college

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)

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: Why do (some) college students misuse ADHD medication?

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stimulant-drug-abuse.

The use of ADHD meds with­out a pre­scrip­tion, i.e., non­med­ical use, is a large and per­haps grow­ing prob­lem on col­lege cam­pus­es nation­wide. Although the per­cent of stu­dents who engage in non­med­ical use of ADHD meds varies wide­ly across dif­fer­ent schools, rates exceed­ing 30% have been report­ed at some cam­pus­es. [Read more…] about Study: Why do (some) col­lege stu­dents mis­use ADHD medication?

Study: Can self-monitoring help promote academic success, and reduce ADHD symptoms, in college students with ADHD

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psychologicalservicescenter.

Col­lege stu­dents with ADHD are more like­ly to drop out than oth­er stu­dents, have low­er grade point aver­ages, and endorse more aca­d­e­m­ic dif­fi­cul­ties over­all.  Approx­i­mate­ly 25% of col­lege stu­dents with ADHD receive aca­d­e­m­ic accom­mo­da­tions, [Read more…] about Study: Can self-mon­i­tor­ing help pro­mote aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess, and reduce ADHD symp­toms, in col­lege stu­dents with ADHD

Misuse & Abuse of ADHD Meds among college students: Updated review of a growing concern

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amphetamine-moleculeThe mis­use and abuse of pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tion is a grow­ing con­cern. I remem­ber speak­ing with col­leagues 15–20 years ago as reports about the non­med­ical use of stim­u­lant med­ica­tions used to treat ADHD (non­med­ical use is defined as use by indi­vid­u­als with­out a pre­scrip­tion) were first appear­ing in the media. At the time, these were gen­er­al­ly thought to be iso­lat­ed inci­dents that were being over-dra­ma­tized in the press. [Read more…] about Mis­use & Abuse of ADHD Meds among col­lege stu­dents: Updat­ed review of a grow­ing concern

Cognitive Development in the first 20 years: A Child’s and Teenager’s Brain

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(Edi­tor’s Note: What fol­lows is an excerpt from Dr. Robert Syl­west­er’s new book, A Child’s Brain. The Need for Nur­ture (2010) Cor­win. In this excerpt, Robert Syl­west­er syn­the­sizes the first 20 years of devel­op­ment and shows how it can be viewed as a “rhyth­mic four-six-four-six-year devel­op­men­tal sequence”)

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Chap­ter 4: Devel­op­ment and Growth.

The First 20 years.

To sim­pli­fy a com­plex phe­nom­e­non, we can divide our 20-year devel­op­men­tal tra­jec­to­ry into two peri­ods of approx­i­mate­ly 10 years each. The devel­op­men­tal peri­od from birth to about age 10 focus­es on learn­ing how to be a human being – learn­ing to move, to com­mu­ni­cate, and to mas­ter basic social skills. The devel­op­men­tal peri­od from about 11 to 20 focus­es on learn­ing how to be a pro­duc­tive repro­duc­tive human being – plan­ning for a voca­tion, explor­ing emo­tion­al com­mit­ment and sex­u­al­i­ty, and achiev­ing autonomy.

The first four years of each of these two decade-long devel­op­ment peri­ods are char­ac­ter­ized by slow awk­ward begin­nings to a six-year nor­mal move toward con­fi­dence and com­pe­tence. For exam­ple, crawl­ing leads to tod­dling leads to walk­ing leads to run­ning and leaping.

We’ve designed our preschool, ele­men­tary school, mid­dles school, high school and ini­tial col­lege sys­tems around this rhyth­mic four-six-four-six-year devel­op­men­tal sequence. We tend to keep small chil­dren at home dur­ing their first four years to allow them to begin their devel­op­ment in a shel­tered fam­i­ly envi­ron­ment with­out state stan­dards and assess­ment pro­grams. They learn basic motor skills, how to talk, and how to get along with their fam­i­lies. In essence, they devel­op a basic under­stand­ing of how their shel­tered world works.

At about five years, we say, in effect, [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Devel­op­ment in the first 20 years: A Child’s and Teenager’s Brain