M.R.
If you had a full diagnostic evaluation by a Developmental Pediatrician, or a pyschiatric consult after a full nueropsychological evaluation with the addition of speech and langaguge and occupational therapy evaluations, then you need not worry about the veracity of the diagnosis, nor the trial of medication. Be sure that you have all the information that you need and a full diagnostic profile, with recomendations for Play therapy, Cognative behavioral therapy, social skills training classes, Speech and Langage therapy, Occupational therapy, and educational and behavioral accomodations to go along with medications. If you have not had the theraputic recommendations, you are not getting a full treatment plan. Medications help children access the theraputic, educational, and behavioral work they need to do, they never stand alone.
That part out of the way, Methylin is one of the many forms of Mehtlelphenadate, or the brand name being Ritalin. It is a vey effective stimulatn medication, and is most commonly used as the first trial medication. If you do not see improvement in his ablity to access his therapy, education, or behavioral work (which you should be doing tons of) then call your Psychiatirst or Developemental Pediatrician and discuss options. If your prescriber is your pedatrician, find a specialist (psychiatrists and Develpmental Pedatricains, and sometimes Nerologists- the later being less desirable) and change dosage or medication. It is a balancing act, and there are litterally hundreds of choices and many classes of medications in additon to stimulants, that can be tried that will help him.
Age is not a factor in brain disfuction. There is not a magjc age where children can have this issue. It happens in the youngest of children, it does nto suddenly just develop in kids once they reach the age of 6 or 7, when the common mythical idea that the general public has that is the earliest age children can be diagnosed with ADHD. That is just bunk. Don't worry about the unifformed public, as long as you have a full evaluation and full treatment plan, medication is appropriate for your child regaudless of age. Also, don't listen to people who do not have children with ADHD, they are assuming that they understand children wtih ADHD by comparining them to nuerotypcial children, and they have zero clue about how a child with a brain disorder reacts to even the most simple of comands.
Good luck. Read anything by Dr. Mel Levine or Dr. Russel Barkley, they will give you terrific insight into the medical nature of ADHD and great strategies to try at home that will be terrific additions to your theraputic homework from all the therapist he is seeing (there should be MANY!) Log on to www.wrightslaw.com and get a head start on learning about advocacy. You will need to know how to navigate. Start with the article Understanding Tests and Measurments for Parents and Advocates, this will help you understand the evaluation data that is in his Evaluation Report, because you should have one that is about 15 pages long or more (get one from a Developmenta Pedatrician or a Nueropsychologist if you do not have this...it is essential, and medication is inappropriate without it.)
He may qualify for some therapy from the local school distrist. Send them a letter requesting an evaluation because you have a child with a disablity. They should send you a copy of your rights under IDEA, and evaluate, and at the very least, you can get a head start on the speech and langague issues that are very commonly associated with kid who have ADHD. Read about pre school services on the wrightslaw site and keep reading as he goes to Kindergarten and learn how to get him all the services he needs. You should know more about him than the school does (again, from the long evaluation report you should have) and always suplement whtat he does not get from the school with private services. Schools are only ther to make your child functial at school, you have to provide the rest, so he should always be in some form of private theraputic intervention.
Good luck!
M.
