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0 pointsthemacguffinman4y ago0 comments

Nearly half of US adults (age 20+) are estimated to have refractive errors in their vision [1], which would be a vision disorder. Other estimates I've found are even higher, with more than half of adults needing corrective eyewear. Is that swathe too huge for this demonstrably defective vision to be a disability? Is our society being condescending by inculcating the value of non-defective eyesight?

Not every disorder has a double-sided spectrum of behavior. What's the opposite of Bipolar?

I don't doubt that diagnosis is hard and error-prone, and I don't think any honest scientist claims they have firm explanations for every aspect of ADHD and its treatments. It's an ongoing field of research.

But 70 - 80% of children quickly show improvements in response to stimulant therapy very quickly. That's worth a try for such a debilitating condition that sees a third of its patients drop out of high school and 5 - 10% graduate college at all. ADHD's heritability is insanely high at ~80%. None of your tenuous data-free assertions really changes the good science that has been established. We're not talking about controversial stuff here like SSRIs that barely beats placebo. You're going to have to do more than poke at some gaps to twist ADHD into the wholly different "social construct" theory you have even less actual evidence for.

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080811195643.h...

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faeriechangling4y ago

>ADHD is heritable

Doesn't make it a disorder.

>But 70 - 80% of children quickly show improvements in response to stimulant therapy very quickly.

They also show improvements if they don't have diagnosed ADHD and take the drugs, as I've already cited. This says more about the drugs than the medical model of ADHD.

>That's worth a try for such a debilitating condition that sees a third of its patients drop out of high school and 5 - 10% graduate college at all.

I just don't see any reason why more and more students wouldn't take simulants so long as they can access them and tolerate them, which ought to push up standards, which ought to increase the pressure to use them. I'm generally supportive of stimulant use, but using drugs to pump grades is pretty much the LEAST compelling reason to take stimulants. I think stimulants are great to, help you cook meals, stay organized, keep your finances in order, things like that. begin with... academics.

I also don't fundamentally see low academic achievement as proving disorder. To me, I think the biggest reason something associated with low academic achievement is considered a disorder, is that the people who write the DSM and ICD are all academics, who see people with ADHD as their lessers.

themacguffinmanOP4y ago

Studies show that if you don't have ADHD, stimulants don't actually improve your school performance. This has been trialed, it does not beat placebo [1]. The very study you cited [2] shows that at best, there's some evidence it improves performance in rote memory tasks in patients without ADHD, not the complex memory usually needed for academic achievement (the study literature explicitly point this out, this is not just my own speculation). There's a significant difference between how it affects ADHD and non-ADHD patients.

Low academic achievement is a huge handicap in modern society whether you or psychologists like it or not.

And it's not just low academic achievement. Executive function impairment cuts across so many things. Expect huge elevated risks in teenage pregnancies, poverty & debt from financial mismanagement, divorces, inability to hold a job, violent conflict and arrests. Expect an overall life expectancy 13 - 20 years lower than the average.

Go ahead, thumb your nose at societal expectations, it won't change the measurably worse life outcomes experienced by those with ADHD. That's what makes it a disorder.

[1] https://chadd.org/adhd-weekly/dont-have-adhd-meds-wont-impro...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489818/

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