Description
Book SynopsisFraming ADHD Children explores the three social worlds of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: the home, classroom, and clinic. Through intensive interviews with teachers, parents, clinicians, and ADHD children, this book brings to light the human experiences surrounding this behavior disorder. The experiences of interview participants are supplemented with the most detailed historical discussion of ADHD to date, including the past and present debates about the true ''nature'' of the disorder, issues concerning children taking stimulant medications, and the continuing discussion of whether or not modern technology can really detect ADHD in the brain. Both the history of ADHD and the people interviewed here demonstrate that ADHD is far from a cut-and-dry phenomenon, but rather a complex social process that requires the negotiation of uncertainty and ambiguity at every step.
Trade ReviewHighly recommended. * CHOICE *
Adam Rafalovich's Framing ADHD Children offers and effective example of how real-life narratives provide richness and multidimensionality to a topic, broadening his original hypothesis about attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) from the specific to the general. This provocative book has a place on the shelf of doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, teachers, and parents. * Psychiatric Services *
This book artfully illuminates the controversial ADHD diagnosis by linking cultural discourses to lived experiences. It combines careful historical scholarship, insightful institutional analysis, and compelling interview materials. As such, it offers a powerful model for learning just how multiple personal troubles are transformed into emotional disorders. Along with Rafalovich's sociological colleagues, this book deserves to reach those who struggle daily to sort out the ambiguities surrounding proliferating drug treatments for a range of life difficulties. -- David A. Karp, Boston College
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Before We Called it ADHD: Idiocy, Imbecility and Encephalitis Lethargica Chapter 3 Psychodynamic versus Neurological Perspectives: Clinicians Discuss DSM IV and the Essences of ADHD Chapter 4 Clinicians as the Mediators of ADHD Suspicion and Treatment Chapter 5 The Realm of Semiformal Suspicion: Framing ADHD Children in the Classroom Chapter 6 Responding to ADHD: School Curricula, Simplified Assignments, and Gender Chapter 7 Parent Accounts: How Trouble Becomes ADHD Chapter 8 Developing Informal Expertise: How Parents Negotiate the Meaning of ADHD
