According to new research published online in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and which may come as a surprise to parents of ADHD children, Ritalin and other stimulant drugs do not improve ADHD symptoms in the long term.

The findings of the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD called the MTA study, the largest study conducted for comparing the benefits of medication to behavioral interventions, tracked 485-children for 8-years and found stimulant medication did not reduce symptoms like inattention, hyper-activity or social functioning than those who took not medication.

According to another report in the journal based on the analysis of the MTA data, stimulant drugs also stunted children's growth, with children who had never taken stimulants, on an average, three-quarters of an inch taller and 6-lbs. heavier than children who took medication for three years, without making up height and weight later on.

The most obvious interpretation of the data is that medications are useful in the short term, but ineffective over the long term, with possible long-term risks involved. However, the drugs do play a valuable role, helping parents and clinicians buy breathing room, so that they can teach youngsters behavioral strategies to combat inattention and hyperactivity, skills parents should rely on over the long term.

In a yet-to-be published study, 95% of parents told by clinicians to first try behavioral interventions for ADHD, took the advice, with 75% of parents given a prescription for a drug and then asked to enroll their children in behavioral intervention programs, failing to seek out the behavioral approaches.