The Overdiagnosis of ADHD Millions of children each year are taken to their local doctor's office to treat what their parents describe as restlessness and hyperactivity. More often than not, they will be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The growing epidemic of ADHD has left researchers puzzled by its increase of diagnoses each year. From 2003 to 2011, diagnoses increased by an average of five percent each year (Data and Statistics, 2016). This many children having ADHD is highly unlikely, and researchers have been discovering the causes for the rise in diagnoses. ADHD is being overdiagnosed because test scores now affect funding for schools, proper evaluations are not performed, and the educational system expects too much from children. …show more content…
American schools now rely on standardized test scores to prove that they deserve funding. This leaves them to utilize all measures possible to ensure students will improve their scores. Often times an ADHD diagnosis will be recommended by schools so that the school can receive all the benefits of a diagnosis. Although students are given tools to put them equal with their classmates, in “some states [schools] [are] allowed to take students diagnosed with ADHD out of the pool that was used to judge [their] school” (Novotney, 2014).This increase of ADHD diagnoses became apparent whenever funding was impacted by standardized tests.The “No Child Left Behind Act” is a program that makes school funding be affected by how well students perform on standardized tests. Four years after this program was put into effect it was found that the rate of ADHD diagnoses had increased by 22 percent (Koerth-Baker, 2013). With their funding at stake, schools resort to influencing students to be diagnosed with