History Of Adhd Goes Back Much Additional Than Just Last Several Years
The history of adhd or Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is lot longer than many people even realize. There are a large number of people who erroneously believe that this is a new phenomenon that has only been in existence for a few decades at the most. However the fact is that it has been known about for much longer.
Interestingly Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder has been known by a number of different names. It was first recognized as an actual mental disorder back in the early 1900s, in 1902 to be precise. A certain Dr. Still actually documented cases of behavior that was noticeably impulsive in nature and he christened the disorder as Defect of Moral Control. Of course the name implied that it was a spiritual defect even though Dr. Still did not believe it to be so. He was convinced that the disorder was actually a medical issue.
To understand the proper history of adhd one has to fast-forward twenty years to 1922. It was in that year that the symptoms of the disorder were both described and diagnosed as Post-Encephalitic Behavior Disorder. By the time 1937 rolled around the symptoms presented by children were already being treated with stimulant medications. Dr. C. Bradley was the doctor who was responsible for this development but the one most commonly used in treatment of ADHD, Ritalin, would only make its appearance in the late 1950s and was used to treat children who were considered to be hyperactive.
The history of adhd changed significantly by the 1960s when stimulant medications to treat hyperactive children became more commonplace. ADHD received two new names during this period as well. In the early part of the 1960s it was referred to as Minimal Brain Dysfunction and by the later part of the same decade it was being called Hyperkinetic Disorder of Childhood. In the following decade more symptoms were recognized besides the hyperactive component. These symptoms included:
Impulsivity.
Lack of attention ability.
Attention wandering or daydreaming.
Inability to focus.
Later on the impulsive category would be divided into three sub-categories which were:
Verbal impulsivity.
Cognitive impulsivity.
Motor impulsivity.
The history of adhd saw it receive yet another new name in the 1980s when it was called Attention Deficit Disorder
History Of Adhd Goes Back Much Additional Than Just Last Several Years