You might ask, “Why would anyone want to fake attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)?”
Many years ago, when ADHD was first proposed as a diagnosis, you would’ve been right — few people would’ve bothered faking the diagnosis because it brought you little reward to do so.
But as ADHD diagnoses bloomed over the past two decades, so did special accommodations in the school systems for children and teenagers diagnosed with the disorder. And one of the primary treatments for attention deficit disorder is stimulant medication, something that can be used for less-than-legitimate reasons.
Could teens today really be faking ADHD to get into college?
Welcome to the world of unintended secondary gains and rewards.
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Two points here really. 1) detecting it will continue to be difficult as long as there are doctors out there making money off of it. I recently had a friend in the process of getting her life back together after a number of years of self destruction. She had to go to get a psych eval as part of the process to get her nursing license reinstated. If you had a list of behaviors related to ADHD beside you, you would have checked none off. The doctor didn’t realize she was there as part of this process and with out a job. He tried to tell her she was (at 46) ADHD and needed to take some drugs and continue to see him. She explained the impossibility of that in her situation. His stance on her condition changed when there was no money available. 2) We, like all other animals, mimic success. Some of us choose to do it consciously, most don’t even realize that we are hoping to “score” better in life by wearing the $150 shows of a pro athlete. Or that the attention somebody else that bought those shoes received was enough to make us buy them. In the classroom situation, if a student finds themselves failing, choosing the behavior that we have witnessed or heard about other students using to get advantage and alleviate that embarrassment of that failure is a common response. So if a child hears about, is given the option to reduce expectations and receive the same benefit, many will choose to do so. So what we have here is an industry willing to push something that is unscientific or healthy and a consumer base so wanting an outside excuse that they are willing to accept without question. Capitalism takes over from there.
I work in a mental health clinic in an urban area. I have been told by patients that they “know” people who are faking mental illnesses like schizophrenia to be able to collect social security disability. These patients usually have no insurance so they receive free psych medications that they sell on the street,while collecting free money and free medical care, housing, food,, etc..Some parents tell their children to “act crazy” so they can get disability and won’t have to work for the rest of their lives!
As a tax payer this behavior makes my blood boil!
My father is a Special Needs teacher in the UK. He told me over a decade ago that people were faking ADHD to get special treatment. As soon as the UK government started to give disability moneys to parents of ADHD kids the rates of kids so diagnosed sky rocketed. From having maybe one in fifty of his Special Ed kids ADHD it lurched up to one in five, and is now higher.
In the UK you get money for the disabled person, the kid, money for the carer, and a mobility allowance.
I agree that genuine cases deserve this help, but it annoys me when I know for a fact that one of my neighbours faked her son’s illness in order to get benefits that, instead of spending on him she spent on herself. In the UK you increasingly find the parents of badly behaved undisciplined children claiming that it’s down to ADHD rather than bad behaviour. It makes life so much more difficult for children who really do suffer from this disorder.
Isn’t this more about the “success at any cost values” of many in our society? The idea that you are a winner or loser in life, and everyone can tell by the college you attend?
Also ADD can probably be faked quite easily, but there have been studies in the past showing that professionals could not recognize people who were seriously mentally ill from those who were not in a residential setting (other residents were pretty accurate). We see what we are primed to see, and also ‘helping professionals’ generally want to “help” – and not to express skepticism – which sets up the situation for manipulation.
The student in question was obviously feeling driven – would that he could have found a way to decrease the pressure without the drugs. But – since you report he isn’t using them ongoing – he most likely feels the use was justified, with no harm done. Highly likely he’ll look to use them in a crunch in the future, tho’.
The main responsibility of a professional seeing him would be to maintain their distance, and explore the context of the complaint; what’s going on now that is different?
I have 2 kids with autism. Being actively involved in the special needs community, I see little services given to ADHD kids (and next to none for adults) and the ones I see granted are few and far between. ‘Special treatment’ as it was called in the article isn’t as common as one might think. I’m more worried about those out there failing in life due to their disabilities than the ones that are faking it and taking advantage of the system. The latter is way, way, way less populated than the first mentioned.
I completely agree with Quiet Contemplation. I have been actively involved with my school district’s special education area & parent support groups for the past 17 years. I also do not see students with ADD/ADHD only diagnosis getting ‘special treatment’, especially extra time on tests. There are more children struggling who need to be supported than there are ‘fakers’. Spend your time and energy helping these children and stop worrying about perceived cheaters.
I have ADD but am to embarrassed to even mention this in school, I was diagnose just this past year, and I only wish I could’ve known much sooner. I don’t believe parents in America get any special money if your child has ADD. I don’t even get special treatment since I refuse to tell anyone about it. I especially now wouldn’t dare mention it, I’d prefer not getting any accommodations and fighting for a good grade, rather than have people think I was using it to my advantage.