E-Mail/Letters

Success story in pediatric psychiatry

Having one child as an almost 2-year veteran of drug therapy for attention deficit disorder (ADD), I appreciated the balance of the content of "Better children through chemistry?" (Metanews, Winter 1998). Like most parents, our major concerns for our child, other than general well-being, are fear of the cumulative effects of poor academic performance and inappropriate impulsive social behaviors. One interesting aspect of our experience is our non-success, on two separate school district psychological/educational evaluations prior to the decision to start drug therapy (ages 5 and 7), in having our son's attention and impulsive activities register above the threshold for regular school-based special education, which classmates receive for various learning difficulties. Given the increasing identification of the constellation of ADD diagnostic behaviors, I hope to see some evolution in school-based special education to deal with a new disability. By the way, his changes were quite encouraging, with no observable side effects.

Charles J. Greenberg
Head of Information Services
Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library

Talk back to us! We invite your letters on the articles in this issue of 21stC. Postal address: 21stC Box 1369, Central Mail Room, Mail Code 4725 Columbia University New York, NY 10027 E-mail address: 21stC@columbia.edu 21stC reserves the right to print all or part of any letter received.