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Teaching your child to safely cross the street is hard enough, but when your child has ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, you may need to worry more about his or her safety. A new study finds children with ADHD are at greater risk when crossing the street. Experts suggest these children have more problems remembering visual tasks and managing their time as they do them.
Accidents are the leading cause of death in children and those with ADHD are much more likely than their peers to be involved. Crossing the street is no exception so researchers decided to create a virtual reality simulation of an intersection and asked children ages 7 – 10 to cross the street.
Before the testing began, researchers at the Injury Control Research Center at the University of Alabama measured the walking speed of 78 children; half had both the inattentive and hyperactive symptoms of ADHD and were not taking medication. The other 39 children had no developmental issues. The children stood on a platform that represented a curb in front of three large screens that took up much of their field of vision, on which a busy street scene was projected. The child's challenge was to decide when it was safe to cross. When the child stepped off the "curb," a very lifelike avatar appeared on the screen and crossed at that child's pre-recorded speed.
The experts wanted to know if the children with ADHD were at increased risk of injury, whether they failed to look left to right before crossing, darted out into the street, or had more close calls than their peers. What they found surprised them. The children with ADHD did look both ways before stepping off the curb, but left significantly less time to make a safe crossing. They had far more close calls than their typically developing peers. But they weren't necessarily just taking more risks. Researchers thought there might be more to the issue.
I am a mother of one son with ADHD and a second with Autism. I can assure you, BOTH conditions are real. I do NOT feed either one of them soda for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I am assuming you meant soda. My sons are a little older, but I worry about both of them in many situations, not just crossing the street. I see many of the descriptions of behavior in the article everyday, especially during homework time. My son with ADHD constantly underestimates the amount of time he has to get something done. My other son with Autism, who is now 11, I hope for the first time he will be able to walk himself to school, even though we can see it from our front door.
Our son has ADHD and takes medication. He does not act sedated, does not become a zombie, and does have a great personality! The meds help him control the symptoms of ADHD – the need to constantly move (literally fidget constantly), to focus on schoolwork for more than 2-3 minutes in a row, to feel that he is in control of himself and not face the anxiety of worrying he will do something impulsive and 'wrong'. He is still "a boy acting like a boy" – he loves to run, play, horse around with his two other brothers (both "normal", whatever normal is.)
First of all, I have a coke in the morning, I like it better then coffee. Second of all, I was diagnosed as being ADHD and have never been on meds and am still alive. My parents didn't allow us to be on video games all the time, I prefered being outdoors rather then indoors, and they were not lacking on the dislipline either! My son is ADHD and so is his father, his father ended serving and still is serving in our military and doing rather well on it. My son is being raised the same way his dad was (though the meds he is on is not the same as his fathers). My daughter is considered normal, but get this they are 7 and soon to be 9…they both have issues of darting out into street without looking (it could be they are normally in the country and don't worry so much about cars).
@Random, I was diagnosed with ADHD but I was never put on medication, my mom didn't want me on drugs the rest of my life. I went to a normal school, had normal classes, I even took some advanced classes, and was on the honor roll. It was hard, I had to work harder then ever one else and stuff took longer, but I still did it.
ADHD kids area a different bread of human. If you study ADHD for a while and avoid the numerous misdiagnosis numbers, you will notice a pattern. These children are primarily redheads and blonds. It is kind of like a Labrador living with a Great Dane. They area both big dogs, but one will be bouncing off the walls if you don't run it all day. ADHD is caused by low dopamine. The body reacts by over producing adrenalin and even more dopamine to compensate. I am ADHD. The only solution other than drugs that destroy your balance or liver is to run no less then 10 miles a day. With this said we seem to be bad a natural organization. ADD is not anything but a poorly disciplined child. (Pleas excuse my poor spelling and grammar. California had mandatory segregated schooling during my childhood years and I am basically self-educated)
Nearly every family in America seems to have children 'identified' as having some behavioral 'disorder' – meaning they show spirit, independence and restlessness – and drug them into submission. How long until public schools force the medication of kids who don't behave like automatons? I frequently speak with these parents and ask them what is wrong with their kids. The answers I receive most are "his/her grades are slipping" and "he/she is misbehaving". And don't get me started on the upper income brats who are 'identified' as being 'academically gifted'.
What does it matter? We don't let them go to school with the normal kids anyway. We will just have the teacher’s assistant isolate them more. This is ok because we just need to up their dose of drugs.
I agree. I raised an ADHD daughter and didn't put her on medication. What I found was teachers are already so overwhelmed they can't handle these kids and basically label them as bad. These kids need smaller classrooms with fun positive teachers. I could see a huge difference in my daughter in the learning environment based on the personality of the teacher.
Obviously "nature" made a mistake by skipping you.
You are obviously very uneducated. My brother was diagnosed with ADHD in the early 1970s when it was completely unheard of. He fits the mold completely. I have an ADHD daughter and I'm sorry, it had nothing to do with my parenting skills – especially when you have more than one kid and the other had no problems.
I agree with yuo 100%. My first thought was this study is a waste of money. I raised an ADHD daughter and as you said, I didn't need a study to show this. Part of being ADHD means being compulsive and can't pay attention – what did they think the outcome would be!
Many people with ADD/ADHD are among the most brilliant people alive. I fail to see how your crude "natural selection" comment has anything to do with….well, anything.
How is it automatically the other guys fault? I mean just because someone doesn't have a license or has a suspended one doesn't mean their a bad driver.
I didn't see anything in the article that recommended medicating ADHD kids in order to help them cross the street. Understanding the mental mechanics behind ADHD behavior and responses can only lead to better NON-medical strategies of dealing with those behaviors and responses.
Well, I for one am pretty interested in this article because my six year old is very active to the point that I do not know what he will do at times. I don't let him cross the street himself anyway, because he is just too young to do it safely. It is nice to know that I am not "crazy" for not letting him cross. Other adults in our lives tell me he is "fine.". I disagree. Now I have some evidence to support my beliefs. Bottom line, though…use caution and don't let your little person cross until he or she is old enough! It is just common sense sometimes.
It's too bad they don't offer other treatments besides "medication". There is some proof that teaching ADHD kids meditation skills and/or yoga changes their brain in ways that working memory is improved as is focusing abilities. However, the big drug companies make billions of dollars with their meds so they have millions to advertise and do "studies". Simple, techniques that have been proven helpful that don't make money for big pharm gets ignored. Ah well, it's the same for most ailments, if there is a natural treatment that corporations can't make money on the MD's don't hear about it as no one can fund the studies to prove it's effectiveness because there is no money to be made on "natural" treatments that anyone can do.
It really took a "study" to determine this? The Government paid for this study?
And we wonder why the gov't is going broke…..
Are you insane? You think the root of all of my problems as a teen with ADHD is due to drinking coke in the morning and playing video games? Who drinks coke in the morning anyway?
This is one reason why I am less than thrilled that my sixth grader with ADHD has to walk to school this fall. We live 1.4 miles away and she will have to cross several artery streets during the 8 am rush hour. Granted, the streets are only two lanes wide, as we live in a college town, not a major city, but they are busy streets.. (The school's policy is that everyone is a walker who lives within 1.5 miles of school. I'd like to see them walk this far!)
It's called Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest
I can believe the ignorance of the people who write in here, but one thing is for sure I didn't need this study to know that my ADHD kid did not have the ability to time events properly.
That is just mean and ridiculous. Coke doesn't help, it makes them worse, and my child has been disciplined 10X more than the other kids. When I finally put him on meds, one of the main reasons was because I was afraid some adult was going to hurt him or he would hurt himself. He as so hyper he drove everyone else insane. This is not about being spoiled. My other two kids are model children, ask their teachers.
I can assure you that others are at risk. I have a 7 year old with ADHD and he has already had such an accident. It was not his fault in any way, the other guy was driving illegally, and had no license, but he was the only kid in the group of kids to get hit.
I sure hope this BS study wasn't paid for with tax payer funds.
A kid that is a spaz is at risk of being a brat when walking around? Whoa, shocking.
You're using your one personal experience to refute a study based on a statistical sample size. I'm not saying the study's conclusion is correct, but it's like saying global warming is a non-issue because the weather in your hometown is just fine.
Voo-Doo Science without a doubt. The worst part of it is that we accept it. So between medicating your kids, and medicating yourself [with antidepressants] we all become the same thing. A no-personality, apathetic, bunch of slobs.
Could not agree more, Christopher…and for the exact same reason. Seems the media, even after 30 years at least of study, still paint ADHD as an evil boogeyman to me medicated away.
Another crud article based on a crud study..
Not too sure that this is true. I was diagnosed with ADHD (and re-diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at 21) as a child, and I was not more 'prone to pedestrian hazards than other children. I did get hit by a car once, but the fact is that my cousin who doesn't have ADHD or anything like it also got pasted by a car as a child.