Misdiagnosing or over diagnosing ADHD

is apparently now a "thing". That "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" is apparently something that now covers other issues like immaturity, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder and giftedness as well. 

I am wondering more and more about this. I am wondering if we need to start thinking in other ways about these "problems". 

"We have to get him to mature so he's ready to start school," someone told me recently.  Her child is a lovely little boy but he isn't happy in a crowded learning situation. Left alone he seems to like playing imaginative games and loves looking at books. "He's no trouble but...."  He certainly wasn't a problem when his mother left him with me for an hour or so yesterday. He just smiled at me and set to work playing with the things I had shown him.

Oh there really is a problem there - but I doubt it is the child. My repeated assurances that he is well within normal limits and quite possibly highly intelligent are no comfort to his parents. They have been told he is "not mature", that there is a problem and that it must be dealt with. 

When I was a mere kitten that same child would probably have been thought of as "quiet". It would only have been if he had not been able to cope with the work when he started school there might have been a problem. We expect something different from children now. They are expected to be articulate and to take on the problems of the world from a very early age.  

Of course severe autism is also a very, very serious problem. Severe autism can be very hard to handle. There are all sorts of behavioural and learning consequences. The constant vigilance can be exhausting and it affects everyone around the person too. 

This is why I intensely dislike the phrase "s/he's on the autism spectrum". It simply covers too wide a range of behaviour. Why should the naturally quiet, reflective child be considered "autistic"? Why should the very active, fidgety child also be considered "autistic"?  Autism surely has to be about a severe inability to relate to others. I don't see it as an appropriate label for a child who dislikes noise, crowds and a day in which they are constantly being required to do what "everyone else" around them is doing. When that child rebels in their own way is it just possible that the environment is not the right one for them? Why do we make the assumption that it is the individual who is the problem rather than the circumstances in which they find themselves? 

With all the talk about "individuality" it seems what we really want are little "almost-clones" . They need to fit neatly in and progress all at the same rate and in the same manner.

Yesterday as they were leaving the small boy pulled away from his mother and ran back to me and told me, "I like being here. You don't tell me what I have to do."

No, yesterday he could be himself - but the world doesn't work like that.