This text briefly covers the potential misdiagnosis of children with ADHD. Hopefully this work may incite professional researchers to consider the implications of misdiagnosis, both socially and economically.
Contents
1. Rising Diagnosis and Treatment
2. Awareness and Diagnostic Judgments
3. Alternative Explanations and Misdiagnosis
4. Individuality and Overcorrection
Objectives and Themes
This essay examines why ADHD diagnoses among American children have increased, asking how treatment practices, public awareness and diagnostic judgments may contribute to that trend. It considers alternative explanations and argues that overdiagnosis is an important concern.
- Changes in ADHD treatment and medication use
- Awareness among doctors, parents and teachers
- Subjectivity in interpreting behavioral symptoms
- Population growth and family circumstances as alternative explanations
- Age, maturity and potential misdiagnosis
- Individuality and the labeling of children
Excerpt from the Book
The Increasing Trend of ADHD Diagnosis
As doctors began to prescribe medication more often, due to increased ease in treatment, public observation of the disorder grew. Research compiled by David S. Mandell, Sc.D., William W. Thompson, Ph.D., Eric S. Weintraub, M.P.H., Frank DeStefano, M.D., M.P.H. and Michael B. Blank, Ph.D. explains, “Increased rates of diagnosis of all disorders over time suggest increased ascertainment, perhaps due to increased awareness of disorders or changing practice patterns.” These doctors use statistical evidence of hospital visits to not only prove the increase in ADHD patient visits exists, but they also use this evidence to explain why widespread diagnosis increases throughout the country. If hospitals in many different areas of America all see growing rates of ADHD patient visits, a driving force must propel this increase.
This increase is driven by awareness not only from doctors but from parents and teachers searching for children who appear to be afflicted with the disorder. A national ADHD week is organized September 13th -17th and the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry helps to provide facts about the disorder. As more parents recognize the growing problem of attention deficiency, they also recognize the need to correct said problem. Ironically, it is the over activity of adults in their examination that causes the search for afflicted children to shift from looking for a needle in a haystack to an incredulous examination of every individual who does not conform exactly how society wants him or her to. Behavioral problems associated with ADHD are more noticeable because adults search for these problems with closer detail -- to a point where scientific definition of ADHD is not met, yet adults still find sickness. Parents decide to seek out treatment rather than wait to find out, and in this way, children who are over examined, who may not have ADHD, are then examined by a doctor who uses relative terms to determine sickness.
This leads to a subjective determination of the symptoms for ADHD. Some common symptoms for the inattentive type are disorganization, distracted nature, or forgetfulness; on the other end, the hyper type is fidgety, talks too much, and is always on the go. Yet all of these symptoms resemble guidelines rather than concrete evidence for sickness. How does one appropriately define the degree of a lack in organization that warrants a classification of “disorganized?” “Always on the go” is also a phrase that lacks any quantitative value, any property that remains exactly the same to anyone diagnosing a child. Some doctors may find a child to be fidgety while other doctors may find the same child to have a nervous twitch, unrelated to ADHD. Misdiagnosis of ADHD is easily caused due to a failure in achieving an exact definition for one afflicted with the disorder.
Section Summaries
1. Rising Diagnosis and Treatment: The essay introduces the increase in ADHD diagnoses and considers the historical expansion of drug-based treatment, particularly the use of Ritalin.
2. Awareness and Diagnostic Judgments: The author discusses public awareness and the roles of parents, teachers and doctors, then questions how behavioral symptoms are interpreted.
3. Alternative Explanations and Misdiagnosis: The discussion considers population growth, family circumstances, overlapping conditions and children’s relative maturity when examining possible reasons for diagnostic trends.
4. Individuality and Overcorrection: The essay closes by connecting diagnostic labeling to a broader argument about individuality and social expectations.
Keywords
ADHD diagnosis, children, overdiagnosis, misdiagnosis, stimulant medication, Ritalin, public awareness, behavioral symptoms, diagnostic subjectivity, child development, population growth, individuality
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the essay about?
It examines the increasing diagnosis of ADHD among American children and possible explanations for that trend.
What are its central themes?
The essay addresses medication, public awareness, diagnostic judgments, possible misdiagnosis and attitudes toward children’s behavior.
What question does the author investigate?
The author asks what factors may account for rising ADHD diagnoses and whether some children may be diagnosed unnecessarily.
What method does the author use?
The essay develops an argument using published studies, reported statistics and commentary from medical and other sources.
What does the main discussion cover?
It considers treatment practices, awareness, symptom descriptions, alternative explanations for increasing diagnoses and the role of age and maturity.
Which keywords characterize the work?
Key terms include ADHD diagnosis, overdiagnosis, medication, diagnostic subjectivity, public awareness and child development.
How does the essay discuss Ritalin?
It considers the growth of Ritalin use alongside other approaches to treating children diagnosed with ADHD.
Why does the author discuss children’s age?
The essay refers to research suggesting that relative immaturity may affect how some children’s behavior is interpreted in relation to ADHD.
- Quote paper
- Alex Burnham (Author), 2010, The Increasing Trend of ADHD Diagnosis, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/177057
