I'll offer up a partially dissenting opinion. I agree there is major
overdiagnosis, but I don't disagree with the diagnosis. Attention deficit is a personality
trait, like many others. Taken to an extreme it
is a disorder, but I think educators and psychiatrists have drawn that line in the wrong place.
I'm writing from anecdotal experience, as someone who was diagnosed as an adult with ADD, and for whom medication was extremely helpful. The diagnosis also explained a lot of the frustrations I experienced as a student (all the way back to kindergarten). Now, I was a top student and my highschool valedictorian, but I never (repeat: NEVER) was able to make myself do homework. I got away with it by completing assignment the same day in the class before they were due. In college, where I was finally challenged, I constantly struggled to turn in work on time, even though I would spend hours locked away trying to force myself to work. I would sleep through any lecture format classes, even if I wasn't tired. And still I did well enough to get away with it. It wasn't until I was working as a management consultant that I was finally loaded up with so much work that I couldn't "get away with it," and I finally talked to a counselor about my challenges with procrastination and inattention. I was diagnosed ADD, and I read everything I could find about it. It crystallized several things I kind of already knew about myself but not well enough to act on:
- I needed to work in team environments, not on my own
- I needed urgency and some degree of stress to force myself to focus
- I needed finite, short term deadlines with accountability
- I needed regular exercise and a diet low in simple sugars
I also tried several prescriptions and I found one that worked well for me. I only take it when I find myself spiraling into really catastrophic procrastination, which for me is one pill every couple of months. But it does help, and it doesn't numb me or change who I am. I have met many other adults who share these personality traits and several to a more extreme degree - medication has also helped some of them. It does have a place.
I think that we (schools, parents, counselors) need to try MUCH harder to address ADD/ADHD with structure (NOT discipline... two different things, and folks thinking the kids "just need discipline" don't know what they're dealing with), physical and creative outlets, more tailored learning formats (i.e. teams), diet and hands-on parenting (training and habit-forming), before the meds come out. Just recognizing the personality trait is a critical part of it. Had someone just diagnosed me early on, I could have gotten much more from my education (college, especially) even without medication. There's a great
TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson that shares the anecdote of a little girl who was horribly, hopelessly disruptive and distracted until she was properly "diagnosed" that she was a dancer... she went on to a prominent career as a ballerina and choreographer.
There is a place for the meds - I just wish they were viewed whenever possible as a temporary measure rather than a long term solution.
