Many Kids With ADHD May Be Missing Out on Talk Therapy [Consumer.Healthday.com]

They do need therapy. But it has to be appropriate for the child.  Many children with Developmental Trauma look like they have ADHD and are diagnosed with it.  Just like to many foster children are given antipsychotic drugs.  Same categories.....

However.... If you look at Bruce Perry's Neurosequential Model of Theraputics, it may be that many of these children are not developmentally capable of Talk.  Their brains which are developing differently due to less than an optimal environment may not benefit from talk. They may need speech therapy or sensorimotor integration or they may need play.

In fact to help these children they need relationship, regulation (of affect and impulse control), and then reasoning.  It is no different than building a house.  We have an idea. Lets make this beautiful two story house. We have so many ideas for the upper level --- we want to build it but we forgot the foundation and the first floor. So how do we build this second floor? 

Well, you have to have a foundation and then a first floor upon which to build the second floor.  Talk may be good --- if the child has those developmental capabilities. If not talk will do nothing. 

I am also not advocating medication as an alternative. Jaak Panskeep took baby mice. He took off their frontal lobes and they PLAYED LIKE CRAZY!!! Rough and tumble play allows us to learn social skills, cooperation and  affect control.  It allows the frontal lobe to mature and develop properly.  He than gave those young mice therapeutic doses of ritalin (the stimulant medication for adhd) and yep they were quiet alright in fact they became zombies.  

Children who are not allowed to play with other children are highly deficient in appropriate social skills.  They show behaviors (phenotypically) like adhd.

BUT do they have ADHD or are they normal children given a diagnosis and labeled when in fact the outcomes are what can be predicted based on the circumstances and environmental cards they were dealt???

Just a thought.