Dr. Leslie Walker, chief of adolescent medicine at Seattle Children’s, talks about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in this video with our news partner, King 5.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in March that 11 percent of school-aged children in the U.S. have been diagnosed with ADHD. That’s about 6.4 million kids between the ages of 4 and 17 — a 53 percent increase over the last decade.
Nearly one in five high school boys receives the diagnosis.
Experts say it's a tough disorder to diagnose because it involves extensive interviews with patients, parents and teachers, not to mention screening for, and ruling out, other conditions that often look like ADHD, such as a learning disability. In the medical community we've been seeing this trend, but that particular study really turned some heads among the general public.
Watch our video and learn more in our July feature story, "Rethinking Ritalin: Who's Paying Attention Now?"
