by Deremensis wrote:Cito di Pense wrote:Deremensis wrote:
It seems to me that, based on the information in the above post, ADHD is actually a very well defined medical ailment, with specific identifiable causes, as well as a semi-well-understood brain chemistry (I don't know of any better way of putting that, really.)
Come to that, any set of symptoms that can be used putatively to categorise 5% of some subpopulation of some other subpopulation can be studied for its etiology. The subpopulation for ADHD is poorly defined, and furthermore, the etiology takes 5 pages to present. In some cases, in no time at all, you have on your hands a project in social engineering. WPA for the psych department. I don't know if you'll see what I'm getting at, here, but so it goes.
So the etiology presented thus far is sufficient for the Pediatrics journal, but not for you, is what you're saying.
Maybe you can blame it on sluggish cognitive tempo.
a cluster of symptoms, and possibly a distinct disorder, characterized by the individual being daydreamy, mentally foggy, easily confused, and staring
You see, everybody has that from time to time, and the diagnosis probably identifies someone who does it too much to suit the classroom priorities, which is why they put the word 'frequently' at the end of the sentence. How often is 'frequently'?
Why is there all this interest in ADHD, when there's also sluggish cognitive tempo to worry about? Perhaps if I'd been stuck in a classroom quite so obsessed with performance on standardised tests, I would have found more excuses for daydreaming and staring out the window, too, and hence, being found 'confused' relative to the classroom priorities. As it was, my report cards from primary school only mentioned briefly that I had trouble paying attention in class (I was bored out of my skull, and smart enough so that the instructor was superfluous in my getting passing marks). Raw native intelligence isn't what's needed before you've gotten yourself into the think tank where idle daydreaming is known as 'brainstorming' and 'idea clustering'.
If you can name it, maybe you can cure it. I can see what's going on with these folks. Not the poor kids identified with a syndrome, but the fucking 'professionals' keeping themselves in shoe leather by developing the science of remote hypochondria. There's apparently some 'normal' condition with respect to which all these 'disorders' are being identified. You tell me what that is, and maybe we have something more to talk about. Think about what's being deconstructed, here. I lately tend to call it 'the psychobabble industry', but you can see that the collecting of learning disorders is a subsidiary of the business of concocting standardized tests of learning ability for schoolchildren, so 'normality' is named as the center of the gaussian of whatever it is you think you're measuring.
As for giving an idea respect because it's popular amongst members of the modern version of witch-doctoring, we can call that fallacy the appeal to authority or the appeal to popularity.
I put it to you: If they can identify categories of physiology that go with any arbitrary set of identifiable 'symptoms', you have to ask yourself whether they are their own clients. And while you're at it, you can label as a 'conspiracy theorist' anyone who's a bit skeptical that these folks really know what they're doing. I bet that's an identifiable syndrome, too.
Anyway, it's got me thinking about the sluggish cognitive tempo having difficulties getting itself focused on something besides syndromes. Tell it to somebody who hasn't seen the inside of a laboratory that isn't inventing stuff to measure.
Deremensis wrote:
So the etiology presented thus far is sufficient for the Pediatrics journal, but not for you, is what you're saying.
You don't need to enlist my help. Why do you want to convert me to your point of view? That's an idle question, and one I don't really need the answer to, since the answer is 'over-determined'. There's another term I know from the psychobabble industry, and that's 'cognitive dissonance'. See? The razor cuts both ways: I'm not 'confused' by the concept of 'learning disabilities'. That's because I'm considering them relative to the content of the curriculum.
