Associated Press
CHICAGO — The American Academy of Pediatrics issued its first guidelines for treating attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, suggesting that stimulant drugs may be most effective but that behavior techniques should also be used.
The guidelines for children ages 6 to 12 follow the academy’s first-ever recommendations for diagnosing the disorder, published last year.
The ADHD guidelines appear in the October issue of Pediatrics, the academy’s medical journal, which is released today.
The new guidelines say evidence favoring the use of medication — specifically stimulants — is stronger than evidence on behavior therapy.
Symptoms improve in at least 80 percent of children on stimulants, and medication should be switched if it isn’t working. Too high a dose, however, can make children appear dull, the guidelines say.
Drugs should be used with behavioral techniques, including time-outs for impulsive behavior such as hitting. The guidelines also call for rewarding children when they complete tasks, such as homework.
In other children’s-health news:
Because overdoses of acetaminophen, best known as Tylenol, can cause problems ranging from nausea to liver damage and even death, pediatricians should give parents written instructions on how to use it at check ups, the academy says.
In the study, led by psychologist Mary Klinnert of National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, children at risk for the disease because one or both parents had asthma were followed from infancy into childhood. Children whose parents had parenting difficulties when the youngsters were 3 weeks old were compared with those whose parents coped well.
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