Status As A Disorder
The controversy surrounding ADHD involves clinicians, scientists, teachers, policymakers, parents and the media with opinions regarding ADHD ranging from those who do not believe it exists to those who believe that there are genetic and physiological bases for the condition. While the existence of ADHD is generally accepted, controversy exists over the high rates of diagnosis in children and adolescents, the treatment of individuals with ADHD medically, educationally as well as legally and whether treatment should continue into adulthood. The controversies around ADHD have been on-going at least since the 1970s. In the most accepted authority on clinical diagnoses of psychological behavior, the DSM-IV, ADHD is included as a genuine disorder while significant controversy surrounds how it is diagnosed and treated.
Researchers from McMaster University identified five features of ADHD that contribute to its controversial nature:
- It is a clinical diagnosis for which there are no laboratory or radiological confirmatory tests or specific physical features.
- Diagnostic criteria have changed frequently.
- There is no curative treatment, so long-term therapies are required.
- Therapy often includes stimulant drugs that are thought to have abuse potential.
- The rates of diagnosis and of treatment substantially differ across countries.
Read more about this topic: Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Controversies
Famous quotes containing the words status as a, status and/or disorder:
“As a work of art it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks.”
—Clive James (b. 1939)
“What is clear is that Christianity directed increased attention to childhood. For the first time in history it seemed important to decide what the moral status of children was. In the midst of this sometimes excessive concern, a new sympathy for children was promoted. Sometimes this meant criticizing adults. . . . So far as parents were put on the defensive in this way, the beginning of the Christian era marks a revolution in the child’s status.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“In a town-meeting, the great secret of political science was uncovered, and the problem solved, how to give every individual his fair weight in the government, without any disorder from numbers. In a town-meeting, the roots of society were reached. Here the rich gave counsel, but the poor also; and moreover, the just and the unjust.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)