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Comment by mikevm | Hacker News Reader

ADHD is a grossly mislabled condition. It should be more appropriately called "Executive function disorder"[1].

Kids who have the hyperactive "subtype" of ADHD tend to move non-stop to the point where they injure themselves, and they also don't seem to listen to their parents. I'm not sure how much of this behavior shows for 3 year olds though...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_functions

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My one year old moves constantly and injures herself unless we hover non-stop. I hear I was the same as an infant/toddler, and I'm sure I could get an ADHD diagnosis now as an adult. I would never consider medicating her even if this kept up for years, though — despite my hyperactivity I'm happy and operate just fine in society. When I got bored in chemistry and math classes as a kid and had trouble paying attention, they put me in advanced classes (or even let me do experiments in the back of the classroom during lecture), where I continued to learn effectively.

Sometimes when a human being and society are misaligned, the society should adapt rather than the human being.

tend to move non-stop to the point where they injure themselves, and they also don't seem to listen to their parents.

Sounds like a quintessential 3 year old.

The symptoms of depression, when described glibly, "sound" like a quintessential teenager.

That doesn't mean it's not possible (or useful) to distinguish between a "normal" teenager and one who is depressed and needs treatment.

Of course the point he was making is that the distinction made by that description is weak.

People did not evolve to politely sit still all day, the thought of medicating children to comply with our current sedentary habits (which are doing a good job of damaging our health) seems perverse to say the least...

Yes, but ADHD is much more than just not being able to sit still all day. There are working memory problems, time management problems and much much more. It affects interpersonal relationships, job performance and many other parts of a person's life.

As a person with ADHD-Hyperactive-Impulsive type grows up, he will start showing less and less hyperactivity (the impulsivity is still there though).

The problem is that the number of children being diagnosed with ADHD seems dubious(I accept that there's real cases). According to the stats in[1] 20% of boys aged between 14-17 have been diagnosed at some point with ADHD. When you're diagnosing 20% of the male population with a condition isn't it time to accept that it isn't a condition, rather it's within the normal range of behaviour (many of the symptoms would be simply be considered an aspect of one's personality in other times).

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/03/31/us/adhd-in-chi...

I agree with your statement that ADHD is a completely mislabled condition.

HOWEVER, "executive function disorder" is too general. Medically, it refers to a class of disorders that includes not just ADHD, but also Asperger's syndrome, Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, and more[0].

I agree with your general sentiment; I just want to point out that we cannot use the term interchangeably, as many people who have executive function disorders do not have ADHD.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_dysfunction#Executiv...

Thanks for the clarification!

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