Doctor: No Such Thing as ADHD

The New American ^ | 18 March 2014 | Selwyn Duke

[Paladins Prayer]

The child would daydream in class, his elementary-school teachers said. He often just didn’t pay attention the way they would have liked. This was before the age of prevalent ADHD diagnoses and Ritalin, so no remedy was at hand, either. If one had been, though, who knows what he might have been?

Perhaps not co-valedictorian of his school — which he was.

I was that child. And were I attending school today and especially if my behavior had been worse, it’s likely I’d have received that fashionable diagnosis. And why not? It seems everyone now could have ADHD.

This point is made by Dr. Richard Saul, who has been practicing behavioral neurology for 50 years and is the author of the new book ADHD Does Not Exist. In a March 14 Time piece he writes:

[freedomlover]

ROFLOL

[papertyger]

A sane person says ADD is occasionally over-diagnosed. A complete blithering idiot, blowhard know-nothing says ADD is fake.

I think my point is made.

"Now we're just haggling price."

[fso301]

I suspect the rise in ADHD has a lot to do with increasingly chaotic home environments stemming from single parent and two working parent households.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Shyness can happen for a lot of reasons. There is no one size fits all answer. Directing copious anger at a sensitive youngster will not remove the sensitivity — it will probably only turn the sensitivity to things that are unwholesome, producing a handicapped state of affairs which may only be remedied much later in a private relationship with he Lord.

[freedomlover]

I thought exactly what you thought for 50 years. Changed my mind via experience the last 4.

It may be overdiagnosed, but IMHO it is there.

BTW what do you think of autism?

[Jaded]

mark

[HiTech RedNeck]

You cannot get blasphemy in the conclusion unless blasphemy was in your premises.

[Constitution Day]

Dang...I don’t even want to speculate on that! LOL!

[HiTech RedNeck]

Why have we verbed the noun “parent”?

“Bringing up” (or training up) was the old terminology. And better. Because it reminded of the direction in which the action should lead. UP. Not DOWN.

[mykroar]

Yep. When my nephew moved back to live with my brother - the school was actually disappointed he wasn’t going to need any learning disability classes or low-cost lunches.

[mykroar]

Interesting. I don't recall that in my statement. Apparently, however, you consider it no answer.

[mdmathis6]

We only hear about the Asian success stories. We don’t hear too much about their misfits...their media does a good job at hiding what they do with their problem children. American media blabs on about everything horrible with our education system. If we just measured middle class whites and Asian kids and compared them with the test scores with the rest of the world , we would score with the highest in the world.

[utahagen]

Thank you for posting this. My son has been diagnosed as ADHD and his life has been turned around by the right medicating. While I believe that ADHD simply describes a certain physiological type, the fact is that there are children (like my son) who are wired to be “in overdrive”. I have no problem with spanking, but posters who assert that all hyperactive kids need is a good spanking are ignorant. My highly intelligent boy at age six once away from me and ran across a NYC street against the light. Miraculously, he wasn't hit by a car. When he realized what he had done, he cried, “What's wrong with me?!” Posters who think all my son needed was a wallop are, well, jerks. Putting him on small doses of Ritalin has made him a much happier boy who is no longer a danger to himself.

Is ADHD over-diagnosed? I'll bet it is, just as autism is over-diagnosed. But to posit that the parents of every child so diagnosed “hate” their children is insulting and just plain stupid.

[papertyger]

Why have we verbed the noun “parent”?

Because it's neutral, and claiming to "raise up" a child prior to judging the evidence is rank vanity.

[LeonardFMason]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

[LeonardFMason]

Bi-Polar is bigger than ADHD in explaining ANYTHING and EVERYTHING wrong with folks.

[papertyger]

Demeaning those who question the validity of a syndrome like ADHD as “just needing a wallop” is self-serving, and obtuse.

So are you a Mom with a full time job?

[Albion Wilde]

In the olden days they were simply called smart-mouthed rotten brats and a few spankings set them straight.

Some of them were kids with very high IQs who were bored out of their minds waiting for the rest of the class to "get it." Some creative teachers back in the day knew the concept of "extra credit" and put such kids' spare time to good use.

[wyowolf]

Amen!!

[papertyger]

Bi-Polar is bigger than ADHD in explaining ANYTHING and EVERYTHING wrong with folks.

It does provide a remarkably convenient way of selectively avoiding responsibility for ones actions.