Have I had ADHD all my life without knowing? Why over-diagnosing children is a problem – Cameron Wyllie
Realistically, schools are never going to be able to cater for the individual needs of every single child, or even half of them
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Forty-three per cent of Scotland’s school pupils now have an additional support need, a figure that will surely rise until soon more than half the school population is credited with one – each with their rights to have additional support delivered to them, as things stand, by teachers already teaching big classes. We all know, of course, that these young people will not receive their legal rights, despite the posturings of politicians.
Anyway, about a month ago, I was in conversation with an old friend whose grandson had just been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Is it a real thing? he asks. It most certainly is, I reply, never having been one of the fogies who thinks that autism, ADHD, ADD, etc ‘didn’t exist when I were a lad’. Of course they did – it’s just that 43 per cent of us weren’t diagnosed.
He explains that, being concerned for his grandson, he had looked at the symptoms, which he shows me on his phone. “It’s come from me,” he says. I look at them, and, hey, that’s me too!
I can never sit calmly through a presentation; I talk all the time, don’t listen well and talk over people; I’m forgetful; I avoid tasks which involve sustained mental effort (like, say, writing this). At 12, I was an annoying little boy, and it may have been because of ADHD. I know, of course, that some of the above characteristics also happen if you’re suffering from DOMS (Daft Old Man Syndrome).
A realistic school system
My parents would never have had me tested. They would have tried hard to manage these symptoms using the 1960s’ ‘carrot and stick’ parental methodology. They would not have wanted me to be diagnosed or singled out or get extra time in exams: they would have wanted me to get on with it.
Forty-three per cent is a terrible figure. In a functioning school system, either 3 per cent of young people have ASNs or 100 per cent of them do, with the latter meaning we recognise young people have different skills, talents, intelligence and hindrances to learning, and cater to all individuals accordingly.
That won’t happen, which leaves us with the realistic 3 per cent model, where those young people needing the most help to learn are given it, some of them in mainstream schools, some in special education. Meanwhile, the remaining 97 per cent have only touches of special help and get on with it. If we don’t do this, further chaos will ensue, leaving those with ASNs struggling and every child’s learning disrupted.
READ MORE: The truth about the explosion of children with additional support needs in Scotland's classrooms
‘On the spectrum’
Do I have ADHD? Has it limited my life? Who knows? But really I’ve done fine, thanks – professionally, personally, in my relationships, and so I suspect would the vast tranche of that 43 per cent, many of whom will not be helped at all by their diagnosis. ‘It’s just he’s on the spectrum’; ‘he’s got ADHD’, ‘he’ll not manage that because of his neurodivergence’.
The Presumption of Mainstreaming has much to answer for but we are also allowing the over-diagnosing of our young people’s ‘needs’. Máiri McAllan – now Education Secretary – needs to be brave.
Cameron Wyllie is a retired headmaster. He writes a blog called A House in Joppa and hosts the podcast, Two Heads are Better than One, with Rod Grant
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