NOT stimulate neural pathway growth or positive permanent changes. The real dilemma is that while medications may have some benefit for a rather limited group of children, MOST children who are diagnosed as having ADD in reality have ADD-like symptoms that stem from causes OTHER than TRUE ADD! Medication will have limited if any academic performance improvement long term with children that really have these conditions. The real tragedy is that psychotropics act as a mask or distract
