Quote:
Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I don't discount the ability of drugs to do wonders for kids with severe diagnoses. Last I heard, neither ADD nor ADHD were simply a yes/no proposition. I would hope the degree would play a role in the medication process, too. I used the term "unmanageable" for a reason.
I think I shared on the other board my sister's experience with a parent who pulled her son off Ritalin for the achievement portion of an achievement/aptitude disparity test, and put him back on for the aptitude portion. She chemically created a 20 percentile disparity, making her son eligible for additional district funding. That story left a bad taste in my mouth that has affected my views on the role of medication.
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Or did she avoid chemically masking a 20% or greater disparity?
Probably the accurate test, if being used soley for purposes of diagnosing need for support, would be entirely w/o Ritalin, or would be both with and without. The problem is that if it is an achievement/aptitude test they are probably not just using it for diagnostic purposes but for all kinds of other purposes (curriculum development, school funding, advancement, etc.).
But the more critical and disturbing issue here is not the behavior of the individual mother but the behavior of the school district! Why the hell would a school district deny the service that might help the kid get off Ritalin at some point because the Ritalin masks the issues; this kid has not had their problem solved, the drug is just helping to manage it so they can keep learning, and the kid still needs the support. This the kind of behavior on the school districts' part that has turned serving people with learning disabilities into a game where the school tries to find ways to deny benefits while the parents try to find ways to get benefits.
When this happens in our own school district, and it does all the time, we just reach into our back pockets and go out and buy the support. But most families can't do that.