Yeah, the stigma against the medication, and the people who casually say "omg, I'm like, so ADD" really hurt the people who have actually been diagnosed with it. Depending on where you live, it can be difficult to find a psychiatrist willing to see you for a diagnoses and subsequent prescription because they think that you're a college kid wanting to abuse it or sell it. I had to call 4-5 different offices until I found a psychiatrist that would see me, and you can check the /r/ADHD and see a bunch of stories about people who moved to a different state for work, but nobody will prescribe them their medication in their new state, and now they're struggling at their new job.
From my perspective, the thing that has hurt the credibility around ADHD diagnoses is the pretty blatant use by affluent parents to get diagnoses so they can get test-time extensions for their kids.
ADHD diagnosis is much more strongly correlated with affluence than many other mental illnesses.
Eliminating the 504 accommodation would be beneficial in my view.
Software engineering gave me the opportunity to go from being in the bottom economic class to the highest. And guess what, when I was a kid and college student I didn’t have the resources to obtain mental health treatment. Now that I’m a software engineer I can afford therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists that help me manage ADHD and bipolar. I’m still the same person. I just have more access now.
Sure - also the metrics measured in industry are not the same as the metrics measured in school.
What you're saying doesn't seem at odds with what I'm saying.
I would, however, be interested in seeing a study where they give kids with ADHD adderall and give kids without ADHD adderall and see if the test-score residual is statistically significantly higher for the ADHD group.
I have not seen any convincing experimental evidence that amphetamines are uniquely performance enhancing for those diagnosed with ADHD.
I'm on my phone right now, so hard to pull up a source. That said:
> lower down the socioeconomic totem pole you go the higher the rates of prevalence of ADHD.
The key word in my original statement was "diagnosis". The rate absolutely seems to increase with lower SES, but diagnosis rate does not reflect that.
Your reasoning for why it is more common among poorer people seems to neglect the significant early environmental factors that might contribute to low SES high adhd prevalence in favor of a rich, genetically superior master-class.
I was talking with my wife just last week about my hypothesis that there is probably a strong correlation between prescriptions for various performance enhancing drugs (such as Adderall and Ritalin) and the number of extracurricular activities that high school students are signed up for.
Sorry, I perceived it as relevant to the first sentence you said.
> it can be difficult to find a psychiatrist willing to prescribe medication
Absolutely - my SO is diagnosed and I've been with her in the pharmacy where she was blatantly accused of trying to get it so she could sell it (nope, just a normal college student diagnosed with ADHD). That was wild.
I think they thought she was taking me along because she was going to sell to me after? It was unclear, but they were definitely suspicious of my presence.
