I don’t get what scientifically separates ADHD from just being less cognitively capable in general or in other ways. Why is it a “special case” such that it has to be treated as a medical condition that requires drugs and special accommodations? I remember when we had AP tests in high school, kids with ADHD diagnosis were given unlimited time, and that felt wrong. The unique classification of ADHD feels to me like a product of America’s unique crossover between societal culture, economics, and medicine rather than something principled. But I am willing to hear a good explanation that changes my perspective.
Given the knee jerk reaction caused by my initial comment, I'm going to propose everyone to wait for 10 years until the rampant overprescriptions of these drugs become clearly in the eye of everyone, the new opioid epidemic.
In the meantime, I'll add ADHD to the list of uniquely american things (alongside circumcision and tipping), even tho I am sure that there are at least more than 0 people in every other country in the world who heard about ADHD before (so impressed by your rhetorical skills guys, merry xmas1).
Describing ADHD as “just less cognitively capable” is harmful as you could confuse knowing things and doing things. People with ADHD often struggle with doing things (starting, switching or sustaining focus on a task), but do struggle with knowing things. It’s a performance disability not an intellectual one.
Look up how stimulants affect an ADHD brain, it’s different to a brain without the disorder. In an ADHD brain neurotransmitters like dopamine are less available and removed quicker. Stimulants often act in ways to enable more dopamine to be around.
An analogy here is imagine having 70% packet loss on your internet connection. Try doing your job with that. You need to make a number of adjustments and accomodations to succeed. Well, when you add in stimulants that packet loss drops significantly to say >10%. I experienced this happen in real time when I started taking medication, and this is backed up by Dr Russel Barkley one of the leading experts in this area.
In a brain without ADHD (or a neurotypical brain) there’s no missing dopamine. So taking stimulants still increases the amount of available dopamine, but now there’s way to much. Norepinephrine is also increased with most stimulants to.
There’s real pharmacological evidence to back treating ADHD with medication. It’s well known to be one of the most successful medical treatments in psychiatry.
Giving kids with ADHD extra time or unlimited time is a reasonable accomodation if you want to test if that kid _knows_ the material. If you want to test if they can do it in the time frame, that’s a different test.
ADHD is not a uniquely American thing. Though there’s decades of stigma and loads of research to still be done. Right now we have treatments that work, and a decent understanding of ways to accommodate people with ADHD.
Medication is temporary, and helps correct for a lack of naturally occurring neurotransmitters. (Though I believe it’s more because our brains reuptake them too fast?)
It’s a bit of a shame the medication is a party drug for nuerotypical people, because I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if it wasn’t.
I’ll finish by adding that I think ADHD is horrifically named. The name alone contributed to me not looking into it seriously enough which delayed my diagnosis by at least a decade. The disorder really is more a challenge with executive functioning and the ability to deploy attention where needed. Like many other conditions it’s described by how it affects others, not how it affects those with it. It’s like saying someone who just broke their arm has a problem regulating their volume. Technical correct, but so far off base its harmful.
For me medication has had a profound positive impact on my life. Like getting glasses, but orders of magnitude more.
