ADHD is a condition that is classified by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. It is commonly recognized in children but can also be diagnosed in adults. As a psychology major, I have a little bit of knowledge about a slim amount of knowledge about this condition. I have also witnessed the affects of ADHD on people that I know and love. For as long as I can remember, my brother has taken various ADHD medications. Though, I have seen a few negative side effects in him.  I have always believed that it was beneficial and necessary for him to be on these drugs and never questioned my parents' decision to administer them to him. It wasn't until recently when the little boy that I nanny for was diagnosed with ADHD, that I began to recognize a problem with ADHD medications. I saw so many negative impacts in him and began to wonder if the immediate reaction of todays doctors to prescribe drugs to these children was a good one. Ethically, I think it is wrong to administer drugs to a child unless it is absolutely necessary. This research question challenges my value of not medicating young children. I will not deny that medication is important and helpful in the treatment of ADHD, but morally I do not believe that every child diagnosed with this disease should be prescribed drugs for treatment.   I may not be the most qualified person to argue this point, but I have a thirst for more accurate knowledge on the topic. This may make my ideas relevant and qualified. 

The first article I examined was ADHD & Kids: The Truth About Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder that was published on the TIME magazine website. The central claim of this article was that there is an undeniable backlash against the diagnosis of ADHD. The article then used evidence to support the legitimacy of the disease. It stated that ADHD is not a modern disease and it can be seen in developing countries, proving that it is not a product of modern medicine. Foley addresses the use of medication in treating ADHD, stating that it is important that a child receives drug treatment as well as behavior training and parental interaction. The major values of this article lie in legitimate diagnosis' of ADHD. The article states that 1 in 11 children are diagnosed with this disease but also that often times a pediatrician does not do enough extensive testing on a patient in order to make an accurate diagnosis. This article may not be a peer reviewed journal, but its publisher does have some credibility. The author is a writer for TIME magazine which is a popular magazine in the United States. Being that it is a popular magazine though, it is aimed towards what people want to hear so the selection of information included in this article may be slightly biased towards popularity. 

The next article was titled Gifted or ADHD: The Possibilities of Misdiagnosis. This article's central claim was that many children that are simply gifted are misdiagnosed with ADHD. Gifted children present similar behaviors to those with ADHD. Both sets of children posses very high activity levels. ADHD diagnosis cannot rely solely on behavior checklists; this process is what is leading to such high levels of children being prescribed stimulant medications. This article presents a study in which first year counseling students examined children. The results showed that every counselor diagnosed the child with ADHD and did not even consider the possibility of giftedness. The major interest at stake here was the effects of misdiagnosis. The article states that it can be detrimental for a child to be placed in the ADHD diagnosis framework because it is hard for them to later get out of that realm. Also, that many counselors are not properly trained to make accurate diagnoses of ADHD. There were limitations to this study due to a small sampling size, though I believe that if the study was replicated the internal validity would remain. This article was published in a scholarly journal and was peer reviewed making it credible. The author may have been biased to their hypothesis when presenting information in the introduction and discussion but the results themselves are not bias because that would present a flaw in experimental design. 

The final article I examined was titled Birth Month as Predictor of ADHD Medication Use in Dutch School Classes. This article presents a study done in the Netherlands whose main goal is to investigate the correlation between birth month and prescription to methylphenidate drugs. They believed that there was a relationship between a child being young for their age and being diagnosed with ADHD. This diagnosis can be due to the fact that they may present less mature behaviors than an older child.  The major interest at stake in this argument was the misdiagnosis of ADHD in children due to age. This interest was proven to be a major concern because of the positive correlation that was found as a result of this study. This also finds its credibility in the fact that it is peer reviewed and published in an academic journal. The authors here are also biased towards their hypothesis but the experiment itself does not contain any bias, it is merely an investigation of data that was presented to the researchers. 

The research question I have presented will be very easy to argue. It goes heavily against the status quo. Many parents and medical professionals believe that medicating children is beneficial. There are many published articles highlighting the benefits of this. It may be more difficult then to find sources that refute this point of view. All of the sources I have presented thus far agree that there are many cases of misdiagnosis of ADHD. The two studies I have read both pose questions about school aged children and agree that the levels of prescriptions to ADHD medications are too high. Both studies, for different reasons, pose the idea of misdiagnosis and provide a solution for it. The perspectives presented in the TIME article agree with this backlash against the diagnosis of ADHD and that many children are not given enough attention by medical professionals in order to make the accurate diagnosis. There is not much that these three articles disagree on, besides the fact that the TIME article does present the idea that ADHD may not be a real disease with details from Richard Saul's book ADHD Does Not Exist. The perspectives in these sources have not changed my perspective on this topic, but have only provided me with more to think about and to research. I may need to revise my research question so that it has a more direct answer. My research may prove to be too open ended with this question. 

