As a follow up to my earlier comment, I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and still have it as an adult. I’m also fortunate to be highly intelligent and well educated, which is why when I see reporting like this I get angry. It only serves to promote ignorance, misunderstanding of ADHD.
There is a strong heritable link with ADHD, even if a definitive genetic link hasn’t found yet (although there are some strong candidates currently being researched). There is a strong correlation between the structure of parts of the brain such as the frontal lobe, frontal cortex, corpus colossum and many more. Along with this are associated neurotransmitter differences, most notably the dopaminergic system. You can see the effects of all of this in brain activity when performing different sorts of cognitive tasks as highlighted in numerous functional neuroimaging studies. Once you understand the structural and functional causes of ADHD and you can link them to particular behavioural and cognitive traits associated with ADHD, you can start to decide what good behavioural and drug treatments are, and which are ineffective or even bad behavioural and drug treatments.
There are many environmental, hormonal, developmental, neurological, behavioural and other influences and disorders that cause many ADHD like symptoms and behaviours, but they are not ADHD and treatment of them may not be the same. Journalism like this only serves to confuse people as to what ADHD is, what causes it and what effects it has. This leads people who do not have the disorder to misunderstand it. Common misconceptions are that it’s only prevalent in males, it’s only a problem in childhood, it’s because of poor up bringing or bad education, it’s just a highly active or energetic child, or even believe it doesn’t exist, that it’s a conspiracy by drug companies to sell unnecessary drugs or that people with ADHD are just lazy and only need to try harder. That’s like telling a blind person to just see better. But worse it leads to people who have ADHD not getting effective treatment. The results of unmanaged or badly managed ADHD can be, and are disastrous for many people and the people around them. Yet people with well managed ADHD can go on to be very successful and productive members of society. Reporting like this is part of the problem, what you say as reporters filters into peoples knowledge and decision making process. You need to do better than this; it affects people’s lives in ways you have probably not foreseen.
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