What happens to good old ideas?

Are old good ideas dispensed with just because they're old?  I thought that recently while looking at Isabel Beck and Margaret McKeown's "Bringing Words to Life" book on vocabulary instruction.  It seems just as right and sensible to me now as it did a decade ago.  But what I see in my own school is a lot of pre-historic vocabulary instruction that involves assign-and-quiz cycles.  I mused that their book, as true and helpful as it is, has lost its agency, its power.

I'm been wondering the same thing about the 4-year-old hot idea of using exercise "as ADHD medication." A couple years ago (in 2014) I wrote this blog post about the then-promising idea of using exercise to help students with ADHD to focus better in class:

John Ratey's book Spark convinced me of the academic benefits of exercise for students with some special needs.  Check out this article from Michigan Public Radio which details a Michigan State University study which confirms the benefits of exercise for students with ADHD.

It got me wondering about whether promising link was a passing fad.  A seasonal hot educational item.  My curiosity led me to do some quick research to see if maybe I had just not been paying attention.  Maybe it's just my own school that's backward in ignoring the implications of this research.  

I quickly found that we are not alone in turning away from this line of research!  A Google News search of "ADHD and exercise" lists only one article from 2018 about studies and programs that are following up on this research (and it's a program only in California funded by Specialized Bicycle Components CEO Mike Sinyard).  It seems that this promising research has, in fact, sputtered out since 2014. 

But I did find in my research a rich bloom of articles about the latest ADHD-related sensation: the assertion that smartphones and technology create ADHD.  

For instance, this LA Times article reports on the newly found "link between copious amounts of screen time and ADHD."

The new research, involving 2,587 sophomores and juniors attending public schools in Los Angeles County, raises the possibility that, for some, ADHD symptoms are brought on or exacerbated by the hyper-stimulating entreaties of a winking, pinging, vibrating, always-on marketplace of digital offerings that is as close as the wireless device in their pocket.

“We believe we are studying the occurrence of new symptoms that weren’t present at the beginning of the study,” said USC psychologist Adam M. Leventhal, the study’s senior author.

In prose that matches the symptoms, we learn that smartphones are either the problem, or the main problem in creating ADHD symptoms.

In an editorial that accompanies the study, University of Michigan pediatrician Dr. Jenny Radesky wrote that the “always on” quality of digital media may rob the adolescent brain of the ability to rest and refresh in what brain scientists call the “default mode.” Teens pining for the next hit of digital affirmation may lose the ability to tolerate boredom, she wrote, and an unending stream of notifications may reduce a child’s ability “to stay focused on challenging, nonpreferred tasks.”

Yet exercise is not fully out of the picture.  This same editorial suggests that all the blame might not be attributable to the "winking, pinging, vibrating, always-on marketplace of digital offerings."   In fact, maybe exercise -- or sleep -- are at least partially responsible for ADHD.

But that may not fully explain the study’s results. If manic digital engagement is displacing sleep and exercise, that would readily explain a child’s slipping executive function, wrote Radesky, a behavioral developmental specialist.

Maybe exercise is important, according to Radesky, but only because time exercising is what smartphones are just edging out in a kid's day.  

And of course it matters.  From one point of view the answer to ADHD is taking away kids' smartphones.  From the other point of view, it's making them lace up their running shoes.  For a school, one answer involves limiting screen-time; the other answer involves increasing biking time.

Aside from the practical questions involving what schools should be doing, I wonder about the history of the ideas about ADHD.   What happened to that line of research stemming from Ratey's book, Spark.  Why did it -- seemingly -- evaporate? Do some schools still have programs that give students with ADHD schedules that sandwich academics and physical activity?  I wonder if the 'treatment' was actually true and useful, or just a media-fueled fad?  If it is true, why did it fade?  If a fad, what made media attention... and scientific interest and research dollars... move in another direction?  To what extent is it related to the fact that we are always looking  (including "science" and its practitioners) for a NEW spin, a new solution?