By Angela Prentner-Smith
I FOUND myself relating to an article in Forbes headed “ADHD Crisis in the UK: Under Diagnosed, Lacking Support and Stigmatized.” The article encapsulated the tragedy of the stigma of ADHD, the misunderstanding and the crisis of diagnosis and support in the UK.
I’ve faced the challenging words of "diagnosis doesn’t matter" many times. ADHD generally attracts a sneer, an attitude that the person just doesn’t try hard enough or uses it as an excuse. Then the stigma of "naughty boys" that pervades diagnosis. According to the ADHD Foundation only 20 per cent of people with ADHD receive a diagnosis through school. This figure means for every two kids understanding who they are and potentially receiving support, there are eight that aren’t.
That figure should shock us. It should be a call to arms.
Everything about how we handle ADHD as a society needs reform, including the name. Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder – it is wrong. It’s not a disorder – it’s a different wiring of the brain. Many people with ADHD are not hyperactive, particularly girls. People with ADHD do not actually have a deficit of attention – it’s more that their ability to focus their attention or indeed lift that focus is variable, and difficult to control. The ability to hyper-focus – that is, force great attention to a cause or activity, is as much a part of ADHD as the inattention to mundane tasks.
If you are identified as a person who may have ADHD, we’re currently looking at about a two-year wait to be assessed. Not treated, just assessed. This can be done privately, but the private assessments are not always recognised by the NHS or education establishments.
The diagnostic process is flawed, biased towards male presentation, and uses outdated checklists such as the Connor’s assessment, which really seek to identify the worst of behaviour, and don’t truly acknowledge that kids and adults can mask ADHD, and can cope with ADHD under a great many situations.
Often ADHD co-occurs with other conditions such as dyslexia and dyspraxia – and these may get picked up at school – but without the thought that the difficulties the child is experiencing could be related to ADHD instead or as well as the primary identification. It’s most common that ADHD is suggested when there are extreme behaviour problems – and herein lies the problem. People with ADHD can be wonderful, creative, exceptional people without obvious behaviour problems.
So why does this matter? If they are so wonderful, why do they need a diagnosis?
Because ADHD presents underlying difficulties – anxiety, rejections sensitive dysphoria, sensory overload, inability to focus, depression, poor self-esteem.
As a person with a neurodivergent diagnosis, I know that diagnosis helps you understand yourself. This matters when you are a person that fundamentally just didn’t fit in and struggled with the stuff that everyone else found easy. We owe it to the children and adults with ADHD to redesign the support they receive. So, how do we change the system, address the stigma and provide that support?
Angela Prentner-Smith is Founder and MD of This is Milk, https://www.thisismilk.co.uk/
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here