ADHD in the News 2021-07-22

Black women with ADHD start healing, with a diagnosis at last

Miché Aaron has always been a high achiever...But last year, Aaron was barely keeping it together — missing classes, late on assignments and struggling to explain that she understood the required material to pass her qualifying exams...“I simply thought I was a lazy student and I needed to try harder,” Aaron said, wiping the tears behind her thick, black-framed glasses. But then she was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and it all made sense.



The Pandemic Made It Harder to Spot Students With Disabilities. Now Schools Must Catch Up

Nationwide, 7.3 million students, around 14 percent of all public school students, receive services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the nation’s primary special education law. Policymakers have sounded alarms about meeting those students’ needs during the pandemic, and some fear there are children who need those services who haven’t been identified at all.



What Employers Can Teach Schools About Neurodiversity

Thinking differently can be an edge in the work world. Someone with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder may have a drive for novelty that can spark entrepreneurship. And an autistic student’s childhood fascination with games could launch a career in software development. Employers and researchers alike are now beginning to understand how issues that challenge students in the classroom can come with benefits for the right job.



KemPharm Announces U.S. Launch of Innovative ADHD Treatment AZSTARYS™ (serdexmethylphenidate and dexmethylphenidate capsules) by Corium, Inc.

AZSTARYS was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March 2021...“The U.S. commercial launch of AZSTARYS is a significant milestone for KemPharm and an important advancement in the treatment of ADHD, a disease indication that has seen little innovation in recent years,” said Travis C. Mickle, Ph.D., President and CEO of KemPharm.



Pandemic Drives Drop in Prescription Drugs for Children

The amount of prescription drugs given to children in the United States decreased by 27.1% between April and December 2020, compared with the same period in 2019, based on data from a national database...In a study published in Pediatrics, the researchers used the IQVIA National Prescription Audit, a database that contains monthly dispensing details from 92% of retail pharmacies in the United States.



What to Know About ADHD and Dopamine

People with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may have different levels of dopamine than neurotypical people. Medications that treat ADHD symptoms also typically affect neurotransmitters in the brain, including dopamine. If you live with ADHD, understanding the connection between your condition and dopamine may help you better figure out how your brain works and what treatments might be right for you.



ADHD: The History of a Diagnosis

ADHD was originally thought of as “minimal brain dysfunction,” according to scholar Robert Erk. In the 1940s, “practitioners came to the conclusion that because many children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder…manifested some of the same symptoms as children with encephalitis (e.g., hyperactivity, inattention, disorganization), these children probably had some degree of minimal brain damage.” For the next two decades, scientists would link behavioral disorders with injury to the brain.



“It Transformed My Life”: Why A Rising Number Of Women Are Seeking ADHD Diagnoses

As a teenager, Stephanie Ozuo constantly heard about her shortcomings. She was “late” and “disorganised”, “messy” and “rude”. She found A-levels hard to cope with and deferred her politics degree at university, as the pressure of organising her time, social life and studies flooded her racing mind. In her twenties, on social media, she found herself oversharing about the daily struggle to “get herself together” – until a Twitter DM changed the diminished view of herself that she had held since childhood.



Does my son with ADHD need a new school?

Q: My 9-year-old son has severe ADHD. He has done fine academically in public school. (He just finished third grade.) He's on medication and has an Individualized Education Program (IEP), but he still struggles terribly with disruptive behavior in the classroom and with rigidity. (For example, he's always arguing about rule violations for whatever schoolyard game.) He has no friends who invite him to do things. We're considering a special school, and his psychiatrist and therapist see pros and cons to staying mainstream vs. going private.