Children 's Attention Deficit Disorder Essay

Attention-deficit disorder, more commonly referred to as ADD, is categorized as a mental illness that 3.3 million children in the United States have been diagnosed with (NIHM, 2015). The first reported diagnosis of A.D.D. was in 1937 by Charles Bradley when he realized that stimulants helped a variety of children who suffered with behavioral disorders (Bradley, 1937). Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz states that “no one explains where this disease came from or why it didn’t exist 50 years ago” (Henslin, 2014). Yet, the amount of methylphenidate, more commonly known as Ritalin or Concerta, prescribed in the United States increased by more than 500% between 1991 and 1999, meanwhile, the amphetamines prescriptions, more commonly known as Dexedrine or Adderall, increased by more than 2000% during the same time period (Woodward, 2000). Szasz argues that the symptoms that a physician uses to diagnose someone with ADD are not sighns of a mental illness but rather a demonstration of behaviors that stem from an inappropriate way of coping with life’s struggles (Henslin, 2014). This idea presented by Thomas Szasz contradicts western-medicine’s common approach of diagnosing and medicating for mental illness and rather suggests that with proper behavioral training and therapy these challenges could be overcome. This notion is what I would research. I would want to compare the effectiveness in treating people who have been, or would be, diagnosed with A.D.D with either a stimulant or with…