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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Treatment and medication
It sounds like encouragement and it works like a verdict, because it says the ability was always there and only the willingness was missing. In a difficulty that sits precisely in holding yourself to a task, that is not true. What it reliably produces is a frustrated adult, a child who concludes they are simply bad, and a family who give up on the plan because they think the problem is character.
This explains how treatments work. Never start, stop or change a medication because of something you read here.
Check it first, in case you wrong others unwittingly and later regret what you have done (Quran 49:6). Wronging someone without meaning to is exactly what this sentence does.
الحجرات
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓاْ إِن جَآءَكُمۡ فَاسِقُۢ بِنَبَإࣲ فَتَبَيَّنُوٓاْ أَن تُصِيبُواْ قَوۡمَۢا بِجَهَٰلَةࣲ فَتُصۡبِحُواْ عَلَىٰ مَا فَعَلۡتُمۡ نَٰدِمِينَ
Believers, if a troublemaker brings you news, check it first, in case you wrong others unwittingly and later regret what you have done
Qur’an 49:6read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta analysis of randomised trials of cognitive training in ADHD found improvements on some neuropsychological measures, while the effect on symptoms largely vanished once raters who did not know the group assignment were used. Even structured, repeated effort aimed straight at these functions moved daily symptoms very little. That is a poor outlook for effort alone, which is roughly what try harder amounts to.
Cortese S, Ferrin M, Brandeis D, Buitelaar J, Daley D, Dittmann RW, Holtmann M, Santosh P, Stevenson J, Stringaris A, Zuddas A, Sonuga-Barke EJ, European ADHD Guidelines Group (EAGG). (2015). Cognitive training for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: meta-analysis of clinical and neuropsychological outcomes from randomized controlled trials.. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Telling someone to try harder assumes the ability is intact, and where it is not, all the sentence delivers is shame.
CBT has more research behind it than most other therapies, and part of that is because it is easy to count. Its steps and its outcomes can be scored, so it gets studied more often.
By response rate, extended release stimulants are among the most effective medicines in psychiatry, and most people tolerate them well. That is worth hearing plainly, particularly from people who are not generally keen on medication.
Three things are worth noticing before you buy any treatment: whether the only research on it is their own, whether they will say plainly what it is meant to change, and whether you have to sign something.