academic-performance.

Study finds mixed results of Adderall as cognitive enhancer (seems to boost emotion more than cognition)

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Over the past 15 years there has been grow­ing aware­ness that many col­lege stu­dents with­out an ADHD diag­no­sis use ADHD drugs. On some cam­pus­es, rates of self-report­ed non-med­ical use have exceed­ed 30% of students.

The pri­ma­ry rea­son stu­dents report tak­ing ADHD drugs is to enhance their aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance. And, the strong major­i­ty of stu­dents — over 80% in a study I con­duct­ed — believe it is help­ful for this purpose.

Fur­ther­more, stu­dents who report prob­lems with atten­tion are more like­ly to report non-med­ical use than oth­er stu­dents; this sug­gests that some self-med­icate to address their per­ceived atten­tion dif­fi­cul­ties. [Read more…] about Study finds mixed results of Adder­all as cog­ni­tive enhancer (seems to boost emo­tion more than cognition)

Study finds combined pharma + non-pharma treatment most beneficial to help youth with ADHD address long-term academic difficulties

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Aca­d­e­m­ic dif­fi­cul­ties are one of the most impor­tant adverse con­se­quences of ADHD, and they fre­quent­ly con­tribute to par­ents’ deci­sion to seek treat­ment for their child. Whether treat­ment con­sis­tent­ly yields a pos­i­tive impact on long-term aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess is thus an impor­tant issue; how­ev­er, the answer to this ques­tion has been some­what con­tro­ver­sial. [Read more…] about Study finds com­bined phar­ma + non-phar­ma treat­ment most ben­e­fi­cial to help youth with ADHD address long-term aca­d­e­m­ic difficulties

Do ADHD drugs really help college students without ADHD?

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Over the past 15 years there has been grow­ing aware­ness that many col­lege stu­dents with­out an ADHD diag­no­sis use ADHD drugs. On some cam­pus­es, rates of self-report­ed non-med­ical use have exceed­ed 30% of stu­dents. [Read more…] about Do ADHD drugs real­ly help col­lege stu­dents with­out ADHD?

Study: EEG-augmented brain training shows promise as first-line treatment for ADHD

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Atentiv_System_PrototypeNov­el Brain Train­ing Game May Reduce Kids’ ADHD Symp­toms (Med­space):

“A nov­el cog­ni­tive train­ing com­put­er game that uses a child’s own brain waves to improve con­cen­tra­tion may reduce symp­toms of atten­tion-deficit/hy­per­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD), say US researchers.

Inves­ti­ga­tors used a nov­el feed-for­ward mod­el­ing (FFM) sys­tem, which…is based on a com­put­er cog­ni­tive train­ing game in which atten­tion is required to move an avatar through the game. The game was cal­i­brat­ed using an elec­troen­cephalo­gram (EEG) head­band with three frontal sen­sors to cre­ate a mod­el of atten­tion and inat­ten­tion states. [Read more…] about Study: EEG-aug­ment­ed brain train­ing shows promise as first-line treat­ment for ADHD

To improve academic outcomes, children with ADHD need both medication and non-medication treatments

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children_school_attention.

Aca­d­e­m­ic prob­lems are extreme­ly com­mon in chil­dren with ADHD, and often the issue that leads to refer­ral for an ADHD evaluation.

Aca­d­e­m­ic out­comes can be mea­sured in 2 dif­fer­ent ways — aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment and aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance — and both are com­pro­mised in chil­dren with ADHD. Aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment refers to the infor­ma­tion and skills that chil­dren acquire and is typ­i­cal­ly mea­sured by stan­dard­ized tests. Aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance focus­es on direct mea­sures of suc­cess at school such as grades, grade reten­tion, high school grad­u­a­tion, and col­lege enrollment.

An impor­tant ques­tion then, for mil­lions of kids diag­nosed with ADHD and for their par­ents and edu­ca­tors, is whether long-term aca­d­e­m­ic func­tion­ing can improve with appro­pri­ate treat­ment. [Read more…] about To improve aca­d­e­m­ic out­comes, chil­dren with ADHD need both med­ica­tion and non-med­ica­tion treatments

Study: To help children with ADHD improve academic performance, combine medication AND behavioral treatment

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Students academic performance.

Aca­d­e­m­ic prob­lems are extreme­ly com­mon in chil­dren with ADHD and often the issue that leads to refer­ral for an ADHD eval­u­a­tion. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the sig­nif­i­cant aca­d­e­m­ic strug­gles that many chil­dren with ADHD expe­ri­ence can under­mine their long-term suc­cess in areas that extend far beyond for­mal schooling.

Giv­en these facts, an impor­tant ques­tion is whether long-term aca­d­e­m­ic func­tion­ing in youth with ADHD improves with treat­ment? Because this is such a fun­da­men­tal­ly impor­tant ques­tion, and [Read more…] about Study: To help chil­dren with ADHD improve aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance, com­bine med­ica­tion AND behav­ioral treatment