ADD: Does It Really Exist?.
1996; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 77; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1940-6487
Autores Tópico(s)Children's Physical and Motor Development
ResumoMr. Armstrong questions the methods used to diagnose attention deficit disorder, the usefulness of a perspective that focuses on disability rather than potential, and the very existence of the in the first place. SEVERAL YEARS ago worked for an organization that assisted teachers in using the arts in their classrooms. We were located in a large warehouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and several children from the surrounding lower-working-class neighborhood volunteered to help with routine jobs. recall one child, Eddie, a 9-year-old African American youngster possessed of great vitality and energy, who was particularly valuable in helping out with many tasks. These jobs included going around the city with an adult supervisor, finding recycled materials that could be used by teachers in developing arts programs, and then organizing them and even field-testing them back at the headquarters. In the context of this arts organization, Eddie was a definite asset. A few months after this experience, became involved in a special program through Lesley College in Cambridge, where was getting my master's degree in special education. This project involved studying special education programs designed to help students who were having problems learning or behaving in regular classrooms in several Boston-area school districts. During one visit to a Cambridge resource room, unexpectedly ran into Eddie. Eddie was a real problem in this classroom. He couldn't stay in his seat, wandered around the room, talked out of turn, and basically made the teacher's life miserable. Eddie seemed like a fish out of water. In the context of this school's special education program, Eddie was anything but an asset. In retrospect, he appeared to fit the definition of a child with attention deficit (ADD).(1) Over the past 15 years, ADD has grown from a malady known only to a few cognitive researchers and special educators into a national phenomenon. Books on the subject have flooded the marketplace, as have special assessments, learning programs, residential schools, parent advocacy groups, clinical services, and medications to treat the disorder (The production of Ritalin or methylphenidate hydrochloride--the most common medication used to treat ADD--has increased 450% in the past four years, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.(2)) The has solid support as a discrete medical problem from the Department of Education, the American Psychiatric Association, and many other agencies. I'm troubled by the speed with which both the public and the professional community have embraced ADD. Thinking back to my experience with Eddie and the disparity that existed between Eddie in the arts organization and Eddie in the special education classroom, wonder whether this disorder really exists in the child at all, or whether, more properly, it exists in the relationships that are present between the child and his or her environment. Unlike other medical disorders, such as diabetes or pneumonia, this is a that pops up in one setting only to disappear in another. A physician mother of a child labeled ADD wrote to me not long ago about her frustration with this protean diagnosis: I began pointing out to people that my child is capable of long periods of concentration when he is watching his favorite sci-fi video or examining the inner workings of a pin-tumbler lock. notice that the next year's definition states that some kids with ADD are capable of normal attention in certain specific circumstances. Poof. A few thousand more kids instantly fall into the definition. There is in fact substantial evidence to suggest that children labeled ADD do not show symptoms of this in several different real-life contexts. First, up to 80% of them don't appear to be ADD when in the physician's office.(3) They also seem to behave normally in other unfamiliar settings where there is a one-to-one interaction with an adult (and this is especially true when the adult happens to be their father). …
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