A concerned physician examines the skyrocketing use of Ritalin to treat attention deficit disorder (ADD) and finds its causes in a mix of disturbing social, cultural, and economic factors as well as in the psychopharmacological model of mental illness. The explosion in ADD diagnosis and Ritalin treatment in the US is a “white, middle-to-upper-middle-class, suburban phenomenon.— Diller, a California pediatrician specializing in child development and behavior, as well as a family therapist, sees ADD not as a manifestation of a chemical imbalance in a child’s brain but of a living imbalance in many stressed-out American families. Among the causative factors that Diller identifies are the changing structure of family life, parents equipped with poor parenting techniques but anxious to give their child every advantage, rising academic competitiveness and pressure to succeed, and an overtaxed educational system where large classes provide many distractions and little individual attention. Also contributing are a managed-care health system that looks for low-cost solutions—Ritalin works fast and is a relatively cheap pill—and a school of thought that views ADD as being primarily a neurological disorder. When a behavior problem is classified as a medical disorder, Diller notes, insurance coverage is available and parental guilt is eased. He is not opposed to trying Ritalin but asks that other efforts be made to address a child’s behavior and performance problems first, such as parenting/family therapy and monitoring the school situation. Diller draws on numerous cases from his two decades of practice to illustrate both the problem and his own multimodal approach. In his conclusion he proposes steps that parents and professionals can take to halt the surge in ADD diagnosis and Ritalin treatment. Balanced and thoughtful, yet sounds a powerful alarm.
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 1998
ISBN: 0-553-10656-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998
American schools at every level, from kindergarten to postgraduate programs, have substituted ideological indoctrination for education, charges conservative think-tanker Sowell (Senior Fellow/Hoover Institution; Preferential Polices, 1990, etc.) in this aggressive attack on the contemporary educational establishment. Sowell's quarrel with "values clarification" programs (like sex education, death-sensitizing, and antiwar "brainwashing") isn't that he disagrees with their positions but, rather, that they divert time and resources from the kind of training in intellectual analysis that makes students capable of reasoning for themselves. Contending that the values clarification programs inspired by his archvillain, psychotherapist Carl Rogers, actually inculcate values confusion, Sowell argues that the universal demand for relevance and sensitivity to the whole student has led public schools to abdicate their responsibility to such educational ideals as experience and maturity. On the subject of higher education, Sowell moves to more familiar ground, ascribing the declining quality of classroom instruction to the insatiable appetite of tangentially related research budgets and bloated athletic programs (to which an entire chapter, largely irrelevant to the book's broader argument, is devoted). The evidence offered for these propositions isn't likely to change many minds, since it's so inveterately anecdotal (for example, a call for more stringent curriculum requirements is bolstered by the news that Brooke Shields graduated from Princeton without taking any courses in economics, math, biology, chemistry, history, sociology, or government) and injudiciously applied (Sowell's dismissal of student evaluations as responsible data in judging a professor's classroom performance immediately follows his use of comments from student evaluations to document the general inadequacy of college teaching). All in all, the details of Sowell's indictment—that not only can't Johnny think, but "Johnny doesn't know what thinking is"—are more entertaining than persuasive or new.
Pub Date: Jan. 4, 1993
ISBN: 0-02-930330-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The sub-title of this book is "Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools." But one finds in it little about education, and less about the teaching of English. Nor is this volume a defense of the Christian faith similar to other books from the pen of C. S. Lewis. The three lectures comprising the book are rather rambling talks about life and literature and philosophy. Those who have come to expect from Lewis penetrating satire and a subtle sense of humor, used to buttress a real Christian faith, will be disappointed.
Pub Date: April 8, 1947
ISBN: 1609421477
Page Count: -
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1947
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
