Our last three classes have shown that variations in children's faculties of attention and the capacities to gauge normative conduct have long been recognized. The 20th century science ushered a series of classifications of these differences and eventual focus on biological causes. We also saw that the numbers of children, and more recently of adults diagnosed with disorders of attention and conduct have increased tremendously. Over those 100 years of research and treatment, two pivotal questions recurrently surfaced. The first queries the purported causes of these non-normative mental functions, and the second deliberates whether humans psychological differences should always be deemed pathological, non-pathological. The pathological requiring psychiatric treatment, and whether normalcy, the normal, should govern civic life. The scientific history of so-called troublesome child, documents increasing focus on its neurological or brain-based origins. It also regularly appearing are scientific questions about etiology. It [inaudible] ask whether the symptom being observed indicates internal, perhaps brain-based abnormalities that need therapeutic interventions or whether this symptoms might at least be partially the result of significant changes in modern industrial life needing not individual but social remediation. Schooling has become mandatory, extended into adulthood. Educational goals have increased, poverty rates have soared, family structures have changed dramatically, technological advances have produced multiple sites that beckon people's attention, work environments have ever modified demands, and ambient noises and light levels have increased, and ideals of personal success have been amplified. Policy analysts Rick Mayes and Jennifer Erkulwater described the public debate that has ensued. "A debate as to whether the ADHD and stimulant phenomena in the United States is more the story of medical science making progress and a long misunderstood disorder with neurobiological underpinnings or if ADHD has been socially constructed as a response to nonmedical problems, such as under-performing schools, increased academic demands and expectations, and great family disruption, more than is existed before the 1970s." Another psychiatrist put the question succinctly when he asked, "How do we know you have ADD or severe case of modern life?" Journalist Maggie Jackson investigated these questions in her book, Distracted. Jackson enumerated the ways in which our attention is distracted in modern life by the loss of spaces of silence, vast networks of relations created by technology, demands that people be multifaceted, multitaskers, and the multiple forms of surveillance of our daily lives. These transformations endanger a life of what she calls perpetual movement, wherein our attention is restless and untethered. We lose, she says, the means and ability to go beneath the surface to think differently. Jackson proposes that we have a choice, I share that choice and I quote. She says, "We can create a culture of attention, recover the ability to pause, focus, connect, judge, and enter deeply into a relationship or idea, or we can slip into numb days of easy diffusion and detachment." These interrogations of the causes of the troublesome child, ask about the extent to which the troubles might be at least partly the product of demands of living. If this is at least a partial cause, should we attempt to make these cultural changes? Can we? I encourage you to reflect on the question of the environmental factors surrounding ADHD symptoms and the possibility of reducing the environmental risks. The second question warranting reflection brackets or sets aside the scientific debates. It asked what it means for a person to have a pathology? What are such diagnosed person's rights given their label of non-normal? The question probes the logic that insists on privileging what is declared normal. Articulating and privileging some normal personhood is now facing challenges. One of these challenges is empirical. Consider that the number of children diagnosed with ADHD exceeds six million in the United States. Then add to that the numbers of children diagnosed with other psychiatric disorders; autism, depression, anxiety, conduct disorders, etc. With this counting, we would find that the numbers of children diagnosed with psychopathology are quite large. Given the high incidence, we have to ask what is normal? How many children are normal? Additionally, often overlooked is the fact that individuals living with ADHD are not entirely or even always handicapped in life. In fact, some studies indicated that some individuals diagnosed with ADHD demonstrate more intuitive cognitive style, higher levels of entrepreneurial alertness, and resource induced coping mechanisms. These unrelated empirical findings, unsteady the scientific distinction between being normal and pathological. The most trenchant challenge, however, to the idea and privileging of normal, comes from the neurodiversity movement. Neurodiversity, a 20-year-old term and now a movement, asserts that neurological variation is natural, and in fact, that variation is key to the success of humans. Neurodiversity has a political component as well. Its proponents advocate that the discourse on human rights, and discourse is celebrating racial and gender diversity, also should apply to persons whose neurological makeup is diverse. Making human rights discourse inclusive means that government regulations, schools, workplaces, and the built environment become more inclusive of neurologically atypical individuals, like those diagnosed with ADHD. The neurodiversity movement thus encourages and urges a move away from thinking about the non-normal or non-normative in pathological terms, and toward thinking about inclusivity, as well as what constitutes personhood. Your assigned reading on neurodiversity by Micki McGee, discusses the complexities as well as the potentials of the neurodiversity movement. Reflecting on the idea of neurodiversity, I would ask, do you think differently about the history of the science and treatment of the attention deficits and hyperactive behaviors? In summary, our module on attention and conduct disorders reveals a great variety of theories for its causes and treatments. In the end, we have talked about ways in which diversity might be the normal, might be the natural, and I ask you to think in thinking about these questions, to remember that these problems are real, even if they are in their ways cultural and historical. Thank you.
