ADHD Does Not Exist

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What makes this so wrong, I have seen it plenty of time lazy kids getting diagnosed with adhd , and given special treatment like extra time. Some probably even do it for the drugs to sell.

International consensus statement on ADHD:

http://www.russellbarkley.org/factsheet ... us2002.pdf

About "laziness" and ADHD:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/may ... -adhd-lazy



What Ned Hallowell calls the "moral diagnosis" is exactly what you're doing here. How can you tell that they're "just lazy" instead of having ADHD? One of the things that frequently happens to people with ADHD is that they're assumed to be lazy. What you're saying actually reinforces the probability that these children actually do have ADHD. Further, you are assuming that you have the expertise to tell whether or not someone really has ADHD instead of just being lazy and it is a practical guarantee that you do not have this expertise.

Thus, you're wrong. You have no idea what you're talking about, and you're more interesting in moral condemnation than true understanding. That's your problem and if you can't admit to being wrong then that's something you'll have to deal with.

Also, it's not "special treatment." It's academic accommodations so that children with ADHD have a better chance of passing their classes and graduating from school. Without that extra time, their academic performance may suffer and appear to be well below their actual ability.

And, given your insistence on the seriousness of autism as a serious, impairing disorder, you're being hypocritical by dismissing ADHD as laziness or maybe a desire to get stimulants to sell. You don't get to pick and choose which disorders are valid and which are not, you're not entitled to your own facts.

What makes this so wrong is that you do not have the knowledge, experience, training, credentials, or credibility to assess whether or not those "lazy kids" really have a disorder or not. It is just your misinformed, judgmental opinion.

I do not deny that ADHD is a legit condition, I just don't believe that everyone who is diagnosed with it actually has it. I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true of ASD, but to a much lesser extent than ADHD. All work and academic "accommodations" are special treatment. Time to judge people for their real ability, not what you prop them up to be with these special treatments like extra time.

A.D.H.D. Seen in 11% of U.S. Children as Diagnoses Rise

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/healt ... d=all&_r=0

By ALAN SCHWARZ and SARAH COHEN
Published: March 31, 2013

Nearly one in five high school age boys in the United States and 11 percent of school-age children over all have received a medical diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to new data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These rates reflect a marked rise over the last decade and could fuel growing concern among many doctors that the A.D.H.D. diagnosis and its medication are overused in American children.

The figures showed that an estimated 6.4 million children ages 4 through 17 had received an A.D.H.D. diagnosis at some point in their lives, a 16 percent increase since 2007 and a 41 percent rise in the past decade. About two-thirds of those with a current diagnosis receive prescriptions for stimulants like Ritalin or Adderall, which can drastically improve the lives of those with A.D.H.D. but can also lead to addiction, anxiety and occasionally psychosis.

“Those are astronomical numbers. I’m floored,” said Dr. William Graf, a pediatric neurologist in New Haven and a professor at the Yale School of Medicine. He added, “Mild symptoms are being diagnosed so readily, which goes well beyond the disorder and beyond the zone of ambiguity to pure enhancement of children who are otherwise healthy.”

And even more teenagers are likely to be prescribed medication in the near future because the American Psychiatric Association plans to change the definition of A.D.H.D. to allow more people to receive the diagnosis and treatment. A.D.H.D. is described by most experts as resulting from abnormal chemical levels in the brain that impair a person’s impulse control and attention skills.

While some doctors and patient advocates have welcomed rising diagnosis rates as evidence that the disorder is being better recognized and accepted, others said the new rates suggest that millions of children may be taking medication merely to calm behavior or to do better in school. Pills that are shared with or sold to classmates — diversion long tolerated in college settings and gaining traction in high-achieving high schools — are particularly dangerous, doctors say, because of their health risks when abused.

The findings were part of a broader C.D.C. study of children’s health issues, taken from February 2011 to June 2012. The agency interviewed more than 76,000 parents nationwide by both cellphone and landline and is currently compiling its reports. The New York Times obtained the raw data from the agency and compiled the results.

A.D.H.D. has historically been estimated to affect 3 to 7 percent of children. The disorder has no definitive test and is determined only by speaking extensively with patients, parents and teachers, and ruling out other possible causes — a subjective process that is often skipped under time constraints and pressure from parents. It is considered a chronic condition that is often carried into adulthood.

The C.D.C. director, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, likened the rising rates of stimulant prescriptions among children to the overuse of pain medications and antibiotics in adults.

“We need to ensure balance,” Dr. Frieden said. “The right medications for A.D.H.D., given to the right people, can make a huge difference. Unfortunately, misuse appears to be growing at an alarming rate.”

Experts cited several factors in the rising rates. Some doctors are hastily viewing any complaints of inattention as full-blown A.D.H.D., they said, while pharmaceutical advertising emphasizes how medication can substantially improve a child’s life. Moreover, they said, some parents are pressuring doctors to help with their children’s troublesome behavior and slipping grades.

“There’s a tremendous push where if the kid’s behavior is thought to be quote-unquote abnormal — if they’re not sitting quietly at their desk — that’s pathological, instead of just childhood,” said Dr. Jerome Groopman, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the author of “How Doctors Think.”

Fifteen percent of school-age boys have received an A.D.H.D. diagnosis, the data showed; the rate for girls was 7 percent. Diagnoses among those of high-school age — 14 to 17 — were particularly high, 10 percent for girls and 19 percent for boys. About one in 10 high-school boys currently takes A.D.H.D. medication, the data showed.

Rates by state are less precise but vary widely. Southern states, like Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee, showed about 23 percent of school-age boys receiving an A.D.H.D. diagnosis. The rates in Colorado and Nevada were less than 10 percent.

The medications — primarily Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta and Vyvanse — often afford those with severe A.D.H.D. the concentration and impulse control to lead relatively normal lives. Because the pills can vastly improve focus and drive among those with perhaps only traces of the disorder, an A.D.H.D. diagnosis has become a popular shortcut to better grades, some experts said, with many students unaware of or disregarding the medication’s health risks.

“There’s no way that one in five high-school boys has A.D.H.D.,” said James Swanson, a professor of psychiatry at Florida International University and one of the primary A.D.H.D. researchers in the last 20 years. “If we start treating children who do not have the disorder with stimulants, a certain percentage are going to have problems that are predictable — some of them are going to end up with abuse and dependence. And with all those pills around, how much of that actually goes to friends? Some studies have said it’s about 30 percent.”

An A.D.H.D. diagnosis often results in a family’s paying for a child’s repeated visits to doctors for assessments or prescription renewals. Taxpayers assume this cost for children covered by Medicaid, who, according to the C.D.C. data, have among the highest rates of A.D.H.D. diagnoses: 14 percent for school-age children, about one-third higher than the rest of the population.

Several doctors mentioned that advertising from the pharmaceutical industry that played off parents’ fears — showing children struggling in school or left without friends — encouraged parents and doctors to call even minor symptoms A.D.H.D. and try stimulant treatment. For example, a pamphlet for Vyvanse from its manufacturer, Shire, shows a parent looking at her son and saying, “I want to do all I can to help him succeed.”

Sales of stimulants to treat A.D.H.D. have more than doubled to $9 billion in 2012 from $4 billion in 2007, according to the health care information company IMS Health.

Criteria for the proper diagnosis of A.D.H.D., to be released next month in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, have been changed specifically to allow more adolescents and adults to qualify for a diagnosis, according to several people involved in the discussions.

The final wording has not been released, but most proposed changes would lead to higher rates of diagnosis: the requirement that symptoms appeared before age 12 rather than 7; illustrations, like repeatedly losing one’s cellphone or losing focus during paperwork, that emphasize that A.D.H.D. is not just a young child’s disorder; and the requirement that symptoms merely “impact” daily activities, rather than cause “impairment.”

An analysis of the proposed changes published in January by the Journal of Learning Disabilities concluded: “These wording changes newly diagnose individuals who display symptoms of A.D.H.D. but continue to function acceptably in their daily lives."Given that severe A.D.H.D. that goes untreated has been shown to increase a child’s risk for academic failure and substance abuse, doctors have historically focused on raising awareness of the disorder and reducing fears surrounding stimulant medication.

A leading voice has been Dr. Ned Hallowell, a child psychiatrist and author of best-selling books on the disorder. But in a recent interview, Dr. Hallowell said that the new C.D.C. data, combined with recent news reports of young people abusing stimulants, left him assessing his role.

Whereas Dr. Hallowell for years would reassure skeptical parents by telling them that Adderall and other stimulants were “safer than aspirin,” he said last week, “I regret the analogy” and he “won’t be saying that again.” And while he still thinks that many children with A.D.H.D. continue to go unrecognized and untreated, he said the high rates demonstrate how the diagnosis is being handed out too freely.

“I think now’s the time to call attention to the dangers that can be associated with making the diagnosis in a slipshod fashion,” he said. “That we have kids out there getting these drugs to use them as mental steroids — that’s dangerous, and I hate to think I have a hand in creating that problem.”
(Allison Kopicki contributed reporting.)
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My problem with ADHD is how many kids "have it." I have taken Ritalin many times, and even sold it to law students at my university FIFTY YEARS AGO. It is great for studying!

I just don't trust the "doctors," or the drug makers. The doctors make a living by prescribing it... not by not prescribing it. Just the doctor visits for the patients over a patient's lifetime of care costs a fortune... and many doctors get money from the makers of the drugs they prescribe. I wonder how many kids that show up for a dx are told they don't have any problem, and need no drugs or "treatment?" I don't like it that really young children must all be able to follow directions, and sit quietly, and pay attention, and do what they are told to do,... or they should see a doctor, who will give them pills to take, that will make them behave. Sure some kids need them, but 20% of high school boys? One in five? What if they come up with a pill that makes a student able to comprehend and do well at calculus... at nine? Any student?

The thing is that when you say that you don't think that some kids are diagnosed with it really have it because you think they are lazy, you are in fact describing them exactly as many people describe people with ADHD. Because the outward behaviors are constantly interpreted as laziness, among other things. In general people act as if someone with ADHD is deliberately choosing to be that way. Saying you think someone is lazy and thus doesn't have ADHD is complete nonsense.

As for your comment about accommodations, your perspective on that is downright wrong. It's not even debatable. Not by reasonable people.

How can you spend so much time on this forum crying about how bad you have it for being autistic and referring to autistic people as damaged people and inferior people, and then think that accommodations are "special treatment?" Do you just deny that accommodations might make things easier for you, or do you just prefer that disabled people in general do poorly academically and professionally because accommodations are "special treatment" and thus bad? Just as with the "lazy kids who are lazy and thus don't have ADHD" your argument here can barely be considered weak at best and tethered strictly in ignorance.



This isn't about doctors or pharmaceutical corporations, though. It's about people who really do have ADHD and who suffer because of it. Who drop out of high school, who can barely hold a job, who end up in prison, end up in poverty because they can't function well without treatment. All this concern trolling about how kids are being diagnosed for being normal kids is basically a pack of lies, and does literally nothing to help people who really need this stuff.

Basically, this is all about deciding who gets to have a valid medical condition and who does not, and you aren't in any better position to make that determination than DVCal.

Oh yeah, and the New York Times used the raw data from the CDC survey to come to inaccurate conclusions and make wild claims - perhaps because the editor staff and some of the writers at the NYT are as prejudiced against the diagnosis of ADHD as those of you in this thread who seem to think it's okay to do to people with ADHD what people on this forum complain about NTs doing to them. And keep in mind there are multiple posters here who are diagnosed with ADHD, who do exhibit the symptoms necessary for such a diagnosis, and that it is not much fun to see people moralizing about how ADHD is overdiagnosed or not real or that the people diagnosed with it are just lazy.

Here's a different perspective on the stats cited in the article you posted:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/806714

Since you're so skeptical because of the supposed 20% diagnosis rate of school age boys, then you should at least be aware of this bit:



I wish that people who know basically nothing about ADHD would stop talking about it and find something that they actually know something about to discuss. It's tedious to keep refuting the same claims over and over again from people who either don't educate themselves at all or only educate themselves from the most ignorant mass media writings on the topic. It's actually kind of funny how y'all will go total conspiracy theory rant about "big pharma" while uncritically believing every single f*****g word published about how ADHD is overdiagnosed. I guess that's why they call this kind of BS "cognitive bias." Your "skepticism" only goes one way, apparently

Oh yeah, and the big pharma wants to medicate as many schoolchildren as possible with stimulants conspiracy theory is also BS. The vast majority of these medications that are diagnosed to school age children are not profitable because their patents have expired and inexpensive generic brands are what is primarily sold. Big pharma wants to sell their big ticket meds:

http://curiosity.discovery.com/question ... tion-drugs

You will notice that none of these medications - the most profitable - are for ADHD.

I do not deny that it is potentially overdiagnosed. A good friend of mine is a HS teacher in a competitive school district where many kids go on to prestigious universities. He is disgusted by the number of kids who have parents who pay the right doctor to get the diagnosis so that they can artificially inflate their grades through unnecessary accommodations. My friend has ADHD. He knows the struggle it causes. And it sickens him--and me--to see people use it is a "leg up."

It is more your attestation that 80-90% of the cases are unfounded that gets me...how do you know that?

Also, the accommodations my son receives allow him to be judged by his real ability and not the constraints of his disability. His accommodations level the playing field; they do not give him an unfair advantage.

Shame on you for what you said. Really. That is such an ableist thing to say. Sad to see that members of our own community advocate so poorly for our young.

When I first began teaching more than 25 years ago, hands-on exploration, investigation, joy and love of learning characterized the early childhood classroom. I’d describe our current period as a time of testing, data collection, competition and punishment. One would be hard put these days to find joy present in classrooms.

I think it started with No Child Left Behind years ago. Over the years I’ve seen this climate of data fascination seep into our schools and slowly change the ability for educators to teach creatively and respond to children’s social and emotional needs. But this was happening in the upper grades mostly. Then it came to kindergarten and PreK, beginning a number of years ago with a literacy initiative that would have had us spending the better part of each day teaching literacy skills through various prescribed techniques. ”What about math, science, creative expression and play?” we asked. The kindergarten teachers fought back and kept this push for an overload of literacy instruction at bay for a number of years.

Next came additional mandated assessments. Four and five year olds are screened regularly each year for glaring gaps in their development that would warrant a closer look and securing additional supports (such as O.T, P.T, and Speech Therapy) quickly. Teachers were already assessing each child three times a year to understand their individual literacy development and growth. A few years ago, we were instructed to add periodic math assessments after each unit of study in math. Then last year we were told to include an additional math assessment on all Kindergarten students (which takes teachers out of the classroom with individual child testing, and intrudes on classroom teaching time.)

We were told we needed to have “Learning Objectives” for the children – posted in the classroom – for each math lesson. One list of objectives might read, “I can add two rolls of the dice together and find the sum. I can move my bear forward the correct number of spaces. I can split my number up to share hops between two bears.” Teachers are to write these objectives out, post them for children to see, and read them to the class as expectations for what they should be able to do. Many of the Kindergarten and PreK children are unable to read those goals, and are not able to understand them as goals anyway. This task is supposed to enhance learning. I experience it as enhancing pressure on children. The message is, “You are supposed to know how to do this, even if you can’t.”

We are now expected to build in more math instruction time each day, with “math blocks” to mirror our “literacy blocks.” This is kindergarten and PreK. These are 4, 5 and 6 year olds. Children this age do not learn well though blocks of single subject academics. We help them learn best when play is integrated with academics and theme-driven projects extend over time, weaving academics throughout.
Simultaneously, the literacy goals and objectives were changing as well. We found ourselves in professional development work being challenged to teach kindergartners to form persuasive arguments, and to find evidence in story texts to justify or back up a response they had to a story. What about teaching children to write and read through the joy of experiencing a story together, or writing about their lives and what is most important to them? When adults muck about too much in the process of learning to read and write, adding additional challenge and pressure too soon, many children begin to feel incompetent and frustrated. They don’t understand. They feel stupid. Joy disappears.
There is a national push, related to the push for increased academics in Early Childhood classrooms, to cut play out of the kindergarten classroom. Many kindergartens across the country no longer have sand tables, block areas, drama areas and arts and crafts centers. This is a deeply ill-informed movement, as all early childhood experts continuously report that 4, 5 and 6 year olds learn largely through play. Play is essential to healthy development and deep foundational learning at the kindergarten level. We kindergarten teachers in Cambridge have found ourselves fighting to keep play alive in the kindergarten classroom.

Last year we heard that all kindergarten teachers across the state of Massachusetts were to adopt one of a couple of in-depth comprehensive assessments to perform with each kindergarten child three times a year. This requires much training and an enormous amount of a teacher’s time to carry out for each child. Cambridge adopted the Work Sampling System, which is arguably a fine tool for assessment, but it requires a teacher to leave the classroom and focus on assessment even more, and is in addition to other assessments already being done. The negative impact of this extensive and detailed assessment system is that teachers are forced to learn yet another new and complicated tool, and are required to spend significantly less time in the classroom during the three assessment periods, as they assess, document evidence to back up their observations, and report on each child. And it distracts teachers yet again from their teaching focus, fracturing their concentration on teaching goals, projects, units of study, and the flow of their classroom curriculum.

Then we became an “RTI School.” RTI is a method of academic intervention used to provide early, systematic assistance to children who are having difficulty learning. It seeks to prevent academic failure through early intervention, frequent assessment, and increasingly intensive instructional interventions for children who continue to have difficulty. This sounds good, but it also takes teachers out of the classroom more for assessment and intervention (which can sometimes be done in the context of the classroom, but sometimes not.) Again, teachers are being called on to divert their attention to another way of looking at and assessing the needs of their children, yet actually preventing teachers from having the necessary time to build relationships, get to know their children and work to build community, safety and structures that allow a teacher to meet the learning and emotional needs of each child in their classroom.

Last year all teachers were required to participate in a statewide Teacher Assessment system that seeks to have each teacher document the evidence that they are performing according to teaching standards laid out by the state. We were given minimal training on how to maneuver within and negotiate through the new software, and were directed to develop SMART Goals for ourselves. We needed to start documenting our success in moving toward and accomplishing our goals. To document our success, we are required to upload many photos providing “evidence” that we are qualified and effective teachers.
Now, I believe there needs to be a system of accountability for teachers and administrators, but I have seen no evidence that this method (though it takes an enormous amount of teachers’ time to fulfill the requirements) would actually show anything about the quality of a teacher’s work within the classroom and with the children. I remember one Sunday evening when I received an email from the principal of my school letting me know that I was missing one particular document from my assessment site. The missing document was a photo of a math assessment recording sheet that I had somehow failed to post. If I could post it by 9 a.m. the following morning, I would recieve “exemplary teacher” status. If I did not, I would get a label of “needs improvement.” I remember at that moment thinking, “Seriously? It has come down to this sort of nonsense?”

Also, last year, all teachers in the state of Massachusetts were informed that over the next few years, everyone would need to take a 45-hour training in English Language Learner education strategies. It is called the Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) Training and is coupled with the RETELL Training. It is being mandated by the Justice Department and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. I was in the first mandated training group in Cambridge last spring. We were required to meet starting 15 minutes directly after school ended every Thursday for 3 hours from February to June.

Our instructor delivered a three-hour Power Point presentation in each class. If we were late we were docked points for each 5 minutes. Additionally, there were weekend online courses we had to take, including readings and course work that sometimes took five to seven hours. At the end of the course, we were required to hand in four capstone projects and to pass the course. License renewal is now contingent on having this SEI Endorsement. Since this course was requiring so much time outside of our jobs, we petitioned to use some of our paid work time to complete some of the requirements. This, of course, took us away from our work with the children in the classroom, so it was not an easy thing to ask for. We were given no compensation for the amount of time spent in this course. Many teachers continue to undergo this training – which is so poorly put together that most teachers I know feel it is almost a complete waste of time, though the subject matter is important.
Kindergarten teachers have, this year, just found out that they will be required to administer a Kindergarten Entrance Assessment to each new incoming kindergarten student two times a year. This is another extremely time-consuming assessment, and is in addition to the other assessment tools previously mentioned. Teachers will need to perform this assessment at the very beginning of each year, and then again mid-year. This is for the purpose of early identification of learning issues that might be addressed immediately in kindergarten. It will require another substantial amount of a teacher’s time and focus to learn how to use the tool, and to actually administer it.

This school year, the Cambridge Public Schools Math Department announced that the math curriculum that had been used for years, with extensive training and professional development for teachers, is being replaced by a new math curriculum that is being toted as “more aligned with the Common Core.” This new math curriculum, called Singapore Math, is being brought into the system now, and the old TERC Investigations curriculum is being discarded. This is at a huge expense, and will require many hours of additional teacher time for training. Singapore Math is widely contested, with many having doubts about whether it is an improvement over the TERC curriculum. As with Common Core, there is little clear evidence of its worth and quality, and seems like another shot-in-the-dark effort to improve education. Who is making a lot of money from all these product sales? That is an important question.

All the above-mentioned initiatives and mandates have had the obvious effect of removing teachers from their classrooms for significant amounts of time and fracturing their concentration and ability to teach. There were many days last year when I felt I had hardly spent any time in the classroom. It was my assistant teacher with whom the children were more familiar. She was more in the role of classroom teacher. I was more in the role of data collector.
The negative impact of all of this on a classroom of young children (or children of any age) is substantial, and obvious to many classroom teachers. Teachers everywhere are seeing an increase in behavior problems that make classrooms and schools feel less safe, and learning less able to take place. Children are screaming out for help. They are under too much pressure and it is just no longer possible to meet the social and emotional needs of our youngest children. They are suffering because of this.

I have needed to schedule more SST (Student Support Team) meetings, to get help and support in addressing extreme behaviors in my 4, 5 and 6 year olds. Behaviors I frequently witnessed included tantrums, screaming obscenities, throwing objects, flailing, self-injury, and sadness and listlessness. Many of these behaviors, I believe, are at least in part due to the inappropriate and ill-informed pressures and expectations on our young children in our schools.
The overall effect of these federal and state sponsored programs is the corrosion of teacher moral, the demeaning of teacher authority, a move away from collaborating with teachers, and the creation of an overwhelming and developmentally inappropriate burden imposed on our children.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2ws60YvIG
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I think in order to go to school these days everyone involved may need to take drugs that make one sit quietly and pay attention.

Tall-P, I am in agreement with the basics of your post. And I can imagine it is extremely disheartening for a teacher to be unable to teach because of all of the requirements to not teach, but yet achieve better classroom results. And I do wonder if the increasing pressures on our young students lead to behaviors that might end up labeled as ASD or ADHD.

But the truth is, I don't know if they do. Academics are much more structured and rigorous in many Asian cultures, yet I do not know if ADHD-type symptoms are prevalent at a higher rate in those same communities, for example.

But I do know that my son's difficulties would be the same no matter what kind of learning environment he was in. Because his challenges do not arise from an external source. They arise from the way he processes things. I know this, because I see me in him. And I know how my brain works, and how it doesn't.

Discussions like this can be so polarizing. It often starts with someone having legitimate questions or concerns, and then, as is true for many "debatable" topics, it starts to shape shift into an all-or-none argument. It goes from being "is our educational system setting kids up to failure" to "80-90% of people with ADHD are lazy fakers who are taking advantage of unnecessary accommodations to make it look like they have greater abilities than they actually have."

Initially I found the title of this thread offensive, but discussing ADHD in this manner is productive.Thank you to the knowledgeable advocates in this thread, for sharing your information, your foresight, your self discipline and your open minded enquiry. It lifted my spirit to read your words and for me, balances out the prejudice I felt when I read the other responses.
ADHD is very real. From what I've read on other threads I think there is a fear in this community that ASDs will become undermined by society in the same manner. That it will be used as an 'excuse' in courtrooms, that ASDs will be further stigmatised in the media, that vulnerable people will be victims of further 'justifiable' discrimination. That society will 'throw them under the bus'. All invisible differences will suffer this fate while ignorance prevails.

Its most unfortunate to see non typical individuals propagate the invalidity of anothers non typicality. Yes mis diagnosis will happen, it will always happen in the medical field. But, what can be learned from the ADHD fiasco before history repeats itself? Realistically what can a community do to minimise this (IMO) inevitable damage to yet another invisible disability?

Just to be fair, I'm not aware of anyone actually validating the claim that ADHD is massively overdiagnosed, even though it's a popular belief. Some of it is related to the way the CDC surveys families and asks about ADHD diagnoses - specifically, parents tend to overreport.

The one study I know of that actually demonstrated a possibility of overdiagnosis was actually the result of one of the researchers asking families one question, but then in the final paper changing the wording of that question to something more damning - said researcher was ultimately discredited for this.

Anyway, the only fiasco I know of is the persistent belief that ADHD is so massively overdiagnosed and the sheer number of rationalizations as to what ADHD diagnosis supposedly really means. We have everyone from inflammatory conservative talk radio types to the Church of Scientology, to everyone deciding they're suddenly an expert in neurodevelopmental disorders and declaring whether other people's diagnoses are accurate or not despite having no education or experience in this field.

But I think a lot of it has been focused propagandizing by the Church of Scientology. Websites like ritalindeath are their work.

The issue with accommodations is more than debatable, given the fact that medical and law schools agree with my position, which is why they flag the scores of students with accommodations on the LSAT and MCAT, view them not to be as equal.

Well, you don't want to get me going but let's just say I've had to educated more than one "expert" on Autism. I find the more specialized someone is that bigger their blind spot is. School records aren't written by God himself: I was always called quiet, shy and needs to talk more by my teachers but one pediatrician wrote that I was a "class clown" who "always had to have attention". Imagine that: the bullied, quiet kid is a "class clown" He might as well have said I was a serial killer!

I'm not even going to bother reply to the rest because you clearly missed my point entirely and comparing me to a lunatic like Michael Savage is too absurd for words.


I never said it was, I was just saying that my only problem in school was that I was so restless from sitting around all day and I would likely be tagged ADHD because of it. I know a guy who has a kid in elementary school and I think there are 8 kids in one class on Ritalin. Again, I maintain that it's the rigid structure of classrooms that causes perfectly normal students to behave like someone with ADHD.

What do you think is the rate of misdiagnosis of ADHD amongst schoolage children? Not 80-90%, but 10%, 20%? I have heard parents say that kids just can't sit still in the classroom for so many hours a day, and some of these kids have been diagnosed with ADHD, and that makes sense to me, as I can't sit still for an hour in group meeting, and there is about to be a 1.5 hour group meeting in 45 minutes.

It seems like it might be harder to diagnose ADHD (tell apart from range of normal childhood behaviors) than ASD, since ASD has abnormalities in two separate domains, the social and the rrb, that clearly distinguish from normal.

One study found that ADHD may be overdiagnosed in young children who are the younger than the other children in their class (for example kindergarteners who are 5 while most of the class is 6) because they are less mature and have a hard time keeping up with their peers. They are more likely to be singled out as having problems and diagnosed with ADHD. The rate of misdiagnosis in those children was found to be around 20%.

Other than that, numerous studies have shown that ADHD is more likely to be underdiagnosed, especially in females, blacks, Hispanics, children from low income families, and adults in general.

ADHD is a developmental delay in self-regulation. The average rate of delay is about 30%, in other words a 10 year old child with ADHD has the self-regulation of a 7 year old. That child might have behaviors that are normal for a 7 year old, and are not necessarily abnormal for a 10 year old, but the problem is in being unable to regulate those behaviors at a level that would be appropriate for a 10 year old.