ADHD: Fact or Fiction

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD for short, is a condition in which the diagnosed may seem restless, easily distracted, and may have difficulty focusing on what appears to be a fairly easy task (Gale 2010). The disorder is most commonly found in young children and studies have shown that young boys, between the ages of four and fourteen, are three times more likely to be diagnosed with the disorder than girls in the same age range (CDC 2013). Over the past twenty-five years, ADHD has been increasingly diagnosed to the point where medication and treatment is recommended (Gale 2010). However, many doctors argue that the symptoms of this disorder mirror a rather normal child behavior that has become more and more labeled as socially unacceptable (Gale 2010). ADHD may be among the most commonly diagnosed disorder among children today, but it is also one of the most misunderstood. Neurologist Fred Baughman, alongside with Peter Breggin, M.D., went before the U.S. Supreme Court claiming that, “ADHD is a total, 100% fraud,” and that “We have got to stop putting children on drugs.” (Parental Intelligence). This may be because the disorder is commonly diagnosed by observing its symptoms rather than by a specific cause. Many believe that these symptoms used to diagnose ADHD are not too far off from any other child’s daily behavior, such as fidgeting, daydreaming, and the inability to focus. However, because these behaviors are seen as disruptive in social settings such as classrooms, they have now been labeled as abnormal and symptoms of a disorder such as ADHD. On the opposite side of the spectrum, researchers have found that variation of a dopamine receptor gene may be the cause of the behavioral disorder (ABC News 2013). “If you have a certain variant of this gene, you have a greatly increased risk of having ADHD,” stated Dr. Philip Shaw, a lead researcher in the Cild Psychiatry Branch at the U.S. Nation Institute of Mental Health. “what we