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UCLA psychologists have conducted the most comprehensive assessment ever on this question and have found that children with ADHD who take medications such as Ritalin and Adderall are at no greater risk of using alcohol, marijuana, nicotine or cocaine later in life than kids with ADHD who don't take these medications. The psychologists analyzed 15 long-term studies, including data from three studies not yet published. These studies followed more than 2,500 children with ADHD from childhood into adolescence and young adulthood. "We found the children were neither more likely nor less likely to develop alcohol and substance-use disorders as a result of being treated with stimulant medication," said Kathryn Humphreys, a doctoral candidate in UCLA's Department of Psychology and lead author of the study. "We found no association between the use of medication such as Ritalin and future abuse of alcohol, nicotine, marijuana and cocaine." The children asses...

Published in  Autism: The International Journal and Practice  (Epub ahead of print), the study also found that children with both ASD and ADHD are significantly more impaired on measures of cognitive, social and adaptive functioning compared to children with ASD only. Distinct from existing research, the current study offers novel insights because most of the children entered the study as infants or toddlers, well before ADHD is typically diagnosed. Previous studies on the co-occurrence of ASD and ADHD are based on patients seeking care from clinics, making them biased towards having more multi-faceted or severe impairments. By recruiting patients as infants or toddlers, the likelihood of bias in the current study is significantly reduced. "We are increasingly seeing that these two disorders co-occur and a greater understanding of how they relate to each other could ultimately improve outcomes and quality of life for this subset of children," says Dr. Rebecca Landa, sen...