School failure due to ADHD
In Spain, it is estimated that one in 20 children (between 5 and 7%) suffer from a disorder due to Attention deficit and hyperactivity (ADHD), a disease that affects the social and educational development of those who suffer from it to the point that it is behind the 25 percent of cases of school failure what's in Spain
This is what the authors of the first one have alertedEuropean White Paper'about this disorder, elaborated by doctors, patient associations and families In order to offer recommendations to improve early diagnosis and treatment and give support to those affected.
ADHD affects school failure
As acknowledged by the head of the Psychiatry Service of Infanta Leonor University Hospital in Madrid, Javier Quintero, who suffer from it, can combine symptoms derived from the attention difficulties and concentration, of a excess of motor activity and from a bad or under impulse control.
This increases the risk of fail school and having behavior problems and, in adolescence, of consume drugs more precociously.
"If the child is not able to pay attention in the classroom, their ability to continue learning progressively is increasingly complicated, which makes it more difficult to keep pace and be able to pass," acknowledges this expert.
In fact, a study in the United States suggests that these children have an eight times greater risk of not finishing high school.
In addition, Quintero added, they are also children who have more risk of bullying what to produce it. "They are more vulnerable, because they have difficulties interacting with their peers," he warns.
Therefore, from the Spanish Federation of Associations of Help to ADHD (FEAADAH) have asked parliamentary groups that during the processing of the draft Organic Law for the Improvement of Educational Quality (LOMCE) can be modified to incorporate the consideration of these minors as schoolchildren with specific needs for educational support "for their learning difficulties".
"In the schools the disorder is not recognized, and it generates a very worrisome situation for the 350,000 children who have attended school with this disorder," acknowledged the president of FEAADAH, Fulgencio Madrid, who points out that only Murcia, Navarra, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands consider to these patients as school children with specific needs.
In fact, in his opinion "it would be a way to guarantee the equality of these minors, regardless of the community where they are enrolled", he added.
Cheaper treatments for ADHD
Also, from this entity are also in discussions with political groups to try that the pharmacological treatment of this disorder can be considered as reduced contribution medicine, which would cheapen its price, says Madrid.
"With this consideration we would pay 4 euros per month, and not 40 or 50 as we are doing now, "said the president of FEAADAH, which in fact has recognized that there are children who are stopping being treated "Because they can not pay it."
The 'White Paper' also stresses the importance of improving the diagnosis of the disease, since currently only 1 percent of patients are correctly diagnosed.
At this point, Dr. Quintero has recognized that although the diagnosis is currently only clinical (depending on certain symptoms), research on this disorder could make it possible in the future to be detected through genetics and brain imaging techniques. .
He has also denied that this disorder is now being overdiagnosed or that it could be related to a bad education of the minor. "It's as if we pretend to reprimand a lame child for limping," he said.
In addition, the experts defend that a multidisciplinary approach to the disease and a correct treatment, combining the use of drugs with other therapies, allows improving the response of these minors and avoids the risk of the disease persisting in adulthood, something that happens in half of the cases.
