Psychiatrization of, with and by children: Drawing a complex picture

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo Beeker ◽  
Anna Witeska-Młynarczyk ◽  
Sanne te Meerman ◽  
China Mills

When discussed in the context of diagnosing or medicating children, psychiatrization is usually portrayed as a more or less monolithic top-down process, which, according to some, enables a child’s right to health, while for others is a form of child abuse. This article challenges these conceptualizations in two steps: First, it draws on available literature on psychiatrization (including its top-down and bottom-up operations, and its ideological and material aspects), and its relationship to various psy-practices, and wider processes of (bio) medicalization, psychologization and reification. Second, using two detailed vignettes from ethnographic research with children and youth in Poland, the article demonstrates that children and youth are not necessarily passive recipients of psychiatrization as they themselves navigate, appropriate, resist, and transform top-down influences. While one vignette details a child’s more or less open resistance to psychiatrization through their attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder label, the other vignette shows young people embracing and positively identifying with bio and psy-knowledge in relation to depression. However, both vignettes show how children and youth make psychiatrization meaningful as it shapes their lifeworlds, with them sometimes becoming agents of psychiatrization themselves. Our data illustrate the nuances of psychiatrization of, with and by children, and we draw on this to complexify existing literature and framings of psychiatrization.

1993 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sydney S. Zentall

This article summarizes the major academic problems of students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and addresses the extent to which these problems are secondary to ADHD, rather than a part of a co-occurring learning or cognitive disability. The article delineates the academic problems of students with ADHD in relation to their primary characteristics—how one influences the nature of the other. Treatment implications are discussed to indicate how educators might modify classroom settings to enhance the academic achievement of students with ADHD.


2022 ◽  
pp. 55-68
Author(s):  
Tammy Reutzel Guthrie

The other health impairment (OHI) disability category refers to a condition that causes limited strength, vitality, or alertness, including heightened alertness to environmental stimuli that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment due to a chronic or acute health problem and adversely affects a child's educational performance. This disability category, as explored in this chapter, may include one or a combined type of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, kidney disease, sickle cell anemia, and Tourette's syndrome. As a result of the child's other health impairment, as described above, the child is prevented from receiving reasonable educational benefit from general education.


2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
C.-H. Ko ◽  
J.-Y. Yen ◽  
C.-F. Yen ◽  
C.-S. Chen ◽  
C.-C. Chen

AbstractInternet addiction is a newly emergent disorder. It has been found to be associated with a variety of psychiatric disorders. Information about such coexisting psychiatric disorders is essential to understand the mechanism of Internet addiction. In this review, we have recruited articles mentioning coexisting psychiatric disorders of Internet addiction from the PubMed database as at November 3, 2009. We describe the updated results for such disorders of Internet addiction, which include substance use disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, hostility, and social anxiety disorder. We also provide discussion for possible mechanisms accounting for the coexistence of psychiatric disorders and Internet addiction. The review might suggest that combined psychiatric disorders mentioned above should be evaluated and treated to prevent their deteriorating effect on the prognosis of Internet addiction. On the other hand, Internet addiction should be paid more attention to when treating people with these coexisting psychiatric disorders of Internet addiction. Additionally, we also suggest future necessary research directions that could provide further important information for the understanding of this issue.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aja Louise Murray ◽  
Manuel Eisner ◽  
Ingrid Obsuth ◽  
Denis Ribeaud

There is a robust association between attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and elevated substance use. Several plausible causal pathways from ADHD to substance use have been articulated and supported empirically. In this study, we tested the recent suggestion that substance use could also influence levels of ADHD symptoms. Using the three most recent waves of data from the Zurich Project on the Social Development of Children and Youth (z-proso), we found significant and strong cross-lagged effects of ADHD symptoms on substance use but no significant effects in the opposite direction. This suggests that individual differences in substance use are not related to increases in ADHD symptoms in adolescence. Adolescent-onset symptoms of ADHD are thus unlikely to be caused by substance use, and targeting substance use problems is unlikely to reduce ADHD symptoms.


2005 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 344-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernardine S. C. Woo ◽  
Joseph M. Rey

Objective: To examine the validity of the three subtypes of ADHD defined by DSM-IV. Method: Studies published in English were identified through searches of literature databases. Results: Estimates of the prevalence of ADHD have increased as a result of the introduction of DSM-IV criteria. Factor analytical and genetic studies provide some support for the validity of the distinction between the three subtypes. However, diagnosis of the combined subtype seems more reliable than the other two subtypes, although reliability is largely unknown for the latter. The hyperactive-impulsive subtype, the least common, differs from the other two subtypes in age distribution, association with other factors and neuropsychological parameters. Almost all treatment trials are based on participants with the combined type. Conclusion: Data supporting the validity of the inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive subtypes of ADHD a decade after the publication of DSM-IV are still scarce. Given that inattention is the hypothesized core ADHD symptom, it remains to be demonstrated that hyperactive-impulsive children who are not inattentive have the same condition. One of the main research deficits refers to data on treatment of the inattentive and hyperactive impulsive subtypes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-31
Author(s):  
Iwona Myśliwczyk

The aim of this paper is to present the results of a study on the subjective interpretation and the construction of biographies by parents of children with ADHD. The research was driven by insufficient knowledge regarding the definition of the support offered at school to a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder among parents and to determine what is important and unique from a parental perspective. The presented studies were constructivist, interpretative studies using the biographical method. Narrative interviews were conducted with parents of children with ADHD living in Poland. Reconstruction of their parental experiences allowed an understanding of their individual feelings and experiences, which showed “the truth” about the educational support provided to a child. The aim of the studies was a reconstruction of the narrative and an analysis of the subjective meanings which parents give to the educational support that is offered to their children at school. The central thesis took the form of a question: How did parents interpret their own experiences related to educational support given at school to a child with ADHD? The analysis of the narration shows different parental experiences regarding the educational support received. The reality reconstructed by examined parents is complex and consists of hope and expectations, but also doubts, powerlessness and helplessness. Some parts of the narration are poignant, sorrowful and rife with feelings of loneliness, which is a consequence of misunderstanding a specific child’s needs. The other parts of the narrative are dominated by happiness and joy caused by the support that a student received and its effects. By speaking about the help which was received at school, the parents expose their personal feelings towards that event, and they show their individual interpretation of the reality that they experienced. They give subjective meaning to a narrative that they feel is significant.


Author(s):  
Mark Selikowitz

This chapter deals with two separate areas of learning: attention and sequential organization. Difficulties in either area can occur in isolation or in combination with other forms of specific learning difficulty. The ability to ignore distractions and to focus on one activity at a time is a skill that children usually develop gradually as they grow. It is quite normal for toddlers and pre-school-aged children to be easily distractible, but the ability to channel attention selectively usually increases progressively once children start school. Some children experience significant difficulties in learning to attend. As a result, they are easily distractible and do not persist for long with tasks. If this is a significant problem, it is referred to by the umbrella term ‘attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder’ (ADHD). This means attention-deficit with or without hyperactivity. Such children may be overactive and impulsive, although this is not always the case. It is this overactivity that has given rise to the term hyperactivity (‘hyper’ is Greek for ‘over’). All children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder experience difficulty with concentration. There are two forms of the condition: one where overactivity and impulsivity are present and the other where these coexisting problems are absent. The two forms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder may be clarified by describing two children, each with one of the forms of the disorder. George is his mother’s third child. She describes him as completely different from the other two. As a baby he slept very little and cried constantly. As a toddler he was always on the go, ‘as if driven by a motor’. Now, aged nine years, his teacher describes him as ‘disorganized, disruptive, and fidgety’. His mother reports that he hardly ever sits still at home. He will not sit through a favourite TV programme or a meal. He is still so disorganized that if she did not help him to dress in the morning, he would not be in time for school. He is also very impulsive. He does not seem to think before he acts. He takes terrible risks and often says the first thing that comes in to his head.


2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghadah Malki ◽  
Khalid Zawawi ◽  
Marcello Melis ◽  
Christopher Hughes

The objective of this study was to evaluate reported bruxism among children affected by attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).Thirty children diagnosed with ADHD and 30 healthy age and gender matched controls participated in the study. All subjects were examined for dental attrition, and the parents were asked for signs and symptoms of bruxism in their children using a questionnaire. Prevalence of oral parafunction was evaluated comparing ADHD children taking medications, ADHD children not taking medications, and controls. Subjects affected by ADHD and pharmacologically treated showed higher occurrence of bruxism compared to subjects affected by ADHD not taking medicines and controls; and within the ADHD group taking medications, CNS-stimulants have been associated with such side effect more frequently than the other drugs.


2005 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 485-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diamanto N. Filippatou ◽  
Eleni A. Lpvaniou

The aim of the present study was to (a) examine the prevalence of ADHD and the comorbid difficulties in a sample of 114 children, 3.6 to 17.6 yr. of age (89 boys, 25 girls) referred to our Unit and (b) evaluate the discriminative ability of the WISC–III scores for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ( n = 22), Learning Disability ( n = 50), and Language Disorder ( n = 42). Analysis showed only 18% of 114 children had an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder diagnosis. Multivariate analysis of variance and stepwise discriminant function analysis were applied. Vocabulary and similarities were the best predictors for distinguishing between language disorders and the other two groups. Moreover, the Language Disorder group scored significantly lower on all the subtests while the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disability groups scored lower on coding and information, respectively. Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disability could not be accurately identified from the WISC–III test or their ACID profile.


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