Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a seemingly serious mental ailment which falls under the neurodevelopmental type. Children with ADHD have trouble being attentive and experience hyperactivity. They also face problems while dealing with emotions. This often affects their daily activities at school and at home. However, these types of children often give constant attention to certain kinds of tasks which they find interesting.

How are children affected by ADHD?

ADHD is characterized by poor concentration and kid pays less attention in school. ADHD affects the child’s social skills too. Few most common social challenges caused by ADHD are as follows: 

1. The child gets too emotional, anxious and overreacts to situations: This is characterized by scenarios like the child loses mind control and becomes less aware of social situations. He/she gets provoked easily and may lash out physically and get into violence and associated crimes at a younger age. Parents and teachers can point out these changes in a child’s behaviour and instruct accordingly so that the child exercises better control over his emotions and associated actions.
2. The Child often fails at making new Friends: Irritating behaviour is most common amongst children with ADHD. This way the child often faces trouble while trying to make new friends. They behave in a mindless way without thinking about how their behaviour negatively impacts others. They have poor listening skills, interrupt others while talking and fail to interpret what others say during a conversation. This results in pathetic communication. Role-plays which imitate social situations can help the child improve.
3. The Child sometimes makes new friends but are unable to sustain the friendship: Kids with ADHD are demanding and intense most of the times. This high level of expectations results in losing friends easily because friends are unable to meet the expectation levels. Kids with ADHD are quite impatient in social situations and less sacrificing and lacks empathy. Motivating the child to take part in group games where the kid gets a chance to learn to give and take principles can help in this regard.
4. The Child often struggles with good conversations: Kids with ADHD often derogates from most conversations. These kids easily get distracted from the conversation and engage the mind with unrelated thoughts. Recording the child’s conversation and pointing out instances where the child deviates from the conversation is one way of showing how ADHD situation can be cured. Once the kid understands the deviation, he can take steps to correct it.
5. The Child is often portrayed as unreliable: Kids with ADHD often lack self-control, and this leads to situations where a child fails to make solid plans which get implemented. This often gets misinterpreted as unreliable nature and others start keeping low trust on the kid. This has a serious impact on kid’s motivation levels, especially during group projects. Making checklists on how to measure a child’s progress in group activities is a method of correction.

How common is ADHD among kids?

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 11 percent of all children in the U.S. aged 4-17 has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADHD or ADD) — that was roughly 6.1 million American children in 2016, a 43 percent increase since 2003. According to its 2015 report, the CDC says the total number of Americans — adults and children — with ADHD continues to rise — up from 7.8 percent in 2003 to 9.5 percent in 2007 and 11 percent in 2011.

Why is ADHD raising in the U.S?

Boys are nearly three times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD (13.2 percent) than are girls (5.6 per cent). In adults, the rate is much lower (about 4.4 percent), but experts caution that this reflects only reported diagnoses; the prevalence of ADHD may be significantly higher since many adults, particularly women with inattentive symptoms, remain undiagnosed.

ADHD is a growing concern in the US since this is quite common in children and parents. Following are the main reasons which are supposed to cause ADHD:

What schools can do for ADHD affected students?

1. Chemical Imbalances in the brain and associated organs which may be due to medications or injuries or other illnesses.
2. Substance abuse during pregnancy which can impact the child’s brain development. 
3. Nutrition imbalance and side effects due to pollutants and pesticides.
4. There are many unknown environmental factors too which contribute towards raise in ADHD.

Schools can discuss the concerns with parents and take decisions as to how the situation can be improved. If the child’s behaviour affects the ability to learn treatment plans can be discussed and crafted. Schools can also arrange medical camps with expert doctors who would suggest and prescribe medications and treatment programs. If there is a proper collaboration between parents, doctors and teachers ADHS can be diagnosed and prevented to a great extent. 

Student’s overall performance and health status are monitored by schools using many advanced Digital health record systems like Eduhealth. Exact diagnosis, preventive treatments and medicine prescriptions can be managed easily in schools by adopting digital health record systems.

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Source: https://www.additudemag.com/statistics-of-adhd/