What happens to ADHD kids when they grow up? How does the condition affect their adult lives? If you’re a mental healthcare professional, you might be interested in a recent study by the American Psychological Association and reported in JAMA’s Archives of General Psychiatry. It revealed some of the problems encountered by adults who were diagnosed with ADHD as children.
The study, as surmised by a recent Reuters article, showed that some individuals became less educated, earned less and were more prone to divorce and substance abuse. "A lot of them do fine, but there is a small proportion that is in a great deal of difficulty," said Rachel Klein, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University Langone Medical Center in New York. Klein noted that this troubled segment of former ADHD individuals will have a tendency to end up in jail or in the hospital. As is well known, children with ADHD are restless, impulsive and easily distracted.
The study (the most exhaustive to date) followed 135 white men who had shown hyperactive tendencies as children in the 1970s, and who had subsequently been referred to Klein's hospital. Researchers noted that the children were not aggressive or antisocial, and that they came from middle-class homes with “well meaning” parents. When the men were interviewed at 41 years of age, researchers found that those with childhood ADHD left school 2.5 years earlier and had reached salaries well below those without ADHD—$93,000 vs. $175,000. Roughly one-third had been in jail at some point—a tripling of those in the comparison group.
Klein notes that childhood ADHD can be a risk factor in leading kids and teens to use drugs, engage in criminal activity and experiment with similar antisocial behaviors. Estimates by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that three to seven percent of U.S. school-age children have ADHD. Klein notes that less than half of these children will encounter permanent problems.
J. Russell Ramsay, who studies ADHD at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, noted that these adults can still lead normal lives, based on the severity and complexity of their disorder. "We are not talking about awful outcomes necessarily," said Ramsay. "This is sort of a reminder to pay attention to the unique needs of the child, the educational environment and the home environment." Researchers noted that the findings underscore the importance of long-term monitoring and treatment of ADHD children.
How do women fare who were diagnosed with ADHD as girls? The researchers indicated that the same conclusions can’t be applied to women—nor to any ethnic and social groups—since only white men of average intelligence were included in the study.
photo courtesy of MorgueFile.com
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