It seems like everyone today has attention deficit disorder - officially called ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and it comes in three forms: ADHD inattentive (they put the 'H' in, and then modify it out), ADHD hyperactive (where the 'H' stays in ) and ADHD combined (where there's both inattention and hyperactivity). Why do so many more people seem to have ADHD now than they did a generation ago? Is this some kind of drug company conspiracy? Is it excuse-making or laziness?
Ask any parent if he or she would rather be in high school today or when they actually went through high school and odds are overwhelming - parents are glad that they went through high school when they did. I hear things like: "it's way more complicated today" or "high school today is way harder - often they're more like college classes than high school classes."
Human beings have RAM memory, called working memory. And there's simply no denying it. Students need LOTS more of it today than they would have needed a generation ago. Students are expected to learn more and learn it faster as the boomer parents have worked to ensure that school curricula kept getting more advanced and more competitive. Expectations keep rising, and it's not unusual for the country's best high students to graduate with a year's worth of college credit. So, kids need lots more RAM or working memory but the problem is that the human brain evolves over a very long period of time. Many kids diagnosed with ADHD today simply would not have been diagnosed with this condition a generation ago. For many kids, it's like they're the equivalent of a computer built in 1995. Their brains would have handled formal education just fine 20 years ago. But, the same brain simply doesn't have enough RAM memory to work very well today in modern times with higher demands from today's school curricula. Learning, storing and retrieving information is slow, sluggish, and very frustrating.
So what's the solution? Certainly parents need to adjust their expectations of their kids, and along with them, school boards and curricula planning committees. At the same time, human RAM memory or working memory can be improved with training. Our clinical practice has seen very promising results from the Cogmed Working Memory Training Program. Training over five weeks, five times per week for about 45 minutes per day, significantly improves the working memory in about 80% of the people who complete the training. Moreover, the benefits appear to be long lasting.
Another alternative is the use of prescription medication, which like the Cogmed training, has been shown in double blind controlled studies to produce significant improvement in working memory as well as planning and organization.
If you're in the Chicagoland area, check out Heritage Professional Associates. We offer both Cogmed training as well as psychiatric services to treat working memory problems and other symptoms of ADHD. Outside of the Chicago area, ask someone whom you trust for the name of a reputable mental health professional.
