Stimulant Medications Raise IQ Scores in Hyperactive Children

Many of the challenges that children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) face can be helped or overcome by stimulant medications. For example, these medications can result in improved academic performance. Whether they also can raise intelligence quotient (IQ) scores is less clear, however.

These researchers recruited 31 white children (25 boys and 6 girls; age range, 6–13 years), diagnosed with ADHD, who had taken standard IQ tests as part of their initial evaluation. After at least 1 year, the tests were repeated. Among the 24 children who were taking stimulant medications, significant increases from baseline were noted in all IQ scores. Smaller improvements were seen among the 7 children who were not taking medication, bu…