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[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

Howdy,

Hope everyone had a pleasant holiday. Got a couple more things from the
last issue up:

Attention Deficit Disordered: An Anthropologist Studying ADHD Reaches Some
Surprising Conclusions (see below)
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/17/ADHD_interview.html

A _Real_ ADHD Screening Test
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/17/screeningtest.html

[ more later ]



Wanna help out Stay Free?

For the next issue (a "history" issue), I'm trying to get my hands on some
old textbooks. If you or someone you know has any history or advertising
textbooks that you would care to donate, please let me know:
carrie@stayfreemagazine (PO Box 306 Prince St. Station, New York NY 10012).

- - - - - - - -

Attention Deficit Disordered
An Anthropologist Studying ADHD Reaches Some Surprising Conclusions
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/17/ADHD_interview.html

The number of people diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD) has skyrocketed over the past few years. While
psychologists and educators scramble to figure out what's behind this
seeming epidemic, one thing is clear: America is on a lot of speed.

Nowhere in the world are more kids popping pills for ADHD than here in the
U. S. of A. According to Dr. Lawrence H. Diller, author of Running on
Ritalin, we consume 80 percent of the world's stimulants such as
Ritalin-ten times more than Europe and industrialized Asia. So either
American kids are more hyper and badly behaved than everyone else or
something is amiss in the way ADHD is diagnosed.

 
Ken Jacobson, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of
Massachusetts, says it's the latter. Jacobson conducted a cross-cultural
study comparing kids in the United States and Britain. Jacobson found that
kids in both countries were equal in displaying ADHD behaviors (fidgeting,
blurting out, etc.). What's more, there was no significant difference
between kids diagnosed as ADHD and those considered normal. Jacobson's
results-which, incidentally, used techniques typically applied to
apes-suggest an inevitable conclusion: All kids have ADHD. | Carrie McLaren

GRAPHIC: A 1967 ad for Ritalin (before the discovery of ADHD), when the
drug was said to treat "tired mother syndrome."

Stay Free: Tell me about your study. What did you find, in a nutshell?

Ken Jacobson: Well, say you're at a meeting. If you randomly selected one
person and studied them, half the time they wouldn't be paying attention.
That's pretty much what my study found with kids. Since the normal, natural
condition for childhood looks a lot like ADHD, it's really easy to find
ADHD wherever you want to. Now, because everyone exhibits this attention
deficit behavior some of the time, the psychological fraternity argues that
some of the people are more distractable, more hyperactive, more of the
time. My study doesn't show that. I saw children who are doing well
academically, who showed ADHD-like behaviors . . .

Stay Free: But if they're getting good grades it doesn't count as ADHD.

Jacobson: Right. Which is why after the DSM-IV lists all the symptoms for
ADHD (see next page), it adds that there has to be significant impairment
in work or academics. ADHD behaviors do not necessarily cause problems.
Inattention itself means nothing.

Stay Free: You would expect that if someone had ADHD, it would show up in
everything they did. Like if someone is unable to learn grammar, it shows
up in the way they speak, the way they read and write. And it would show up
not only in schoolwork but in play. But that's not the case with ADHD. I
read about one study of kids who had been diagnosed with severe ADHD yet if
were offered money, they could do the task. Some of them can also play
video games for hours on end.

Jacobson: The tasks we're asking kids to perform are politically defined.
Standardized tests are what experts decide they need to know. Kids are only
considered ADHD when they don't measure up to those tasks. Another thing my
study showed is that girls exhibit ADHD behaviors just as much as boys, but
boys are much more likely to be labeled.

Stay Free: How are things different in England?

Jacobson: In England there's a category called Emotion Behavioral
Difficulties-notice it's "difficulties" and not "disorders." EBD kids
include Oppositional Defiant Disorder (which is basically telling authority
where to go) and Conduct Disorder (anything from stealing a pencil to grand
theft auto). These EBD kids may exhibit ADHD behaviors, but it's the fact
that they're running around the neighborhood killing pets or defecating in
the classroom that is the problem. So in England they handle that with
behavioral modification programs, not drugs. . . . Americans are more
likely to consider ADHD behaviors genetic. There may be predispositions in
the brain, it's true. But I've got a degree in neuroscience and I think
most neuroscientists would agree with me that the environment predisposes
the brain.

Stay Free: Why do psychiatrists say Ritalin is so much more effective than
behavioral modification?

Jacobson: It's a great American myth. I mean Ritalin is speed. It was used
during WWII by the Army for soldiers who had to stay awake to fight... In
England they don't label kids as much. Schools have a looser definition of
"normal." Of course, they also use more draconian practices on everyone. If
kids get too far out of line, they give up on them. They don't expect
everyone to go to college, whereas in this country expectations are higher.
Janie might not be learning because there's so much pressure on her to
succeed.

Stay Free: Kids worry about standardized tests at a younger age. When I
took standardized tests in 4th grade I had no idea what they were, I just
filled in the bubbles. Now it's "this determines your life for the next
three years."

Jacobson: It may be that extreme stress sets up architecture in the brain
that makes it difficult to focus. I could see that. That coincides with
what we know about the stress response in mammalian brains.

Stay Free: Are you familiar with Jane Healy? She writes about the effects
of television and computers.

Jacobson: I don't buy the idea that anything is different today. You can go
back to the 1900s and find descriptions of ADHD kids . . .

Stay Free: She's not necessarily saying kids are biologically different,
but that their environment has changed. There is less reading, for
instance, and more electronic media.

Jacobson: My research doesn't show that. These kids do read. I tried to do
television surveys, they don't even fill them out.

Stay Free: Have you gotten any feedback from any of the ADHD experts?

Jacobson: No, and I'm not hoping to get in a debate with the ADHD
establishment. What concerns me are simply the real reasons kids don't
learn.