A leading U.S doctor believes that many cases of diagnosed ADHD are in fact sleeping disorders in disguise.

Vatsal Thakkar, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, says he is treating an increasing number of people with ADHD symptoms but who actually have suffer with poor quality sleep.

For some people – especially children – sleep deprivation does not necessarily cause lethargy; instead they become hyperactive, forgetful and unfocused, he said.

Disruptive: Children who are aggressive, impulsive and hyperactive are often diagnosed with ADHD but they could be suffering with a sleep disorder, says a leading exoert

It was a 31-year-old patient who alerted him to the link when he came for treatment because he was exhibiting the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

He was suffering with all the symptoms – including procrastination and forgetfulness – but his problems had only started two years earlier. 

In order to diagnose a person with ADHD, they must have experienced the symptoms since childhood, he says.

In an article for New York Times, Professor Thakkar explained that his patient’s problems first developed the month he began his most recent job. It  required him to rise at 5am, despite the fact that he was a night owl. 

The professor realised he didn’t have ADHD but instead a chronic sleep deficit. 

He suggested techniques to help him fall asleep at night, such as relaxing for 90 minutes before getting in bed, and when he returned two weeks later, his symptoms were almost gone. 

Numerous studies have shown that we get less sleep than we used to. 

The number of adults who sleep fewer than seven hours each night has rocketed from two percent in 1960 to more than 35 per cent in 2011. 

And sleep is even more crucial for children, who need deep for proper growth and development. 

But according to recent research, today’s youngsters sleep more than an hour less than they did 100 years ago. 

And for all ages,  our daytime activities – marked by hectic schedules and all-pervasive technology – often impair sleep. 

The professor hypothesised that while it might just be a coincidence, this sleep-restrictive lifestyle began getting more extreme in the 1990s, the same decade as the explosion in ADHD cases. 

He went on explain that a number of studies have shown that a huge proportion of children with an ADHD diagnosis also have sleep-disordered breathing like apnoea or snoring, restless leg syndrome or non-restorative sleep, in which deep sleep is frequently interrupted. 

One study, published in 2004 in the journal Sleep, looked at 34 children with ADHD.

Every one of them showed a deficit of deep sleep, compared with only a handful of the 32 control subjects. 

It is possible that ADHD symptoms can persist even after a sleeping problem is resolved.

A study of more than 11,000 British children published last year, found that children who suffered from sleep-disordered breathing in infancy were more likely to have behavioural difficulties later in life.

Children are sleeping an hour less than they did 100 years ago

These children were 20 to 60 per cent more likely to have behavioural problems at age 4, and 40 to 100 per cent more likely to have such problems at age seven. 

Interestingly, said Professor Thakkar, these problems occurred even if the disordered breathing had abated, implying that an infant breathing problem might cause some kind of potentially irreversible neurological injury. 

There is also some promising research being done on sleep in adults, relating to focus, memory and cognitive performance.

And a study published three years ago in journal Sleep found that while people who were deprived of sleep didn’t necessarily feel sleepier, their cognitive performance declined and continued to worsen over five nights of sleep restriction. 

Professor Thakkar says we can wait no longer to pay attention to the connection between deep sleep and ADHD.

He provides the example of clonidine, which began life as a high blood pressure drug, but has now been approved to treat ADHD.

Studies have shown that when it is taken at bedtime, ADHD symptoms improve during the day.

He says that for psychiatrists, it is one of these ‘oh-we-don’t-know-how-it-works’ drugs. But in fact   clonidine is a potent deep sleep enhancer.

via Are we confusing ADHD with sleep deprivation? Leading expert says symptoms could be due to sleep problems | Mail Online.

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via Congress Rewrites IDEA Funding Rule – Disability Scoop.

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Parents are quite simply not being given accurate information about psychiatric labels (mental disorders) or the drugs being prescribed to ‘treat’ their children. Millions of kids have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), BiPolar disorder, OCD, Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and many other psychiatric labels (diagnosis) which have no medical tests to confirm they are physical abnormalities requiring drug treatment. Parents are simply told their child is mentally ill and more often than not, told to place their child on psychiatric drugs. They are not being provided with non-harmful, non-drug solutions for problems of attention, mood or behavior.

The purpose of this page is to give parents facts about mental disorders, psychiatric drug risks, and non-harmful medical alternatives to psychiatric labels and drugs.

The first thing parents should know is that there are no medical tests that can prove your child is ‘mentally ill” and any diagnosis of mental disorder is based solely on opinion. In fact, a checklist of behaviors. Therefore, if a psychiatrist or doctor says your child has a “mental disorder” and needs to be on “medication” (drugs):

1) Demand to see the lab test, brain scan, blood test or X-ray that proves your child has a mental disorder—(there isn’t one) that would require drug “treatment”

You can also print off this page, with psychiatrists and doctors admitting there is no medical test for any mental disorder and no evidence that any “mental disorder” is a medical condition

2) If drugs are recommended for your child, print off summaries of international drug warnings/studies on whatever type of drug is being recommended and provide this to the doctor/psychiatrist recommending drugs and ask if they are aware of the international studies and warnings on these drug risks (unfortunately, many doctors get their information on drugs safety from Pharmaceutical representatives)

For ADHD Drug Warnings and Studies click here

For ANTIDEPRESSANT Drug Warnings and Studies click here

For ANTIPSYCHOTIC Drug Warnings and Studies click here

For ANTIANXIETY Drug Warnings and Studies click here

Or to find studies and warnings on specific brand name drugs such as Ritalin, Paxil, Adderall, Concerta, Zoloft, Risperdal, simply type in name of the drug in CCHR’s Psychiatric Drug Side Effects Search Engine here

3) If the psychiatrist/doctor provides you with what they claim is evidence of a ‘mental disorder’ forward this claim to CCHR International here— and we will provide you with the evidence that whatever claim is being made, is false.

4) There are non-harmful, non-drug medical alternatives to treating children’s problems with mood, attention and behavior that do not require a stigmatizing psychiatric label (not based on science or medicine but strictly on opinion) or a dangerous drug. You have the right to know about these- and to ask your doctor about non-drug treatments. You also have the right to get a second opinion. Click here for more information (watch the video below and/or scroll to the bottom of this page)

Dr. Mary Ann Block, Author of No More ADHD

—————————————————

ABOUT SCHOOL CHILDREN – WHAT PARENTS NEED TO KNOW – SCHOOLS CANNOT PRESSURE OR COERCE YOU TO DRUG YOUR CHILD AS A CONDITION OF ATTENDING SCHOOL

Did you know—Federal Law Prohibits School Personnel from Requiring You to Drug Your Child?

Most parents are unaware that schools cannot require a child to take a psychiatric drug as a condition of attending school. Any coercion or pressure put on the parent violates federal law. This law came about following CCHR’s documentation of numerous cases of parents being coerced/pressured or forced to give their children psychiatric drugs by school personnel, including parents charged with medical neglect for refusing to give their child a psychiatric drug. CCHR spearheaded a national campaign on this issue and by working directly with parents and the press, this issue was brought before state and federal legislators resulting in the Prohibition on Mandatory Medication Amendment which passed into federal law in 2004, prohibiting schools from requiring a child take a psychiatric drug as a requisite for attending school.

If a teacher or other school employee has concerns about or objects to your child’s behavior or academic performance, they are prevented by this law from pressuring you to put your child on a prescription drug and they cannot stop your child from being in school if you refuse to drug him or her. Click here for the portion of the law that you can print out and use as needed.

You can also use the below forms for parents and students of legal age to sign and present to preschools, elementary and secondary schools and colleges. They are an advance directive against having mental health screening conducted on students that could lead to them being referred for psychiatric drug treatment.

Parent’s Exemption Form Prior to Mental Health and Psychological Screening or Counseling.

Student Exemption Form Prior to Mental Health and Psychological Screening or Counseling.

ABOUT PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS

Common Psychiatric Drugs Being Given to Children Are Documented by International Drug Regulatory Agencies to Cause Heart Attack, Stroke, Diabetes, Hallucinations, Violence, Mania, Homicide, Aggression, Depression, Suicide and Death

This is not opinion. This is documented fact by international drug regulatory agencies. Parents are quite simply not given the documented facts about the psychiatric drugs prescribed for their children, yet it is their right to have full information about any drugs being prescribed their child. ADHD drugs, Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and Anti-Anxiety Drugs given to children, have been documented by hundreds of drug regulatory agencies to have severe and life-threatening side effects. Children are commonly prescribed drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, Paxil, Prozac, Celexa, Zoloft, Luvox, Risperdal, Seroquel and parents are not given any warning on the known dangers of these drugs. It is for this reason that CCHR created a simple, easy to understand search engine on psychiatric drugs which provides documented side effects, drug warnings, studies and adverse reaction reports filed with the FDA in a simplified format.

ABOUT PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS

Contrary to Popular Belief—The Doctor Doesn’t Always Know Best

The child drugging epidemic that has resulted in infants, toddlers, foster children, and a total of 20 million children on psychiatric drugs rests on one fraudulent premise; that mental disorders are biological “diseases” therefore justifying the administration of mind-altering drugs. The falsity of this premise is easily established by the fact that there is not one medical or scientific test that can prove any child has a mental disorder. Not one. Behaviors are not diseases and drugs are not medication. This isn’t to say that children don’t have emotional or behavioral problems, it is saying that without evidence of disease—a physical disease—children are simply being drugged to change their behavior. Psychiatrists know this—they admit this, their own literature admits as much. But they like to keep these facts to themselves. For more information on psychiatric diagnosis, click here.

ABOUT NON-HARMFUL SOLUTIONS AVAILABLE FOR PARENTS

There Are Non Harmful, Non-Drug Solutions for Parents

There are numerous alternatives to psychiatric diagnoses and treatment, including standard medical care that does not require a stigmatizing and subjective psychiatric label or a mind-altering drug. Although CCHR International does not condone or promote any specific practitioner, medical organization, practice or group, we have found the below resources to be helpful for individuals looking for more information on the following topics:

Safe Harbor — Find medical doctors (by zip code) who will treat people including children without the use of psychiatric drugs. http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/directory/search.asp

The Block Center — Find and treat underlying health problems in children and information on how children can safely get off of psychiatric drugs. http://www.blockcenter.com

DrugFreeChildren.org — Informational website on issues surrounding the use of “chemical restraints” on children. http://www.drugfreechildren.org

The Doris J. Rapp Education Corporation — Vital information on environmental factors affecting health in children and adults. http://www.drrapp.com

AbleChild — Parents for A Label and Drug Free Education. http://www.ablechild.org

American Academy of Environmental Medicine — Promotes optimum health through prevention and safe and effective treatments. http://www.aaemonline.org

Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry — Lead Toxicity: What Are the Physiologic Effects of Lead Exposure? http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/lead/pbphysiologic_effects2.html

Child Mental Disorders Parents Know Your Rights About ADD, ADHD, Bipolar « CCHR International.

Child Mental Disorders Parents Know Your Rights About ADD, ADHD, Bipolar « CCHR International.

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He shattered the curve in American Government. He could talk his principal into almost anything. He shot pictures and designed the school newspaper

“I loved Plant,” he says.

Born with the most severe form of spinal muscular atrophy, Phillips could not walk or sit up while attending the South Tampa school. He used a voice amplification device to take part in class discussions. A special switch allowed him to use his thumb to take photos and lay out pages on a computer.

At Plant he experienced “inclusion,” making friends with able-bodied peers and outshining many of them in class. But that followed nine years when Phillips says he was segregated with children who had a wide array of disabilities.

It was a study in how school systems often group special needs children into “exceptional student education” classes that don’t always meet their individual needs. Phillips lived in an ESE bubble, where to hear him tell it, he learned next to nothing.

His mixed experience sums up one of the oldest and most emotional issues in education — the unsettled question of how best to educate special needs students. The debate has come front and center in Tampa Bay, where recent events have raised questions about the safety and quality of ESE programs, especially in Hillsborough County.

In the last 14 months, one special needs child died while in the care of ESE aides. Another died after school bus personnel delayed in calling 911. Another tumbled off a school bus after the driver kicked her down the steps, breaking her ankle.

Last month a Pinellas student was accused of sexually assaulting a younger child with autism in a school restroom. And this month police arrested an ESE teacher at another Pinellas school, charging her with abusing two of her students.

All six students were under 12.

The Hillsborough school system counts more than 29,000 disabled children in its ESE programs. Pinellas has more than 17,000. Educating them is a huge and expensive task, complicated by the number of disabilities involved and powerful family bonds that keep parents pushing the district to do better.

School officials say much has changed since Michael Phillips, now 32, was a student. But as Phillips reflects on his education — both in ESE classes and after he joined the mainstream — he hears echoes from his childhood in the current controversies.

“I think the real issue is a complete lack of expectation for the disabled,” he says.

Phillips has adapted over time as his physical condition has deteriorated. A machine helps him breathe. He eats through a tube and communicates by wriggling his eyebrows, which sends wireless messages to a computer. He weighs 76 pounds.

He also advises developers of robots and high-tech communication devices, receiving state-of-the-art equipment as compensation. The Medicaid waiver program pays his expenses. He keeps a blog and writes short stories.

Back in high school, he had the advantage of a supportive principal and a mom, Karen Clay, who pressed the district to do right by her son. “Mike should not be the exception to any rule,” she says.

Her son wonders how many other students are steered as he was into ESE classes when they could get a more robust education with their typical peers.

No one can say for sure.

• • •

Because he has a tracheotomy tube, Phillips communicates through a device called a NeuroSwitch. Letters, then words, appear on a screen overhead. In his bedroom, they’re duplicated on a larger screen mounted on an armoire.

Like much of the equipment that helps him function, NeuroSwitch is a product of his collaboration with assistive-technology developers.

Recently in Orlando, Phillips gave a presentation about Anybots, robots that can be a person’s eyes and ears in the same room or around the globe.

Says Peter Shann Ford, whose Control Bionics firm makes the NeuroSwitch: “Thanks to the efforts of proactive operators like Michael, pushing the technology to its present limits, people can interact with the world, communicate, become employed and actively influence not just everyday life, but elevate the dignity and power of all individuals.”

Phillips has pushed technology for much of his life, out of necessity. He never walked, moving from a stroller to a wheelchair and finally to a flat-bed chair when sitting became difficult.

Because of his complex medical issues, the school district placed him in ESE classes. “It was different grade levels and different disabilities all in this one room,” he said.

When he was a hospital-homebound student, a math teacher spent lesson time telling Phillips and Clay about his divorce. “Every week, he’d give me an A. But we’d never actually get to doing any math,” Phillips said.

A big day in fifth grade was a trip to Publix to practice buying sandwich ingredients and counting change.

One teacher read from a picture book called The Red Balloon. At home Clay was reading Phillips the Narnia Chronicles.

Often he was mentally checked out, waiting for dismissal. He’d fake illnesses to avoid school. Or he and his mom would get in the car and then decide, “not today.”

Of his teachers, he said, “We almost had a peer relationship. But the other kids needed their attention way more than I did.”

• • •

In ESE, the guiding legal principle is to educate students in the “least restrictive environment.”

Wynne Tye, the Hillsborough assistant superintendant who until recently supervised ESE, is adamant about that principle. She’s a former ESE teacher and administrator. Her daughter, who has developmental and physical disabilities, attended the Caminiti Exceptional Center, a public school for ESE students in Tampa.

“We always try to look at what kids can do, and not what they can’t do,” Tye said.

She says the system is more inclusive than when Phillips was a student. Enrollment in Caminiti, for example, is half what it was when Tye worked there.

Some advocates of inclusion say any time you place a child in an ESE school or classroom, you inch toward discrimination.

But in the real world, Tye said, students sometimes need the services of specialists in behavioral disorders, autism and the many other disabilities that affect some 14 percent of Hillsborough’s schoolchildren.

That’s why 35 percent of ESE students spend at least some of their day in ESE classrooms, though an estimated 10 percent are intellectually disabled.

Decisions about placement and inclusion are based on a student’s Individualized Education Plan, a document that results from meetings with educators, therapists and parents.

Cost should not matter as the law entitles every student to a free and appropriate public education. But funding is a factor.

Hillsborough gets roughly $75 million from the state and $38 million from the federal government to meet the additional needs of ESE students.

But officials say that money never pays the full cost of specialists, assistants, medical equipment, teaching materials and transportation. Districts must absorb the rest.

And, just as not every school can have a culinary arts program or engineering magnet, different schools have different types of ESE programs and specialists.

Parents and advocates say attitude is at least as important as cost, or even the law.

“My son had some of the best teachers and some of the best situations, and he also had some of the worst,” said former advocate Richard Hancock, who battled the district often when his disabled son, now 29, was in school.

While he favors inclusion in theory, Hancock said it’s unrealistic to think it will work with every ESE child or in every school. “It depends on the people and their attitude,” he said.

The issue gets more complex with students who have behavior disorders. Should they be allowed to disrupt the class? Or should schools find a way to work with children on their behavior?

“How are they going to learn if they don’t have better role models?” Hancock asks.

For Phillips, who complains that disabled students are treated “like furniture,” the issue was never behavior. “I wasn’t the ‘difficult disabled kid,’ ” he said. “I was the smart, easy-to-have-around disabled kid.”

Year after year, he said, he was the only student in class without a cognitive disability.

The one exception: Stuart Bentler, Jr.

• • •

A year ahead of Phillips at Coleman Middle School, Bentler was a bright child with muscular dystrophy.

The two became fast friends.

“Stuart was better at math, and I was better at English,” Phillips said. “But we were basically a class of two doing the same work. We liked the same sci-fi and video games. We got to play trivia during last period.”

When it was time for high school, Bentler went to Jefferson, where the district served students with high medical needs.

That’s when things began to go badly, Phillips said. In-between classes, the other high school students teased him, and Bentler took it hard.

“I was socially apathetic, while he was painfully shy,” Phillips said. “Kids tease each other innocently and not-so-innocently, but Stuart couldn’t handle either.”

Phillips took a different path. His family lived close to Plant, he wanted to attend school with his brother, and he wanted out of ESE. “I’d rather just drop out than do four years there,” he said of Jefferson.

Phillips distanced himself from his friend, impatient that he was so passive. The memory haunts him. In his senior year, Bentler caught a cold that turned into pneumonia.

He died before he could graduate.

• • •

On his quest to go to a regular school with regular students, one of the first people Phillips met was Vincent Sussman.

A former football coach, Sussman was Plant’s no-nonsense principal. While giving Phillips and Clay a tour of the school, he told them, “Stupid rules are for stupid people.” He welcomed Phillips and promised to provide whatever he needed to succeed.

What he needed was technology, personnel and attitude.

“Michael was incredibly resourceful in getting the equipment and high-tech stuff that he needed,” said Jean Clements, the former head of ESE at Plant who today is president of the Hillsborough teachers union.

Clements let Phillips have the key to her office so he’d have a place to take tests, store his books and use a breathing machine.

A one-on-one aide, Mimi Baird, saw to Phillips’s physical needs and stayed with him the whole school day. “They got along famously,” Clements said.

Baird learned not to correct Phillips’ test answers; he once insisted on keeping a wrong answer after a teacher told the kids, “Cheaters go to hell.”

Was Phillips trying to prove that he shouldn’t be coddled?

Not at all, he insists. Raised a Catholic, “I’m scared of hell.”

He was not the most popular kid on campus. “But people liked me, and they knew I was smart.”

He took honors and Advanced Placement classes. He was well-traveled, Clements said. Students respected that. He had a sense of humor and an edge. Years later he made a video of himself in Ybor City, getting a tattoo.

Did he ever feel unsafe at Plant?

“Oh, God, no,” he said. “My assistant was always right there. And, again, people liked me, so everybody always had an eye out for me.”

• • •

It was the summer before junior year when Sussman was climbing a ladder to repair the roof on his one-story house. The ladder fell and Sussman broke his neck. He returned to school in August as a quadriplegic.

Hearing the news, Phillips asked his mother if Sussman could breathe. Later she realized he was concerned about whether Sussman needed a ventilator.

“I figured so long as he could breathe he could still have his barbecue and yell at people,” Phillips said. “So I wasn’t worried for him.”

When he graduated, Phillips was given a college scholarship under a program that assists students with disabilities. He wanted to go to the University of South Florida, but couldn’t get a one-on-one aide.

He attended the International Academy of Merchandising and Design for a year. The computer classes held his interest, but the others did not.

Sussman was promoted to a job as the district’s director of resource management. He retired in 2008. Not long ago he choked on a pill and needed a tracheotomy.

He uses a ventilator at night. He communicates by moving his lips. His wife interprets for him.

His take on Phillips:

“Michael was very, very unique,” he said. As for full inclusion, “it would have to be the right situation to make it work.”

Variables include the student’s attitude and the availability of nurses. Another factor that helped Phillips was that his mother lived nearby and was available if he needed her.

Does Sussman believe there are other students in ESE who could thrive in a typical setting?

“Probably,” he said.

Phillips is sure of it.

“If there was me and Stuart, there have to be others.”

• • •

Like Sussman, Phillips was dealt a setback when, in 2007, he choked on a swallow of juice. He aspirated it into his lungs and developed sepsis, which resulted in the tracheotomy tube.

Then, during a blood draw, he injured the thumb he used to operate the string switch on his computers. After a period of collaboration with companies in Amsterdam and Australia, Phillips wound up with the communication system he uses today.

Clay, in addition to caring for her son, is active in statewide advocacy for people with disabilities. She attended a School Board meeting recently to rebut statements by member Candy Olson, who said the district should consider how inclusion affects non-disabled students. Clay called her thinking “outdated.”

Mother and son boil much of the issue down to expectations.

“I’m as medically fragile as one gets,” Phillips said. “But people have expectations for me, and so they care about me. Special training hasn’t kept me alive, it’s care and common sense.”

Marlene Sokol can be reached at (813) 226-3356 or sokol@tampabay.com.

via Severely disabled Plant High grad argues for inclusion, changes in special ed | Tampa Bay Times.

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By DR. ALLEN FRANCES – Do 1 in 5 NYC preteens really suffer a mental woe? A psychiatry expert argues we’re overdiagnosing —and overmedicating — our kids

Last week, The Post reported that more than 145,000 city children struggle with mental illness or other emotional problems. That estimate, courtesy of New York’s Health Department, equals an amazing 1 in 5 kids. Could that possibly be true?

There is nothing tougher in psychiatry than accurately diagnosing a mental disorder in a pre-teenager. It is so easy to make mistakes both ways — to miss problems that desperately need attention and to attend to problems that are better left alone.

Getting the right diagnosis and predicting its future course is especially difficult in kids because their symptoms have such a short track record and are often heavily influenced by transient factors like developmental differences: family, school and peer stress; and the use of drugs.

It usually takes a while before an illness declares itself — and often, it turns out that no diagnosis is necessary because the symptoms go away without intervention.

That said, there’s been a massive mislabeling of psychiatric diagnosis among children because of recent medical fads.

In the last 20 years, rates of attention deficit disorder have tripled, while autistic disorder and childhood bipolar disorder have each increased by a remarkable 40-fold.

Human nature just doesn’t change that quickly, but the labels follow fashion and can escalate dramatically without there being an actual increase in symptoms. Our kids haven’t suddenly become sicker, it’s just that diagnoses are applied to them more loosely.

Some of the broadening usefully captures missed cases, but there has been a big overshoot because of aggressive drug-company advertising. Once the adult market was saturated, pharmaceutical manufacturers turned their greedy attention to kids and began a sometimes illegal campaign to convince doctors, parents and teachers that every childhood problem is a mental disorder, the result of a chemical imbalance that requires a pill solution.

Medication use in children has skyrocketed — great news for the shareholders, but potentially quite dangerous for the children.

The biggest offenders are antipsychotic drugs, which cause an average 12-pound weight gain in just 12 weeks in kids who started out weighing 110 pounds. Childhood obesity is a strong predictor of diabetes, heart disease, and perhaps a shortened lifespan. The companies have been fined billions of dollars for marketing practices that especially impacted the most economically disadvantaged and socially vulnerable children.

Also of concern is the dramatic increase in the use of stimulants for treating attention deficit disorder. In 20 years, this has grown from a $70 million to a $7 billion market. Four percent of children use prescribed drugs, while 30% of college and 10% of high school students use illegally acquired pills for performance enhancement and recreation.

The diagnosis of ADD is being made with a careless indifference to developmental factors and individual diversity. A study recently showed that the best predictor of ADD was a birthday in January rather than December because the cut-off for grade assignment was January 1. How ridiculous to diagnose a mental disorder in the youngest kids in the class just because they are the least mature.

Another problem with overdiagnosis is that it can rob resources from the students with the most severe psychiatric, social and economic problems. These are the children who are most under-served and most likely to benefit. The pay-off in caring for them properly will be less current psychiatric and social pathology and a reduction of the risk that the kids will wind up markedly impaired or in prison in the future.

Parents and clinicians need to accept that there is no evidence to support the effectiveness of preventive psychiatry for children with mild or equivocal symptoms. There is considerable risk that well meaning but premature interventions can cause stigma and excessive medication treatment. Watchful waiting, simple advice, and reduction in stress are better than jumping in with inaccurate diagnosis and excessive treatment, whenever a diagnosis is in doubt.

Perhaps most troubling about all this is how it is changing the definition of normal behavior. Is a kid who is more interested in playing outside than sitting in a classroom suffering from ADD — or simply 7 years old? Is a child who slams his bedroom door and refuses to come to supper suffering from depression — or having a tantrum?

We should not medicalize the aches and pains of normal childhood.

Allen Frances, MD, was the chairperson of the task force for the fourth edition of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” His new book, “Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life” (William Morrow) is out in May.

A disease called ‘childhood’ – NYPOST.com.

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Academic success in our schools demands proficiency in reading the written word. What can parents and schools do to remediate the necessary skills for success and give these students hope?

The first essential ingredient is understanding what dyslexia is and how it affects students and adults. Secondly, a method is needed for early identification of students who are affected. Dyslexia is a specific entity that brings about predictable symptoms, including difficulties in reading fluently, spelling, learning a foreign language and retrieving spoken words. Educators should receive baseline training to recognize those students who are “suspect” for dyslexia and therefore request appropriate testing.

Lastly, reading teachers should be trained in a course of evidence-based instruction that effectively teaches dyslexics to read, coupled with a metric that will test and track results.

Many school districts will do this voluntarily. Some states have passed legislation to require testing for early identification and scholarship programs for educators to receive specialized training.

As a free society, isn’t it incumbent upon us to provide an appropriate education to enable each and every student to reach his or her own potential and therefore become a contributing member of society? The cost of doing nothing far outweighs the cost of providing talented students with the reading skills so necessary for academic and lifelong success.

Dyslexia Revealed, an informative program for parents, children and educators, will be presented on Tuesday, April 9, at 5 p.m. at Stonington High School. Doctors Sally and Bennett Shaywitz, co-directors of the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity at Yale University, will explain what it really means to have dyslexia and clarify some of the common misconceptions about the disorder. The event is free and open to the public.

via Be informed about what it means to have dyslexia – The Westerly Sun: News.

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One year ago, in mid-March 2012, Alfred-Almond Central School introduced technology to its 5th through 8th grade students not seen in area middle schools before.

Every middle school student was assigned an iPad.

The endeavor was deemed such a success that now, one year later, Superintendent Rich Calkins announced Alfred-Almond’s high school age students can expect the same equipment for the 2013-14 school year.

The school will also acquire four class sets of iPads to be shared among kindergarten through fourth-grade students.

In an interview Thursday, Calkins spoke passionately about the benefits these tablet computers have already had on students, and what they can offer in the future of education.

“Students have been navigating this technology for years, but education, I think, has been a little bit slow to understand the significance of technology and in particular, the significance of looking at iPad instruction on a one-to-one basis,” Calkins said.

He called the iPads “equalizers,” closing the gap between “the haves and the have nots.” This gap exists in most school districts on a financial basis, and also on a learning ability basis, according to Calkins.

“Everybody now has an equal playing field,” he said. “Everyone will now have the same access to the same technology, whether it be calculators, or word processing, or cameras, or video streaming. This is absolutely an equalizer in the educational field.”

He said the technology offers new opportunities to students with different learning styles, or with learning disabilities as well.

“Every modification that’s necessary, can be done with an iPad, whether it be having text read to a student, whether it be recording answers in an alternate manner, making text larger or smaller, or even having a teacher highlight important information for a student,” he said.

The iPads have significantly affected everyday classroom interactions, according to Calkins. He calls the concept “flipping the classroom,” meaning students absorb information through online lectures, videos or slideshows posted by their teachers as homework. In class, then, the teacher’s responsibility is to check for understanding and enforce applications.

“Now the job of the teacher is not the regurgitation of inane facts,” Calkins said. “It is taking that knowledge and applying it to real-life situations, allowing our students to hypothesize and to generalize this information and to work together on projects that will demonstrate in real time and through real-world applications that they not only understand this but they can apply it.”

The Evening Tribune and Wellsville Daily Reporter posted a question on their Facebook pages Thursday, with incredible response. It asked readers if they think iPads in the classroom are a vital resource or an unnecessary luxury. Although the majority of responses praised Alfred-Almond’s program and listed educational merits the iPads have, one of the most often repeated concerns was for the cost of these iPads and how they were paid for.

Calkins said the district has utilized federal and state grants for the majority of the cost. He said any monies used from the school’s budget have been spent wisely.

“We’ve funneled local monies through BOCES, so next year we get our aid back on those. So every dollar I’ve spent on an iPad, I’ve gotten 80 to 85 cents back on the next year,” Calkins said. “So in the short-term, we’re just about breaking even, and in the long-run, in five to ten years, our expenditures are going to reduced, because so many of the resources we used to pay for are now free.”

The superintendent pointed to savings seen already in purchasing digital textbooks instead of hard copies.

“We’ve shifted a lot of our expenses,” Clakins said. “We’ve been spending $80 per textbook, now with our iPads, we have the opportunity to purchase some of those same textbooks for between $10 and $12. So there’s a significant savings there.”

The superintendent said he has heard the argument that the equipment is too expensive, but in his opinion, updated technology is a necessity.

“For schools not to do this borders on irresponsibility. They can’t afford not to do it,” Calkins said. “We’re either going to make a decision to maintain the status quo, to keep doing what we’re doing, or we will make the conscious decision to provide these students a higher level of education, and the ability to access nearly every resource in the world through their iPads.”

Alfred-Almond has just begun developing an evolving technology plan, according to Calkins.

“I believe Alfred-Almond’s doing very well in this regard, but we’re just touching the tip of the iceberg in terms of where we will be next year or in three or four years. It’s a very exciting time,” he said.

via Alfred-Almond’s iPad revolution called equalizer for students – Top Stories – Hornell, NY – Hornell Evening Tribune.

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At a time when education is the focus of debate, I find myself, a retired special education resource teacher from the York Region District School Board and a tutor for a student in the York Catholic District School Board, asking a very disturbing question.

Is there a difference between the two boards in teacher accountability?


In January 2009, I started tutoring a separate school Grade 6 girl I will call Amanda. Her mother was concerned because Amanda’s grades were consistently falling to the D range by the third term each year since Grade 4. Requests for help were unsuccessful.

I started with her first term report card. It was clear that her learning skills needed work, so we focused on those. Although her learning skills improved by end of second term, her grades didn’t. A school interview was arranged.

I went with Amanda’s mother to the interview, viewing it through my public school experience.

In the public board, a student is at risk when report card marks are in the D range. Parents are usually notified before the report card goes home. If the marks have not improved by the next term, the student is brought to the in-school team, which suggests strategies to help the student improve.

It took several meetings before I realized that in the Catholic board, Amanda’s marks did not seem to be a concern, so a case conference was not necessary.

My next strategy was to request an individual education program plan (IEP) for Amanda. The ministry IEP document (2004) permits non-identified students to have an IEP. In the Education For All panel report, accommodations are a right, not a privilege. In the public board, many students have IEPs.

My request, however, was denied, because in the Catholic board, the teacher decides when to initiate an IEP.

I continued to advocate for Amanda until her learning needs were met, but the experience concerned me.

In the public board, teachers are accountable through professional development, annual learning plans and an evaluation every five years. In addition, the principal does so-called walkabouts and goes into classrooms to observe.

If the principal has a concern, the teacher and principal meet regularly and an improvement plan is started. For those teachers who still have difficulty, additional steps are taken to ensure that current instruction and assessment practices move toward board and ministry standards.

In the York Catholic board, when a principal told me that current teaching and assessment practices are “encouraged, but not required” and that walkabouts are prohibited because the union considers them “harassment”, I smiled in polite disbelief and contacted the school’s trustee.


I was shocked when the trustee agreed and added that the teachers’ union is very “powerful”.

My limited and personal experience suggests there are differences in accountability between the two boards, leading to questions.

Why is it that teachers in the public board are held to a high level of accountability for implementation of current teaching and assessment practices and Catholic teachers do not seem to be?

Second, how is it that the teachers’ union in the Catholic board has enough influence that the implementation of teaching assessment practices seem to be encouraged but not required and that classroom visits by principals can be considered “harassment”?

Finally, what is the impact on students like Amanda as teachers in the Catholic board can fall further behind in using current teaching and assessment practices?

Do they continue to get Ds, feel stupid and aim low in their future because of learned failure? Who is accountable to them?

Maureen Wilkinson is a retired special education resource teacher from Richmond Hill.

via Who is accountable to Amanda?.

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The findings have specialists considering steps that parents might take to spur math abilities, just like they do to try to raise a good reader.


This isn’t only about trying to improve the nation’s math scores and attract kids to become engineers. It’s far more basic.

Consider: How rapidly can you calculate a tip? Do the fractions to double a recipe? Know how many quarters and dimes the cashier should hand back as your change?

About 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. lacks the math competence expected of a middle-schooler, meaning they have trouble with those ordinary tasks and aren’t qualified for many of today’s jobs.

“It’s not just, can you do well in school? It’s how well can you do in your life,” says Dr. Kathy Mann Koepke of the National Institutes of Health, which is funding much of this research into math cognition. “We are in the midst of math all the time.”

A new study shows trouble can start early.

University of Missouri researchers tested 180 seventh-graders. Those who lagged behind their peers in a test of core math skills needed to function as adults were the same kids who’d had the least number sense or fluency way back when they started first grade.

“The gap they started with, they don’t close it,” says Dr. David Geary, a cognitive psychologist who leads the study that is tracking children from kindergarten to high school in the Columbia, Mo., school system. “They’re not catching up” to the kids who started ahead.

If first grade sounds pretty young to be predicting math ability, well, no one expects tots to be scribbling sums. But this number sense, or what Geary more precisely terms “number system knowledge,” turns out to be a fundamental skill that students continually build on, much more than the simple ability to count.

What’s involved? Understanding that numbers represent different quantities — that three dots is the same as the numeral “3” or the word “three.” Grasping magnitude — that 23 is bigger than 17. Getting the concept that numbers can be broken into parts — that 5 is the same as 2 and 3, or 4 and 1. Showing on a number line that the difference between 10 and 12 is the same as the difference between 20 and 22.

Factors such as IQ and attention span didn’t explain why some first-graders did better than others. Now Geary is studying if something that youngsters learn in preschool offers an advantage.


There’s other evidence that math matters early in life. Numerous studies with young babies and a variety of animals show that a related ability — to estimate numbers without counting — is intuitive, sort of hard-wired in the brain, says Mann Koepke, of NIH’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. That’s the ability that lets you choose the shortest grocery check-out line at a glance, or that guides a bird to the bush with the most berries.

Number system knowledge is more sophisticated, and the Missouri study shows children who start elementary school without those concepts “seem to struggle enormously,” says Mann Koepke, who wasn’t part of that research.

While schools tend to focus on math problems around third grade, and math learning disabilities often are diagnosed by fifth grade, the new findings suggest “the need to intervene is much earlier than we ever used to think,” she adds.

Exactly how to intervene still is being studied, sure to be a topic when NIH brings experts together this spring to assess what’s known about math cognition.

But Geary sees a strong parallel with reading. Scientists have long known that preschoolers who know the names of letters and can better distinguish what sounds those letters make go on to read more easily. So parents today are advised to read to their children from birth, and many youngsters’ books use rhyming to focus on sounds.

Likewise for math, “kids need to know number words” early on, he says.

NIH’s Mann Koepke agrees, and offers some tips:

—Don’t teach your toddler to count solely by reciting numbers. Attach numbers to a noun — “Here are five crayons: One crayon, two crayons…” or say “I need to buy two yogurts” as you pick them from the store shelf — so they’ll absorb the quantity concept.

—Talk about distance: How many steps to your ball? The swing is farther away; it takes more steps.

—Describe shapes: The ellipse is round like a circle but flatter.

—As they grow, show children how math is part of daily life, as you make change, or measure ingredients, or decide how soon to leave for a destination 10 miles away,

“We should be talking to our children about magnitude, numbers, distance, shapes as soon as they’re born,” she contends. “More than likely, this is a positive influence on their brain function.”

via HEALTHBEAT: Scientists unravel how kids learn math, 1st grade abilities key to skills later on – Health – Times Colonist.

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“Why don’t you just chop my head off and get a gun and shoot me?” Coleman recalls her son saying once.

Heartbroken, Coleman pulled her child out of the public school system in 2007 and enrolled him in a private school that caters to special education students.

Her son is now in high school, thriving socially and academically, Coleman said, but “why did we have to sue to make him a success story?”

With tuition at her son’s private school costing more $60,000 annually, she and the Montgomery County school system battled for two years over where he should be educated and who should foot the bill until an administrative law judge finally ordered the district to pay for private school.

Coleman is now one of hundreds of Maryland parents pushing a bill they say would make it easier for families to contest special education services schools provide for their children.

via Special-ed legislation would ‘level playing field’ for parents, bill supporters say – The Washington Post.

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