"our 6-yr-old daughter has been on this for 6 months.  at first we also thought it was a miracle drug. her handwriting improved tremendously, her attention span was great, etc., however, it did wear off around 3 pm and we were in for a horrible evening every night.  we tried a booster of 10 mg of methylphenidate at 3 pm but that has just brought out oppositional-defiant disorder.  we now are about to try concerta.  i definitely would recommend metadate cd, though, because for the most part it gave us back our daughter."