Washington : Parents, take note! Higher academic demands on young children may increase their risk of developing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a new study has claimed, reports PTI.
Researchers suggest that increased academic standards since the 1970s have contributed to the rise in diagnosis of ADHD.
“When we researched educational and public policy literature for studies that documented time children spent on academic activities, we were alarmed to find how substantially education had changed since the ’70s,” said Jeffrey P Brosco from University of Miami in the US.
“From time spent studying to enrolment rates in pre-primary programmes, everything had increased, and not surprisingly, in the past 40 years we also saw ADHD diagnoses double,” said Brosco.
Researchers found that from 1981 to 1997, time spent teaching 3- to 5-year-olds letters and numbers increased 30 per cent.
