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ADHD and Other Behavior Disorders

People who don’t understand the condition often say that a person with ADHD is acting out or is a troublemaker. They’ll often categorize such a person as disorganized, careless, and lacking in social graces. They may say the person is rude or stupid. But these stereotypes are unfair. The truth of the matter is that people with ADHD can’t help how they feel, any more than people with physical illnesses can help how they feel. History of ADHD Although the term ADHD is fairly new, the condition itself is not. But our understanding has evolved and improved over the years. In 1798 a Scottish physician named Sir Alexander Crichton published a book that delved into the “nature and origin of mental derangement.” In one chapter, “On Attention, and Its Diseases,” he described a condition that is very similar to what doctors

today would call ADHD. Crichton said “abnormal inattention” will usually manifest “at a very early period of life, and has a very bad effect, inasmuch as it renders [a person] incapable of attending with constancy to any one object of education. But it seldom is in so great a degree as totally to impede all instruction; and what is very fortunate, it is generally diminished with age.” Crichton described those with such inattentiveness as having “mental restlessness.” He wrote

A portrait of Sir Alexander Crichton.

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