Especially because of this.

There’s data going back quite a few years showing a poor fit between boys & elementary school.

I once wrote an article on this subject & the women’s magazines I was involved with hated it & refused to publish it. One editor told me she wouldn’t even show it to her fellow editors because if she did they would never work with me on another story.

As to girls, the last time I was involved in this topic the thinking was that in girls ADHD tends to manifest later, at adolescence.

That’s why you’ll see girls suddenly go “sprong” when they hit puberty (I’m sure you know the phenomenon).

I don’t know whether people are still thinking along these lines, but last I checked that was the idea.

There is also a line of thought–and I don’t know how many people give this credence–that video & computer games & endless TV are fracturing kids’ natural attention spans.

That wouldn’t surprise me.

Samuel now is the Liberals’ conscience..

Well I don’t know how long that will last as my disgust with the left solidifies. Quite frankly I don’t know what is liberal or conservative anymore, but my right and wrong alarm bell seems to be working. I smell hordes of rats coming from the left. Leftists hijacked liberalism and left the carcass to be picked over by whoever could salvage the best of what was left of her policies.

It seems to me the evil neo-cons and many ex-Democrats infused into the Republicans extra life that embodies the best of both. Activist Foreign Policy with a blend of neo-liberal fiscal conservatism at home that carries with it an acceptance that the temperance of a moralist is not a bad thing and in fact relevant in measuring policy. A further bonus is they sacred off the Pat Buchanan types as well.

Insatty this change is just not that difficult. In the end easier then I thought it would be. The differences are so stark that it makes it easy. Thank you very much for the vote of confidence.

to finish my statement …

the educationalist/ACLU approach to schooling?

We now have created a lowest common denominator system where undruged and undisciplined children make it harder for everyone else to learn. Boys are neglected even though common sense tells us that young boys must be actively engaged to learn. We hire teachers based on their knowledge of “education” instead of subject matter.

I also have another theory. We all know that most children diagnosed with ADHD are boys. Could it be that the feminization of grade school culture misidentifies the typical behavior of young boys as abnormal, i.e., they don’t act like nice little girls? My son went to a parish Catholic grade school. Despite the fact that the children came from socio-economic cross section of the parish there were very few “learning disabled” students. Is it because Catholics don’t get ADHD or is it because the school did not follow

The race seems to be between Henry V (formerly Prince Hal) and Prince Omlet http://www.americandigest.org/mt-archives/002164.php

And this http://www.celluloid-wisdom.com/pw/index.php?/weblog/entry/the_tragedy_of_omlet_prince_of_massachusetts_cont/

I find this discovery moving, when you think about the American character and experience:

A gene thought by some scientists to foster a bold, novelty-seeking personality, as well as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), apparently spread substantially in human populations over roughly the past 40,000 years, according to a new study.

One form of the gene gained evolutionary favor near the end of the Stone Age because it enhanced survival and reproduction, proposes a team led by biologist Yuan-Chun Ding of the University of California, Irvine. The form is now the second-most-prevalent variant of the so-called DRD4 gene, which codes for a type of dopamine receptor (DRD4) found on brain cells.

Ding’s team theorizes that prehistoric people who trekked from Africa to distant locales may have relied on nervy, intrepid individuals to lead the journey. Many bearers of this variant of the DRD4 gene would have had the requisite personalities to head up migrating groups, Ding’s group asserts in the Jan. 8 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To study variations in this gene, the researchers scrutinized the DNA sequence of the gene in 600 adults from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and the Pacific.

The most common DRD4 arrangementÔøΩfound in about two-thirds of peopleÔøΩdiffers slightly from several less prevalent variations of the gene, the researchers say.

In contrast, the novelty- and ADHD-linked form of the gene diverges markedly from the most common pattern. It’s likely that this version of the DRD4 gene, which occurs in a sizable minority of people worldwide, resulted from one or more unusual mutations of the common form and then increased in frequency as the Stone Age wound down, around 40,000 years ago, Ding and his coworkers theorize.

Although this gene conferred advantages in prehistoric times, it appears to stoke childhood behaviors that now get diagnosed as ADHD, the researchers add. Nonetheless, in an earlier study, they found that children with ADHD who possess this particular form of the DRD4 gene do much better on attention tests than ADHD kids with different versions of the gene do.

Other scenarios may explain the spread of this specific DRD4 gene, say Henry Harpending of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and Gregory Cochran of the research firm Reconstruction Concepts in Albuquerque, N.M., in a comment published with the new study. For example, the prehistoric advent of societies in which women produced most of the food would have left men with lots of time to compete for mates. In these groups, a gene facilitating risky “show-off” behaviors in men would have proliferated, the anthropologists suggest.

SCIENCE NEWS Week of Jan.ÔøΩ19,ÔøΩ2002; Vol. 161, No. 3 , p. 40

Only the lunatic fringe believed that the Clintons murdered Foster

OK, why don’t I amend my statement to “the non-crazed faction of the lunatic fringe.”

Since more then half of my children have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), I have no doubt who they got it from

Years ago, my coauthor on SHADOW SYNDROMES, John Ratey (a psychiatrist at Harvard) said Americans have higher levels of ADHD than does the rest of the world because of our immigrant history.

I always believed that absolutely, and then recently a scientist demonstrated that people who have immigrated the furthest also have more likelihood of having a particular ADHD-linked gene.

I love it!

I think that explains a lot about our country. I also think most of our presidents have had ADHD. (Have you noticed how many lefties we’ve had as president, as well? ADHD is associated with left-handedness.)

I’ll see if I can find a link.