Good Housekeeping Magazine - USA
.... husband and me that a local clinic run by a well-known physician
and expert in the field has developed a means of diagnosing attention
deficit disorder using a ...
http://magazines.ivillage.com/goodhousekeeping/hb/news/article/0,,krt_2004_06_22_ncjac_5576-0032-FAM-PARENTS~CH~ew~xml,00.html

A little Googleing turned up the following interesting tidbits. Make of them what you will.

Dr. Dubose Ravenel, the only expert cited in the article, is a pediatrician specializing in behavioural matters, but is not technically a psychiatrist.

Dr. Ravenel is also an outspoken supporter of corporal punishment (paddling and spanking) as a form of behavioural control.

Scanning through Dr. Ravenel's article on why there should be a new paradigm for AD/HD, published in 2002, it seems that he bases most of the reason there should be one on the subjective nature of the DSM-IV's AD/HD symptoms. However, as Dr. Hallowell (Author of Driven to Distraction) pointed out in his book, the DSM-IV is similarly subjective on matters such as headaches. This doesn't mean there aren't biological reasons for headaches, or AD/HD, it just means the reasons are varied and small enough to be very difficult to detect reliably.

He also uses just as questionable statistics as he denounces other studies for using. He cites one study of 200 Amish children which showed that symptoms of AD/HD were 'unusual'. Given a 5% incidence rate which seems to be the case, there'd only be 10 kids who'd show symptoms, which would make it fairly 'unusual'. And even if it were unusual, if there is a genetic basis to AD/HD, it's entirely possible that the original Amish settlers were a group not likely to have AD/HD to begin with; perhaps especially true given the dedication to their faith and beliefs their faith requires, people with AD/HD could have difficulty maintaining that kind of consistency. And, of course, there's been discussions about modern high-paced life making AD/HD more noticeable; it's entirely possible that AD/HD would simply be harder to notice in an Amish community because there are fewer demands for children's attention. Not that any of these are necessarily the case, but they all occurred to me as I read that paragraph and then wrote this, and Dr. Ravenel doesn't discuss any of them, while denouncing other studies that similarly use questionable statistics to support biological bases of AD/HD.


None of this necessarily proves Dr. Ravenel wrong. I'm not qualified to make that kind of analysis and statement. But you should always take everything with a grain of salt. And, in the case of the original article, basing a suggestion on the opinion of one person, in defiance of the more common theory, is dangerous. He may be right, and be ahead of the game, but he may also be utterly wrong.

In Nov of 1999 John Rosemand left town after a morning presentation at the local college where he said ADHD was fake and the result of bad parenting, rather than stick around and debate me and a panel of friends ( pediatrician, pediatric psychiatrist and an OT).