For decades, many physicians, parents and teachers have believed that stimulant medications help children with ADHD learn because they are able to focus and behave better when medicated. After all, an estimated 6.1 million children in the U.S. are diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and more than 90% are prescribed stimulant medication as the main form of treatment in school settings. However, in a peer-reviewed study that several colleagues and I published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, we found medication has no detectable effect on how much children with ADHD learn in the classroom.