When it comes to this subject I personally have very strong opinions. My adult son suffered greatly from ADHD and from a young age fell behind in his studies, his lack of social skills caused no end of problems. By grade two it was decided to put him on meds which I have to say did make a tremendous difference. However my concern is this they had a long history with him he had anoxic brain injury from birth. They were very quick to label him rather than take the time to assess more closely. He is one of the many children who slipthrough our systems cracks.
To make a long story short he recently had surgery for a brain tumour that was later discovered to have developed in the first two yrs of life. This particular tumor caused bizaare behaviours where my son blacked out and did or said strange things. (they assumed it was the ADD) Rather than look closer or listen to experts (parent/child) the professionals refused the requested cat scan linking it to his ADD history.
A year later I almost lost my son as he blacked out while driving and went head on into a transport truck. Luckily no one was hurt and because these professionals didnt have a history to go on they did the cat scan immediately followed by emergency surgery.
So I guess in saying all this I feel that meds can be valuable but I believe that there should be a cat scan done at least once during their developmental yrs. Assessment needs to be a team effort and the individuals involved need to be listened to far more closely.
I personally would love to see a law enacted that stated any child with any form of brain injury must have a cat scan. As ADHD is a frontal lobe brain injury I have to wonder how many children would then be placed on meds.
I think the numbers would drop dramatically.