Grant has just turned six years old. That's his picture on his fourth birthday. I simply cannot imagine giving him Ritalin at six, or at five, or at four years old. But here is a study from the National Institute of Mental Health that says it might be a good idea.

If this is all the farther that you read, read this: You can accomplish the same thing as can be accomplished by the small dose of Ritalin used on these children with a protein shake and some coffee mixed together. See our diet recommendations.

Preschoolers, ADHD, and Medication

Brave New World

Here's the report on the study: Read more of the article...

The first long-term, large-scale study designed to determine the safety and effectiveness of treating preschoolers who have attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with methylphenidate (Ritalin) has found that overall, low doses of this medication are effective and safe.

ADHD, Preschool, and Medication

Brave New World

However, the study found that children this age are more sensitive than older children to the medication's side effects and therefore should be closely monitored. The 70-week, six-site study was funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and was described in several articles in the November 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Read more of the article...

"I never diagnosed a child under the age of five with ADHD," says our clinical director Dr. Doug Cowan.

"You see, everyone who has a genetically based ADHD was born with it, and they act like it when they are two, three, four, five years old. They have characteristics of ADD from very young. But there are also a lot of kids, particularly boys, who develop a bit more slowly than their peers, and may be more active than their peers, who can look like they have ADD, but by the time they are eight years old they are fine." Read more of the article...