Attention Deficit Disorder

Attention deficit disorder (ADD) is a cluster of behaviors that cause a child to underachieve in an academic setting, and also to behave poorly in spite of good parenting and schooling and a strong intellect. It was first diagnosed in 1902 by George Still, an English pediatrician, who noticed that a range of his patients, mainly boys, underwent certain behavioral difficulties from the age of 8. Most of these involved their being inattentive and overactive at school, often resulting in their getting into trouble with school authorities and sometimes with their parents.

After the “Spanish” influenza epidemic of 1918–1919, which killed some 20 million people worldwide, many survivors were left neurologically impaired by the disease and/or attempts to treat it. Some later developed Parkinson's disease, but long before this, they showed symptoms of brain dysfunction. This led researchers to conclude that ADD was a result of mild brain damage. Initially, there was no treatment, but in 1937, a number of children in children's homes in Britain were given the drug amphetamine to try to alter their behavior. It worked, leading to the drug being used to treat children suffering from ADD starting in the 1950s.

Throughout the 1950s and the 1960s, researchers tried to categorize the different types of behavior associated with ADD. These included minimal brain damage, all the way to minimal brain dysfunction. This in turn led to some people conducting extensive research into the dominance of the eye, foot, and hand, and also the movement of fingers, tests that started to become popular in the United States.

In 1973, Dr. Ben F. Feingold, who had been an associate professor of allergy at the Los Angeles Chil-dren's Hospital, suggested that there could be a relationship between diet and ADD. He believed that it was possible that children who ate food with too many additives could have an increased risk of suffering from ADD. In response to his claims and the press coverage they received, the U.S. government set up committees to see whether there was any truth in Feingold's theory. Dr. Feingold had originally felt that diet could be the cause of as many as half the cases of ADD, but the extensive tests showed that it could be said to be a cause in as few as 5 percent of the children who suffered from ADD.

Soon afterward, attention was drawn to the stimulant methylphenidate (Ritalin) which had been introduced in 1957. Many tests on it had shown that it was possible that it could be used to treat children with ADD, and it is now used for such treatment on a relatively routine basis.

The reason why George Still began to notice that boys were suffering from ADD from the age of 8 had to do with schooling, with the need for many children, from that age, to be able to concentrate in classrooms. [Page 182]As they get older, children who fidget and who are too impulsive and insatiable—often being socially out of tune—quickly draw attention to themselves. It often coincides with the children underperforming at school, with the worst cases being distracted and distracting, and also disruptive.

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