I came across this article today:

Unprecedented Reliable Data Proves That ADHD Is Overdiagnosed

So, to summarize, someone decided to go out and do research about the rates of ADHD diagnosis and test the common notion that ADHD is wildly overdiagnosed. They set out to determine whether therapists diagnose ADHD according to heuristic judgements (vague stereotypes of ADHD, basically) rather than established diagnostic criteria.

I have to say, I'm grateful that the reporters included the study's methodology:

"The researchers surveyed altogether 1,000 child and adolescent psychotherapists and psychiatrists across Germany. 473 participated in the study. They received one of four available case vignettes, and were asked to give a diagnoses and a recommendation for therapy. In three out of the four case vignettes, the described symptoms and circumstances did not fulfil ADHD criteria. Only one of the cases fulfilled ADHD criteria based strictly on the valid diagnostic criteria. In addition, the gender of the child was included as a variable resulting in eight different case vignettes."

The thing is, though, what's actually contained in those four case vignettes is important to the interpretation of this study. Presumably, at least some of the three "not ADHD" vignettes were chosen for the study because they did resemble ADHD prototypes. They were red herrings, in a sense.

But what about the opposite kinds of cases? What about cases that don't look like prototypical ADHD, but do fit the diagnostic criteria? I don't see how there could have been any room in this study's methodology to test those kinds of circumstances at all. That leaves us with no data about how often it happens that someone has ADHD, but gets told that they don't. So...if you're only testing prototypical cases, you cannot possibly be proving statistics of "over" diagnosis, only statistics of wrongful diagnosis...and even then, only one particular kind of wrongful diagnosis.

Indigo Children

I'd like to take a timeout from my normal discussions of living with ADD to talk to you all about Indigo Children.

For those of you who aren't familiar, Indigo Children is (to quote Wikipedia), "...a pseudoscientific label given to children who are claimed to possess special, unusual and/or supernatural traits or abilities."

In other words, it's a New Age fad. And as it happens, it's associated with ADD. The basic idea is, ADD is a label given to children who fail to conform to expected norms because really, they are Chosen Ones. They are spiritually designated to lead humanity into a more evolved spiritual reality, and THAT's the real reason they can't conform.

*facepalms*

Okay...where do I start?

First off, I want to make it known that I'm not some dyed-in-the-wool skeptic or anti-spiritual. Far from it; I'm a pretty highly spiritual person, and it wouldn't even be entirely inaccurate to call me New Age-y (though I prefer labels like "Pagan," "ecclectic" or "shamanistic"). However, whatever I might believe about the spiritual realities of the universe, I believe that it's important to keep yourself grounded in worldly realities. I'm not opposed to making mundane, real-life decisions based on spiritual consideration, but you have to take everything with a grain of salt and question it...especially your own conclusions.

This is all especially important when it comes to the ways in which you expose your children to spiritual realities. Kids rely on their parents to form a healthy understanding of the reality around them. Without proper guidance, they won't understand the difference between the statement, "There's a president who lives in the White House," and "There are angels who live in Heaven."

So what's a poor child to do when her mother tells her she's a savior of humanity? Believe it, of course.

This problem becomes all the more serious when you take into account the new connections being made between stressed or dysfunctional households and occurrences of ADD. ADD children are desperate for attention and approval, and they live in severe fear that their parents' love comes to them only upon conditional terms. Because of this, they alternately bend over backwards to please their parents, then rebel against them to test them.

So..."Indigo" parents? Here's something I can promise you: if your child seems to enjoy the idea that he is one of the most vitally important people in the universe, it is only because he hopes this will make him good enough to be vitally important to you.

I mean...talk about sending a message of conditional love.

What's perhaps the most sad about this phenomenon is how easy it is to see what makes it happen. You see, if you spend as much time as I do learning about New Age/Pagan/occult/shamanic traditions, you encounter a lot of people with spiritual delusions. You learn pretty quickly that the more more grandiose the fantasy, the more intense the insecurity the person is trying to cope with. Given the amount of unfair scrutiny, blame and ignorant assumptions that get launched at the parents of ADD kids, it's not hard to see why some of them would jump at the chance to see their child in this "improved" light.

This is certainly foolishness, but I think the real blame for this phenomenon falls on the shoulders of the spiritual charlatans who profit from this nonsense. They are, in essence, profiting from pain.