Saed News: A new study says that if attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is diagnosed in the early years of elementary school rather than during high school, children will have a brighter future.
According to SAEDNEWS, citing Medicine Net, researchers reported that children diagnosed with ADHD at younger ages are more likely to achieve better grades and attend university. They are also less likely to drop out of school.
The research team led by “Lotta Volotinen,” a PhD researcher at the University of Helsinki in Finland, concluded: “Diagnosing ADHD in the early school years was associated with better school performance, more educational choices, and a lower likelihood of dropping out.”
The team wrote: “These findings support recommendations for early diagnosis, and screening for ADHD before the age of 12 should be considered.”
Dr. “Victor Fornari,” Vice Chair of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Northwell Zucker Hillside Hospital and Northwell Cohen Children’s Medical Center in Queens, New York, said: “Early diagnosis gives children an advantage by providing access to support, ADHD treatments, and school accommodations such as extra time during exams.”
Fornari added: “These interventions are very important because often a child feels they do not have the capacity, while in reality they may be intelligent, but their poor attention span limits their academic achievements.”
For the new study, researchers followed more than 580,000 children born in Finland between 1990 and 1999. Of this group, about 12,200 boys and 3,700 girls were diagnosed with ADHD.
The study compared the timing of ADHD diagnosis with academic achievement to see whether early diagnosis made a difference in success.
Researchers found that, overall, every child with ADHD had poorer academic outcomes than children without a diagnosis. However, school performance varied significantly based on the age of diagnosis, with those diagnosed early performing better than those diagnosed around age 16 or later.
Fornari said: “It is very important that young people with ADHD are identified early in education so they can reach their full academic potential and remain in the education system without dropping out.”
Fornari noted that this can be especially difficult for parents of children who have attention problems but are not hyperactive.
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