ADHD should not be treated as a disorder

Adapting schools and workplaces for it can help far more.

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Not long ago, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was thought to affect only school-aged boys – the naughty ones who could not sit still in class and were always getting into trouble. Today, the number of ADHD diagnoses is rising fast in all age groups, with some of the biggest increases in young and middle-aged women.

The figures are staggering. Some two million people in England, 4 per cent of the population, are thought to have ADHD, says the Nuffield Trust, a think-tank. Its symptoms often overlap with those of autism, dyslexia and other conditions that, like ADHD, are thought to be caused by how the brain develops. All told, 10 to 15 per cent of children have patterns of attention and information-processing that belong to these categories.