April 16, 2018, JWeekly, Jewish News of Northern California: How did Israel become the ADHD capital of the world? https://www.jweekly.com/2018/04/16/israel-become-adhd-capital-world/ ADHD is a hot topic in Israel, for good reasons. The country has the world’s highest rate of ADHD diagnoses, according to one recent survey. I didn’t find that news all that surprising, considering the personalities of most of the Israelis — and Jews — I already knew…. Some ADHD experts believe Israel’s high rate of diagnoses might have something to do with the Jewish history of immigration. … ADHD diagnoses are more common in nations with high rates of immigrants, such as the United States, Canada and Australia. … The Tel Aviv meeting, organized by the Israeli Society for ADHD, featured workshops with some of the world’s top authorities on topics ranging from new ways to diagnose and treat the disorder to whether it might be considered a “gift.” … “Putting labels on kids and drugging them is a crime against humanity,” argued one of the demonstrators, PR consultant Yehuda Koren. … As the protest underscored, awareness of ADHD in Israel has rapidly increased in recent years, bringing along a lot of controversy. News of Israel’s high rate of ADHD was first reported in 2016, based on research by Dr. Michael Davidovitch, head of child development for Maccabi Healthcare Services, Israel’s second largest HMO. Davidovitch found that the rate of ADHD diagnoses more than doubled between 2005 and 2014. By then, he says, one in every seven Israeli children, or 14.4 percent, had been diagnosed, the highest reported diagnosis rate of any nation. The average rate among U.S. children ages 2 to 17, as reported by the CDC in 2016, was 9.4 percent, although in some states it’s higher. Kentucky, for instance, has reported a rate of 14.8 percent
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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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