Aug 31, 2018, ABC NEWS: ADHD rates in kids have increased over the past 20 years, new study says https://abcnews.go.com/Health/adhd-rates-kids-increased-past-20-years-study/story?id=57526368 Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, has become more common in children over the past twenty years, according to a new study. The prevalence of ADHD in U.S. children and adolescents has increased from 6.1 percent in 1997 to 10.2 percent in 2016, the study published Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA, said. The way the disorder is evaluated likely plays a part. "The diagnosis and assessment for ADHD has evolved over the past few decades. The diagnostic criteria that we use is now a little more liberal and captures cases that the older criteria would have left out," said Dr. Neha Chaudhary, a child psychiatrist at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Stanford Brainstorm, in an interview with ABC news. ... The reasons for the increase in ADHD rates were not directly studied. But the researchers suggested that efforts to train physicians in the disorder, improved awareness in the public, improved access to mental health services and changes in the diagnostic criteria may have all led to an increased number of children being diagnosed with ADHD. ... Recent evidence also suggests that frequent use of digital media may be linked to an increase in symptoms that are typically associated with ADHD. But long-term study has not yet been possible. ...
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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