Читать книгу Introduction to Abnormal Child and Adolescent Psychology - Robert Weis - Страница 124

In 1937, a young pediatrician named Charles Bradley was treating a boy with chronic headaches (Strohl, 2011). When traditional treatments failed, Bradley tried to alleviate the boy’s headaches using a new stimulant medication called Benzedrine. Although Benzedrine had little effect on the boy’s headaches, it caused an immediate and dramatic increase in the boy’s attention and academic performance. Bradley decided to test the medication with other children and described their response:

The most spectacular change in behavior brought about by the use of Benzedrine was the remarkably improved school performance of about half the children. They were more interested in their work and performed it more quickly and accurately. In addition, they showed a decrease in motor activity and became emotionally subdued without losing interest in their surroundings.

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Bradley had stumbled upon the use of stimulants as an effective way to treat ADHD. Today, medications like amphetamine (Adderall) and methylphenidate (Ritalin) are the most effective treatments for this disorder (Faraone & Buitelaar, 2010).

Many of the boys also showed problems with attention and concentration:

The children cannot concentrate on difficult tasks. They also show no perseverance in their activities. They often disturb class, have difficulty playing harmoniously with others, and are generally unpopular with peers.

Kramer and Pollnow’s descriptions provide the basis for the disorder we now call ADHD. The two broad clusters of symptoms that they identified, hyperactivity and inattention, are still used today to diagnose children with this disorder. Another clinician, Charles Bradley, used the case study approach to describe a possible treatment for these children as described in the From Science to Practice section.

Case studies have several limitations. Most importantly, the results of a case study may not generalize to a wider population. Although stimulant medication worked for several of Bradley’s patients, it wasn’t until the 1950s that Ritalin was shown to help most children with attention problems. Case studies are also prone to the biases of the researcher who conducts them. Bradley may have observed improvements in his patients simply because he expected the medication to help them. Finally, because each child is unique, the results of case studies are difficult to replicate. We need to conduct systematic studies, with larger samples of children, before we can be sure that the phenomena described in case studies are accurate and applicable to a wide range of children.