Although medication improves performance at repetitive and boring tasks, it does not make it possible for a child to develop or expand academic skills. Most studies show no significant improvement in a child's long-term learning ability or academic achievement. In fact, for some children, drugs impair their thinking abilities and make it harder for them to succeed. Furthermore, healthy relationships require social awareness, empathy and the ability to feel and express feelings: Psychoactive drugs impair these abilities.

Certainly some children really benefit from the judicious use of medication. What is alarming is the way psychoactive medications have become the first line of intervention for the vast majority of children. The more we focus on drugs as the solution, the less we'll look at non-drug interventions.

Caution from the International Narcotics Control Board
The International Narcotics Control Board, an agency of the United Nations, has raised concerns about doctors seeking easy solutions to behavioral problems that may have complex causes. Furthermore, many of the recommendations for managing children labeled ADD simply don't reflect current knowledge about how children learn and what motivates them.

Sources:

Thomas Armstrong, The Myth of the A.D.D. Child
Fred A. Baughman Jr., The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" Out of Normal Children
Peter R. Breggin, Reclaiming Our Children
Carla Hannaford & Candice. B. Pert, Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head*

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