Nevertheless, they do not normalize the ability to learn and apply knowledge (Advokat 2010). In fact, it has been recognized over 30 years that there is little evidence that prescription stimulants such as MPH and AMP improve the academic achievement of ADHD-diagnosed children. Children with ADHD have a consistently lower full-scale IQ than normal controls. They score significantly lower on reading and arithmetic tests, use more remedial academic services, and are Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical more likely to be placed in a selleck inhibitor special education class, or repeat a grade compared with controls. They also take more years to complete high school and have lower rates of college attendance

(Advokat 2010). Thus, prescription stimulants have only a modest impact on these outcomes. The first review to describe the general academic functioning of adults with ADHD Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical summarized the results from 23 studies (Weyandt and DuPaul 2006). ADHD-diagnosed

college students were found to have significantly lower grade point averages, report more “academic problems” and to be less likely to graduate from college. Nevertheless, ADHD-diagnosed college students did not differ in IQ from those without Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical ADHD, and were shown to be able to meet the demands of college courses. On psychological tests, they showed significant deficits in attention, but were not different from normal students on other measures, such as the ability to be flexible and to maintain performance, as task demands varied (Weyandt and DuPaul 2006). More recent reports have reached similar conclusions. Interestingly, like elementary and high school students, college students with ADHD are less likely to reach the same academic level as Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical their non-ADHD counterparts, even when they use stimulant medications. Thus, stimulant medications do not necessarily equalize academic achievement in the typical adult with ADHD. A recent controlled, cross-sectional study evaluated the effects of stimulants on cognition in adults with ADHD and found that treated ADHD

subjects had significantly better scores on measures of IQ than did untreated patients (Biederman et al. 2012). Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Thus, either good cognitive functioning may be a determinant of seeking treatment or stimulant treatment may improve cognition in adults with ADHD. When ADHD studies address the issue of cognition, they usually demonstrate that treated patients perform better than untreated patients on neuropsychological tests or measures after they Cilengitide are treated. Whether treatment normalizes neurocognitive performance is rarely addressed. In fact, adults with ADHD are less likely to attain the same educational levels as those without the diagnosis relative to what would be predicted based on their IQ, and this outcome does not appear to be improved by stimulant medication. In one recent study, for selleck products example, although 84% of ADHD-diagnosed adults were statistically expected to be college graduates, only 50% reached this level of education (Biederman et al. 2008a,b).