[aidenn0]

Count me as a legitimate case.

That being said, all the research I've done into it on my own shows that the ability of the system to diagnose ADHD is crap. As in huge numbers of both false positives and false negatives. The over-diagnosis is a huge problem, and it results in not only large numbers of children being prescribed stimulant medication mistakenly, but it causes parents of kids who could benefit from such medication to rightfully have second thoughts when a doctor recommends it.

In particular a lot of those who make ADHD referrals kind of have this mapping of "Problem Kid" => "Likely ADHD" when that doesn't seem to be a particularly good mapping.

There are even significant downsides to kids with ADHD taking stimulant medication, but in that case, it appears that the likely benefit does outweigh the likely harm.

Now that I'm a parent, I also wonder if the increased diagnosis of boys is partly due to the differences in the school system. I see more homework and deskwork at a younger age than when I was a kid, but combined with less of a "boys will be boys" tolerance for destructive behavior than when my dad was a kid. Of course I have no numbers on this, so it may merely be nostalgia thinking that that is the trend.