The only problem is that for so many parents of truly unusual and eccentric children, it was like trying to squeeze a size nine foot into a size four shoe. In the ambiguous and ever-shifting arena of childhood disruptive disorders, it was comforting for parents, pediatricians, child psychiatrists, (and Borders Books) to have an entity whose descriptors in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), were so numerous (22 at last count), declarative, and seemingly precise. In the 1990s its popularity surged dramatically, with the publication of several teacher/parent scales, computerized Continuous Process Test office programs, media publicity, and a prodigious ad campaign by the manufacturers of psychostimulants. It is not too surprising that so many children are first diagnosed with ADHD, (occasionally preceded by the apologetic “atypical”) several years before they circle and land on the Asperger’s tarmac.įor the clinician, ADHD has been a well-known, well-described entity for decades. Of the rash of childhood emotional disorders, ADHD is probably the most ubiquitous, spreading over perhaps as many as six to seven percent of our children that is somewhere around 60-80 times the prevalence now commonly ascribed to Asperger’s Syndrome. If we only had such a lens, one of the first places we would direct our attention would be at the muddy territory shared by Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). And psychiatry would be immeasurably less complicated if we had a “scientific instrument” like an MRI, X-ray or blood test which accurately and consistently assigned people into one or another diagnosis. It would be much easier for all of us if psychiatric diagnoses fell neatly into one category.
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