NIMH - Most children treated in a variety of ways for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) showed sustained improvement after three years in a major follow-up study funded by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Yet increased risk for behavioral problems, including delinquency and substance use, remained higher than [...]

University of Washington - Children whose mothers were exposed to second-hand smoke while they were pregnant have more symptoms of serious psychological problems such as ADHD and conduct disorder compared to children of women who had no prenatal exposure to cigarette smoke, according to a new study funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH).
Writing [...]

UF Health Science Center - Ritalin is the latest drug of choice among sleep-deprived students struggling to finish term papers and make it through final exams and even the SAT.
Undergraduates, as well as high school SAT-takers, are increasingly turning to prescription stimulants like Ritalin (R) and Adderall (R) to boost concentration during long study sessions [...]

Newswise — Children who are physically active during the school day are more likely to be better focused and more on-task than their more sedentary peers, an East Carolina University researcher has found. The beneficial effect of exercise on attention was even more pronounced for children who initially had greater problems staying on task in [...]

Vanderbilt University Medical Center - Although the “crack baby” hysteria of the 1980s was greatly exaggerated, cocaine use during pregnancy can cause subtle but disabling cognitive impairments — attention deficits, learning disabilities and emotional problems.
A recent study by investigators at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development may help explain the long-term behavioral [...]

Blackwell Publishing - Social stigma and feeling lifeless and/or alienated from one’s peers are some of the reasons why children and adolescents stop taking prescription stimulant medications used to treat attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a new study published in the Journal for Specialists in Pediatric Nursing.
ADHD is a common neurobehavioral disorder, affecting 4.4 [...]