Nearly 1 million children may have been misdiagnosed with ADHD

Nearly one million children have been potentially misdiagnosed with ADHD simply because they are the youngest -- and most immature -- in their kindergarten class. ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed behavioral disorder for kids in the United States, with at least 4.5 million diagnoses among children under age 18, despite there being no neurological markers. Many ADHD diagnoses depend on a child's age relative to classmates and the teacher's perceptions of whether the child has symptoms. In the study, the youngest kindergartners were 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than the oldest children in the same grade. Similarly, when that group of classmates reached the fifth and eighth grades, the youngest were more than twice as likely to be prescribed stimulants. Overall, the study found that about 20 percent -- or 900,000 -- of the 4.5 million children currently identified as having ADHD likely have been misdiagnosed.