Understanding Kids With Attention Deficit Disorder

When Jann Glasser’s 2-year-old son started preschool, he was so aggressive he lasted only two weeks before school officials asked her to remove him.

“It was scary,” recalls Glasser, an Irvine psychologist. “He was biting and hitting . . . and walking on children when they took naps. At the school, they had no tolerance for this. The attitude was, ‘Hey lady, you need to discipline your child.’ ”

The boy was later found to have attention deficit disorder, a neurobiological condition often associated with hyperactivity and learning problems that leaves children and adults unable to concentrate or sustain attention.

As do many parents of ADD children, Glasser grew weary of uninformed teachers who were quick to dismiss her child as unruly and out of control.

Finally, she discovered UC Irvine’s Child Development Center, a public school created for children with attention deficit disorder.

It marked the turning point in her son’s life. The teachers knew how to educate and control ADD children, and her son finally began to learn to manage his disorder. Now 10, he is a straight-A student in the Irvine public school system, where teachers are knowledgeable about ADD, Glasser says.

Many parents have faced an uphill struggle to help their offspring cope because the public and many educators have been largely uninformed about the disorder that afflicts up to 2 million children in the United States, says James Swanson, director of UCI’s Child Development Center.

But now, he says, the problems that have plagued so many children and their families may be eased under a national effort to educate others about the disorder and to guarantee ADD children appropriate education and behavioral attention in the public schools.

UC Irvine has been designated by the U.S. Department of Education as one of four Attention Deficit Disorder Centers in the nation. UCI will host a national conference on “ADD: Perspectives on School-Based Interventions” starting Sunday.

There needs to be a public awareness of how to deal with ADD children effectively, Swanson says: “For years, schools refused to do anything for the management of these children. And for years, there was an overuse of medication in treating ADD. Now attitudes are changing.”

UCI’s Child Development Center has been one of the pioneer programs for the treatment of ADD children. The clinic opened in 1983 and performs about 400 assessments a year. In 1985, the school for ADD children was established. Through the California Department of Education, it became a model program for school intervention with ADD children.

Sandy Thomas of Children with Attention Deficit Disorder, an international parent support group, recalls “the nightmare” of sending her ADD child to schools in Massachusetts nearly 10 years ago and having him put in a closet because the teachers could not control him.

Now that her son is 14 and in a classroom that employs techniques for managing ADD children, he’s progressing well, says Thomas.

It’s easy to label ADD children “bad” when they can’t sit still in school, can’t complete their assignments or are aggressive, Thomas says. “But they aren’t bad children. It’s not that they won’t do what they are told. It’s that they can’t. And that has to be understood.”

Swanson says the most effective way of treating ADD children is an established, varied approach using educational management in the schools, psychological and behavioral counseling, and/or the use of medication.

Without intervention, ADD children may do very well on achievement tests but perform poorly in the classroom.

Helping these children now will mean the difference between success and failure for them for the rest of their lives, Thomas says.