[recs] FutureLearn: Understanding ADHD

[kaberett]

Here's the course landing page. I signed up for an iteration that began on the 3rd of November and am just now getting around to blitzing through the first week; in addition to the course leader's truly impressive hair I'm actually genuinely pleased by how careful they're being in terms of defining and using terms like "disorder", and when discussing differences between key symptom profiles compiled by external observers versus people with lived experience.

Learned so far:

• I do not correct enough for selection bias when estimating prevalence, at least not without really consciously thinking about it
  
• prevalence is in fact ~5%
  
• formalisation of the syndrome in writing dates back to ~1900, with definitions continuing to be refined (incl state-of-the-art conversations about "adult-onset ADHD" without [recognised] childhood markers)
  
• persistence (i.e. what proportion of children-with-diagnoses grow up in adults-who-meet-diagnostic-criteria?) has historically been reported as lower than I'd have expected (like, down to 15%), though more recent studies are showing higher numbers that are more in line with what I'd expect...
  
• ... and the DSM-V actually accounts for this (i.e. the effects of masking and coping strategies in adults) by reducing the number of symptoms required for diagnosis.

Comments

[shanaqui]

Oh, hm, maybe I should fit this in somehow. That sounds useful.

(Lisa really feels that she may have ADHD. Two psychiatrists have said no, but one based that on things like "she wasn't fidgeting during the assessment", which was in a public place, and the other said he specialises in it but was focusing on her depression so maybe that was less than ideal. Also I hear that sort of experience is not atypical for diagnosing it in an adult.)

[vass]

Thank you for link, that looks interesting.

[ewt]

Hmm. Looks potentially interesting. (I have an ADHD diagnosis, about which I have Significant Feelings because I think for me it went trauma --> ADHD rather than ADHD --> trauma, but ADHD is not generally recognised as "huh, could be cPTSD" and obviously that might not account for all cases.)

[rugessnome]

not to hijack your comment thread, but I just finally mentioned my own ADHD suspicions to my therapist this week and his thoughts (which he prefaced saying I would probably find them unhelpful, and which mirrored some of my own) were basically that without further examination it's hard to say how much they may be that and how much they may be connected with trauma.

[ewt]

For me the useful thing about the diagnosis is that medication helps me sometimes.