Editorial - Nº 9 of Uruguay Ciencia - February 2010

We included in this issue, in the precise moment that classes are about to begin, some articles on the Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). They are articles especially interesting for parents and teachers, but also of interest to everyone worried about social issues, in this case about the “medicalization of children”, particularly the treatment of inattentive and restless students with drugs.

The question many people ask themselves is: Could it be that we are medicating children so that they comply with social expectations? Could it be that what is wrong is the expectations and not the children and adolescents? Probably, the problem is in both of them, schoolchildren (some of them) and social expectations: it is possible that the latter are excessive and that, despite the theoretical insistence in a didactic method based on customized education, what is being sought is a standardization of behaviors and academic results of children and adolescents.

It is true that large-scale education of the population improves people's personal development as well as it helps a society to  progress; but it is also true that there is suffering in classrooms, in corridors and yards of educational institutions and at home, owing to the failure to fulfill the behavioral and academic expectations.

Helping children and adolescents to control their conduct, to wait, to show them the necessary conditions to improve their attention, as well as to medicate them so as they can take the most of these teachings, constitutes an important part of the way. Another important part consists in reconsidering the educational structures. It may be necessary to “break” the structure of large-scale classes with fixed schedules and with only one teacher for every 30 or 40 students, to change to a system similar to the one used in times of tutors and governesses. Possibly, the Ceibal Plan (One laptop per child) will cooperate with this task as it provides a different working methodology. But first of all it is necessary to open the minds to the possibility of solving the problem not only by focusing on the student, but also on the system.

The ADHD does not only affect schoolchildren. Adults suffering from such disorder have also difficulties to face social expectations, work and family structures. As specialists say, people affected by ADHD are liable to have severe antisocial behavior and/or drug-addiction. Regarding this issue, it may be also necessary to soften the expectations by recognizing that in fact we are not all alike, and stop demanding from others what they cannot give us, and accept inconstancy in some people as something natural and not as a pathological or reprehensible characteristic.

Patricia Linn
Director of Uruguay Ciencia