The news about a shortage of medications for attention deficit disorder (ADHD) has shown just how many parents feel their kids badly need the medication. Lots of teens and adult ADHD patients go into a panic when they can't fill a prescription as well.
But there is still a question about whether some children who are medicated might need a different kind of help—or may simply need to be accepted. One clue is that children are more likely to receive an ADHD diagnosis if they’re younger than their classmates. That's not new news, but research suggests it's still true.
As children get older, they typically calm down and become more able to focus at a desk. So comparing older kids to younger ones could easily make the young ones look unfocused. Being among the youngest in your class increases your chance of being diagnosed with ADHD by about 27 percent in countries that diagnose the illness more often, including the United States, according to a 2019 meta-analysis. Often, the first referral to doctors for these younger students comes from a teacher, not a parent, a 2022 study of 17 elementary schools concluded, which suggested that teachers may misread these students.
It’s also possible that kids who are the oldest in the class and suffer from ADHD aren’t being identified because they look calm compared to their younger classmates,........