Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Shame and stigma
ADD and ADHD are not two different things. ADD is the older public word for what is now called ADHD, inattentive type, and the quieter presentation is not a lighter version of it.
The mix up matters more than it sounds. Parents sometimes hear ADD and take it to mean something mild that will not need treatment, and school or workplace paperwork can end up carrying a term nobody uses clinically any more. If you are asking for adjustments, or reading an old report, it is worth checking which words are being used and what they were meant to mean.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Name your adopted sons after their real fathers: this is more equitable in God's eyes (Quran 33:5). Calling something by its accurate name is treated there as a matter of fairness rather than fussiness.
ٱدۡعُوهُمۡ لِأٓبَآئِهِمۡ هُوَ أَقۡسَطُ عِندَ ٱللَّهِۚ فَإِن لَّمۡ تَعۡلَمُوٓاْ ءَابَآءَهُمۡ فَإِخۡوَٰنُكُمۡ فِي ٱلدِّينِ وَمَوَٰلِيكُمۡۚ وَلَيۡسَ عَلَيۡكُمۡ جُنَاحࣱ فِيمَآ أَخۡطَأۡتُم بِهِۦ وَلَٰكِن مَّا تَعَمَّدَتۡ قُلُوبُكُمۡۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ غَفُورࣰ ا رَّحِيمًا
Name your adopted sons after their real fathers: this is more equitable in God’s eyes––if you do not know who their fathers are [they are your] ‘brothers-in-religion’ and proteges. You will not be blamed if you make a mistake, only for what your hearts deliberately intend; God is most forgiving and merciful
Qur’an 33:5read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
The first nationally representative American study of how the public responds to child mental health problems used vignettes consistent with ADHD and other diagnoses to measure what people really recognise and believe. It found public understanding of these conditions to be patchy, which is the soil that a stale term like ADD keeps growing in. It surveys belief rather than testing whether correcting a word changes anything.
Pescosolido BA, Jensen PS, Martin JK, Perry BL, Olafsdottir S, Fettes D. (2008). Public knowledge and assessment of child mental health problems: findings from the National Stigma Study-Children.. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Using the term the system actually recognises keeps the door open to the support attached to it.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
The disbelief that hurts most rarely comes from strangers. It comes from a parent, a sibling or a cousin who calls the whole thing an excuse.
The parts of this that look like lifestyle, meaning sleep, driving, drinking, appointments that get missed, are the parts carrying the most risk across a lifetime. They are also the most changeable parts.
Some people book their first assessment on the day they turn eighteen, because it is the first day they can consent without a parent. If you have been waiting like that, the waiting was not laziness.