Question: Hello Dr. Barkley! Thank you for taking the time to answer questions. I was wondering if you could explain how stimulant medication would affect someone with ADHD vs a neurotypical individual? I’m curious if someone could figure out whether or not they had ADHD based on how they reacted to stimulants.
Answer: Se used to think several decades ago that the drug response of someone with ADHD was atypical and thus if you gave an ADHD drug to a typical person it wouldmake them worse while it would help someone with ADHD.  That turned out to be false.  The drugs do the same thing for NTs as for ADHDs.  its just that people with ADHD are so much further from the mean or typical level of performance that the improvement they experience can be much more dramatic whereas in an NT its rather minor.  But they can improve too on medication, just not much.  In short, the further from the mean of typicality you are in some trait or behavior the more dramatic will be a treatment effect.  Nothing paradoxical going on here that can help with diagnosis, sorry to say.
content: Q: Hello Dr. Barkley! Thank you for taking the time to answer questions. I was wondering if you could explain how stimulant medication would affect someone with ADHD vs a neurotypical individual? I’m curious if someone could figure out whether or not they had ADHD based on how they reacted to stimulants.
   Ans: Se used to think several decades ago that the drug response of someone with ADHD was atypical and thus if you gave an ADHD drug to a typical person it wouldmake them worse while it would help someone with ADHD.  That turned out to be false.  The drugs do the same thing for NTs as for ADHDs.  its just that people with ADHD are so much further from the mean or typical level of performance that the improvement they experience can be much more dramatic whereas in an NT its rather minor.  But they can improve too on medication, just not much.  In short, the further from the mean of typicality you are in some trait or behavior the more dramatic will be a treatment effect.  Nothing paradoxical going on here that can help with diagnosis, sorry to say.