Finger test for ADHD on ch7 good morning america 7:43 am today

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately very brief…. Stats were more interesting… I think Md said 4.7million diagnosed 2.1million on meds in USA alone……….. WOW how many have it and are not diagnosed….ABC needs to do 1/2 hour special on ADHD they would make millions from advertisers alone………. that would pay for spots during the commercial breaks alone……….. And it could actually educate many more millions. Wow a show that might provide some goodness for society as a whole….. HMMMM it worked for obese persons (the biggest loser) and there plight and struggles……

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[Curlymoe115]

Is this what they were talking about. “Two studies measuring children’s ability to control impulsive hand movements may reveal clues about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children.

In the first study, researchers measured mirror hand movements in 25 boys and girls aged 8-13 with ADHD and 25 children without the disorder. All of the children were right-handed. Each child was asked to successively tap each finger of one hand to the thumb. Any unintentional “mirror” movements in the opposite hand were recorded. Researchers found that children with ADHD showed twice as many mirrored hand movements as other children during the left-handed finger-tapping test. This difference was especially telling in boys with ADHD, who showed nearly four times as many mirrored hand movements as boys without the condition.

“The findings reveal that even at an unconscious level, these children are struggling with controlling and inhibiting unwanted actions and behavior,” researcher Stewart Mostofsky, MD, of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at the Kennedy Krieger Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, says in a news release.

The Study

In the second study, researchers used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to activate brain cells with magnetic pulses and measure brain activity in 49 children with ADHD and 49 children without ADHD aged 8 to 12.

The researchers found that children with ADHD had problems with a brain-related inhibition of activity involved in motor function control of the hand. The degree of inhibition was 40% less in children with ADHD compared to children without the disorder. Children with ADHD also scored nearly 60% worse on motor development tests.

Researchers also found the degree of inhibition in the brain’s motor control in the study was strongly related to the severity of ADHD symptoms reported by the participants’ parents.

“These studies are an important step toward understanding how ADHD affects communication between the brain and other parts of the body,” Jonathan W. Mink, MD, PhD, with the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, writes in an editorial that accompanies the studies in Neurology. “The hope is that, ultimately, these studies and others will guide us toward development and testing of new therapies.””

I remember being in school and they would do a lot of tests like this. When my kids were testing at the education centre they would also perform a number of these types of tests.

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[Curlymoe115]

There is another article on their website that says depending on the age of the children being diagnosed that there is a great potential to over diagnose ADD and ADHD just based on a grade basis that if you compared strict age guidelines to the children that their behaviours would not even be attributed to ADD. This article goes on to say that there are an estimated 1 million children in the US who are misdiagnosed as ADHD and that this is usually done because they are simply not as mature as their peers and therefore a mislabeled as ADHD.

So I wonder what happens when the behaviours of these normal children skew the diagnosis of us children who weren’t misdiagnosed. Are we just seen as incorrigible because we don’t respond as dramatically to the medications. Even in older grades we are culled from the herd because we simply don’t settle down. Maybe that is why the kids that really are ADD face such a stigma among their peers groups. But until North America starts dealing honestly and frankly with mental illness of all types these people are doomed to perpetuate the things that are happening to us now. In our 30’s-60’s still trying to fit in with mainstream society. Ostracized from social groups and workplaces. My kids can focus on a computer screen for hours at a time. In fact like me they tend to hyperfocus (and its associated problems) so therefore with many of the new classrooms being computerized does this mean that these kids will be able to focus on learning. Our model of learning is still out of the 50’s and 60’s with one teacher lecturing at the front of the room and everyone sitting with their hands folded on their desk and listening intently as a teacher drones on. Which is a fine model if you are still turning out obedient cubicle dwellers but certainly doesn’t encourage innovation or creativity which is where our brain type thrives. The first cut that the schools make are in the area of educational aides and Special Education. All students are being “mainstreamed” and classes are now up to 30 students in lower grades and 40 or more in the later. Which discourages allowing movement and more about the teacher maintaining strict control and kids being transferred to behaviour based classes because they get additional funding but they get no access to mainstream educational materials.

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[Anonymous]

Curly… Awesome posts… In the USA there has been a great focus on ADHD in the classroom. I do not have the sources in front of me but the economic costs in dollars and cents are tremendous to educate LD persons. I am amazed at the costs just to get tested. If you are diagnosed with ADHD the additional costs to provide the necessary accomodations initially are looked at as huge. …. Unfortunately it is either lack of or mis information about immediate costs vs long range benefits/reward that probably do not help the situation. Luv NY trying to eliminate tenure (maybe not a bad thing)while the administrators (asistants) are sucking the system dry.

I deleted 5 additional paragraphs as this forum was not the place for me to rant

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[Curlymoe115]

If you can’t rant to friends who can you rant to.

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[Anonymous]

Our society is not ready for my rant so all i will say is I fear the US is going to cut real good programs for many so the few can survive …….until…… well lets look what has happened in Egypt! I hope America is better than that!

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[Curlymoe115]

Canada also cuts social funding whenever they have to balance the budget. They look at funding and subsidies for business but the vulnerable of our society are always told to do the job with less funding. In Canada we have a great volunteer spirit and a lot of the front line Social Services agencies rely heavily on these people to look after their populations. So therefore it now costs thousands of dollars to even get a proper diagnosis and there are so few specialists that it can take years. Here in Canada there is a great shortage of doctors so most people rely on some form of walk in clinic for their medical care or Emergency Rooms. So they never have anyone actually following their cases and no one to pick up patterns.

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[Anonymous]

C,

I here if you are privilaged in Canada and you can afford added private insurance there is great health care but if on the health care for all program it basically sucks. Is that true

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[Author]

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