TEACHERS, NATIONWIDE, PRACTICE MEDICINE WITHOUT A LICENSE.

[FB: When testifying before the state legislature in Arkansas, May 3, 2000, the chairman of the hearings asserted that schoolteachers in his state, most assuredly, do not make diagnoses, suggest treatment or in any other way take it upon themselves to practice medicine. Teachers across the country are being trained in psychiatric diagnosis generally and are the one’s who start the ball rolling where ADHD and all school-based diagnoses are concerned. We heard from a superintendent of schools who testified that 15% in their middle school were on medication administered in school.]

Teachers help identify kids with attention problems.

NEW YORK, Feb 28, 2000 (Reuters Health) -- When it comes to diagnosing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a parent's idea of ``disruptive behavior'' in a child may be different from a teacher's, study findings suggest. Therefore, doctors should try to talk to a youngster's teacher before they diagnose ADHD, according to a report in the March issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Parents tend to ``under-identify ADHD symptoms at school, particularly hyperactive-impulsive behaviors,'' according to Dr. Jeffrey M. Halperin. Parents report school behavior that is actually closer to how the child behaves at home, and ``parents are often unable to precisely indicate which symptoms their child exhibits in the classroom,'' the researchers found. ``Direct contact with teachers remains the most accurate way to obtain this information (about symptoms),'' Halperin writes.

The agreement between the parents and teachers on a child's behavior tended to be poor. For example, 20 children fit the inattentive subtype, based on behavior descriptions from either the parent or the teacher, but for only two of these children did parent and teacher descriptions agree. ``The parent and teacher agreement regarding the presence of individual symptoms in the school setting was rarely better than chance,'' the authors note. ( Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 2000;39:308-313.)