I am not a Doctor and I am surely not qualified to diagnose any medical condition. I am an educator who has spent thirty two years in the field of education and has worked with students with all types of learning and behavioral problems. I have watched as educators have struggled to work with students who are disrespectful, irresponsible, non-compliant and at times violent. I have watched as school administrators, teachers, and even superintendents have become intimidated by parents who constantly argue to justify their child's unseemly behavior.

Many years ago if a child exhibited unacceptable behavior in school and that was outside the norm of what was considered acceptable he was stigmatized as a behavior problem and was subject to severe disciplinary action that could have resulted in being sent to another school in another town, or possible be expelled from school.. Older students who were sixteen or seventeen years old were forced to sign out of school and go to night school, join the service, or even take a test in order to receive a GED.

What does a school or a society do when there are so many of these students that we don't know what to do with them? What do we do when the inmates start to run the asylum? Many years ago if one person burned the American Flag they were thrown in jail. What does a society do if five thousand people burn the flag and the jails aren't big enough to hold them? You create a law that says that burning the flag is protected by the first amendment of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. What do you do if instead of having a handful of students in a school who are disrespectful and irresponsible you have a school full of these kids? You create a label to support their behavior, remove the stigma, and excuse the behavior because of a medical condition which in this case is called ADHD. Click now inmate text

I was first introduced to ADHD around 1989 when I was speaking to a psychiatrist about a hyperactive student who was attending a school where I was working as an administrator. When I referred to her as hyperactive he said to me "She's not hyperactive she has ADHD." He went on to explain that this is the acronym we now use to describe children who are hyperactive. My Masters Degree was in special education and the symptoms he described to me were the same as the symptoms that were used forty years ago to describe students who were neurologically impaired and were diagnosed as learning disabled with what was called a minimal brain dysfunction. These students are protected under The Individuals with Disabilities Act which is the special education law and they receive the benefits and services associated with their condition. Students who are diagnosed with ADHD are done so with the use of the checklist that is contained in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. ADHD was determined to be a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association and added to this manual in 1987. The checklist can be found below.