Every child is different. My son took Concerta and said he felt like he had bugs crawling on his skin. Adderall worked better, but he wouldn't eat. Vyvance has worked great for us. He was on meds in 1st grade. We took him off. We had to put him back on in 4th grade. He is very high functioning academically, but has major focus problems. The Vyvance is the difference between 4 hours of homework and 1 hours of home a night. He does not have melt downs any more. The scensory diet we used when he was a child was very helpful with the melt downs from scensory issues. He still has problems with over reacting to social situations without the Vyvance.

I don't know if your son has issues with needing to have pressure on his body to function. My son had a weighted vest when he was your child's age. He is 17 now. Last year when brain storming with his IEP team, we came up with the idea to try UnderArmor compression shirts. He tried the first one and said, "Can I wear this, do I have to take it off now?" They don't take the place of his Vyvance, but they help him a lot with controlling his stimming and holding still in school. He calls them his anti-twitch shirts. They are cool looking so he loves to wear them under his clothes.

my little brother is adhd, and he had bad side effects from ritilin n addreall, he tried strattera and did wonders for him, now hes 15 and off the meds, but he was on it for years and it really helped. its a nonstimulant, so didnt have such bad effects, hope that helps maybe

If only there was a single answer that worked every time for every kid! The treatments that work for each kid are as varied as the spectrum itself and, at least in my experience, it is almost always a combination that turns out to have the greatest beneficial effect. Finding the right combination in the correct proportions for each child is vital. As much as we might wish it to be "easy", stopping before you find your kid's specific optimal therapeutic plan just because something that worked fabulously for some other kid just didn't work for yours, is giving up too soon. It takes, for most of us, trial and test and experimentation to find what works best - and we might end up starting over again tomorrow or next week because as our kids progress past certain issues, they uncover whole new ones. This site is fabulous for putting us in contact with new options and allowing access to first hand accounts of the range of outcomes.

imtori....I completely agree they have a good reason for acting out....I have spent the last 3 1/2 years trying different diet restriction been to homeopathic specialist as well as top of the line behavioral specialist ....My son also has very significant sensory especially with mouth and hands which has been an EXTREME challenge. I would NEVER use a medicine to "chemical restrain" my child. I have been working very hard not to use medicine but realizing after 3 1/2 years I maybe doing more harm than good. Remember this kids have chemical imbalances. Diet is NOT always the answer....Sorry.

my younger son has ADHD and has started on Strattara. He was on other meds which made him a zombie and then on Vyvannse with horrible results. Strattara has really helped him.