The Truth about Learning Disabilities and ADHD

The scene opens in the counseling office at the school (elementary, middle or high) and the parents with their anxious worried faces wait to hear from the all-knowing counselor some explanation for their child’s (most likely a son) low grades. Around the table the parents are outnumbered by an array of teachers, an assistant principal, a special education teacher and the counselor. There may also be a school psychologist and an Instructional Support Specialist. The verdict is both a blessing and a curse. After asking all of the teachers for an extensive survey of the student’s performance the school suspects there is something preventing the boy from gaining success. He seems to be very bright but he won’t complete his assignments and his book bag is a mess. All eyes turn to the parents and it’s hard to tell if it’s sympathetic or accusing looks. They want to consider Special Education for your child under the umbrella term "OHI" (Other Health Impaired) or perhaps under the diagnosis of "EBD" (Emotional Behavior Disorder). While they wait for the parents to state which option they prefer, the parents minds are racing....
"What? My sweet, funny, adorable little boy is an Emotionally Disordered child?
No, that can’t be right!"
"What about ‘Other Health impaired? That doesn’t sound so bad. But does this mean he will put into classes with children who drool and breathe through their mouth?’"
" Will everyone look at him and make fun of him? What about his friends?"
"What will this do to his self esteem?"
"We only wanted to help him do better in school, maybe a little extra help, a more understanding teacher."
So the parents have to face the Solomon choice-agree to have their child in Special Education with the labeling and social isolation or choose to reject the only help the school will offer and have the teachers and counselor give you "that look". The look that says "Parent in denial, more concerned about their own self-image than their child’s well being. Tsk, tsk". Parents know only too well how important school success can be to their child’s success in life. It is a heartbreaking choice.
As a parent who has faced this choice twice, I can say that you get down to trying to decide which is the lesser of the two evils. You try to look into the future to see which will be ultimately the best choice. Unfortunately, the crystal ball doesn’t work any better in this situation than it does in others. You take your best shot and cross your fingers. You hope your child will forgive you if you are wrong and you hope you can forgive yourself. But here’s the thing, babies don’t come with warranties or guarantees. They don’t even come with an instruction book. It’s all "learn as you go".
I have the unique perspective of being on both sides of this table. I’ve seen plenty of children who just seemed to be rather inquisitive, somewhat undisciplined children whose parents and other teachers wanted to rush to medicate in the name of ADHD thinking it was the silver bullet that would miraculously change their child into the stellar student. I also had a fourteen year old girl this year who failed every academic class because she simply cannot do the work of an 8th grade student. She has a low I.Q. and learning disabilities. Her mother steadfastly refuses to even consider Special Education classes for fear of the social stigma. The girl failed at least 6th and 7th grades (that I know of) but she was placed in the next grade because in the face of her mother’s opposition to having any help for her child the school administration did not want to retain her when she was receiving no help. That came to an end this year. At this point, the girl did not make even an effort to do any work. Why bother? It was too difficult and she had moved up each year even if she did fail. Well, after one last effort to change the mother’s mind we finally decided it would be a travesty to send her on to high school. Now, instead of the social stigma of Special Education, she has the stigma of retention in middle school while her friends move on to the high school.
The sharp increase in children "diagnosed" with ADD or other learning disabilities has many people asking the questions "Are these REAL disabilities?" "Why are we having so many kids with disabilities now?" Were the same number of kids struggling a hundred years ago and just labeled as "slow" or "trouble-makers" because we hadn’t identified the behaviors yet? Or is something in our current culture contributing to the cause? If you look on the internet you can find literally hundreds of articles about learning disabilities with just as many causes. Like many people I am a bit suspect of the methods used to diagnose these disabilities. Some of the disabilities are clearly recognizable like dyslexia but others are more obscure. Auditory processing is really diagnosed with just a compilation of anecdotal evidence. But then, how do you KNOW it’s a legitimate disability or just a kid stubbornly refusing to show any interest in a subject that bores him? My own feeling is that it is more complicated than many people are willing to admit. They want to take a pill and get over it. But, the truth is, people are complicated beings that are the result of genetics, environment and experiences. A child that gets failing grades may have a complex set of causes and it will be impossible to sort out what cause is the "culprit". We all want to find who or what to blame. With learning disabilities, not only is it impossible to nail down the actual disability (if there is one) but clearly impossible to find the one thing to blame for it’s cause. And does it really matter? Well, only in the sense that if we can narrow down some of the causes we might be able to make some adjustments in society to reduce the number of children hampered by disabilities. Heck, if we hadn’t discovered that lead in paint caused mental retardation we would never have switched to lead-free paints.
The one theory that does make sense to me is the one about television

Title: Short Attention Span Linked to TVSource: USA Today Author: Marilyn EliasPublication Date: April 4, 2004Page Number: n.p.Database: SIRS Researcher Service: SIRS Knowledge Source http://www.sirs.com

I know, as a teacher, that trying to keep the television addicted students focused and engaged these days is nearly impossible. Some days I think even setting my hair on fire would barely get a response. My husband read an article the other day that said that Nascar was concerned that they were losing their young audience members so they went from doing 9 edit cuts in 8 minutes to 32 edit cuts and that seemed to correct the problem. I’m not quite sure how I can relate that to my teaching. I know that any activity that takes more than 10 minutes is dangerously close to the limit of their attention span. I’ll grant you that part of the problem is what we, as a society, have determined that the young people should learn and also that for many teachers the step up to using technology in their teaching is just too big a step. But I think most adults would agree that the hobby of reading has died with the last generation ,and the current under 30's have limited interest in reading and cannot spell at all.
I found a few interesting articles that are from credible sources about the ADHD epidemic

Title:
New CDC Report Looks at Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity DisorderSource: CDC Press Release Author: Publication Date: May 21, 2002Page Number: n.p.Database: SIRS Government Reporter Service: SIRS Knowledge Source http://www.sirs.com

Title:
An Alternative Approach to ADHDSource: Harvard Mental Health Letter Author: Denis M. DonovanPublication Date: May 2000Page Number: 5--7Database: SIRS Researcher Service: SIRS Knowledge Source http://www.sirs.com

The second one is particularly interesting because they discuss the behavior modification aspect of correcting ADHD rather than just medicating the student. I do a lot of what they suggest in my classroom. In fact, much of what I do for the ADD kids is just good teaching methods no matter what kind of kid they are.
So my summary is this...are we over-diagnosing kids with learning disabilities? Yes. Are we rushing to medicate kids when behavior modification at school and home might work just as well? Yes. However, with that said, my nephew is being tested for ADHD and auditory processing problems. I mean, if a high school freshman is failing 4 out of 6 subjects and has been performing more or less at this level for three years, someone needs to start looking for a cause and a solution. We owe him that much.