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The Pros and Cons of Ritalin

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I. DEFINITION OF ADD AND HISTORY OF RITALIN When Jason was five, his mother, Cathy, had to take him out of preschool because of his temper tantrums. She tried behavior management and parenting courses, to no avail. Eventually, Jason was diagnosed with ADHD and given the stimulant Ritalin, which controlled his outbursts. "It was like Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde," Cathy said. Jason flourished for the next six years, even winning his fifth-grade citizenship award. In sixth grade, however, his medication stopped working, and he became aggressive again. But Jason's teachers did not believe he had a disability and refused to allow any special "accommodations," like extra time to take tests. At Christmas, Jason was so depressed that he …show more content…

There must also be clear evidence of "clinically significant impairment" in social, academic or occupational functioning. Physicians did not begin to link childhood attention and behavior problems to biological causes until the turn of the century. In several lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in England in 1902, British physician George Frederic Still described twenty pediatric patients who were aggressive, defiant, excessively emotional or "passionate," lawless, spiteful, cruel, dishonest and who displayed little "inhibitory volition." He theorized that they probably had a basic "defect in moral control" that was either hereditary or due to pre- or post-birth injury, (Hartman, 42). A lot has happened since then though. Between the years of 1940 and 1960, many psychiatrists began using drugs to treat mental illness. Ritalin was first used to treat hyperactivity in 1961, and in 1968 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) first listed "hyperkinetic reaction of childhood" as a disorder in the second edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-II). In the 1970s, research focused more on "attention deficits" as causing behavior problems, but some members of Congress began questioning whether scientists were trying to medicate away energetic childhood behavior. On September 29, 1970, a House Government Operations subcommittee held a hearing on the federal government's role in sponsoring research

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