Disabling labeling : a social worker's response to attention deficit disorder

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) is a childhood psychiatric diagnosis that has exploded within the last decade. The literature written to address this topic is dominated by the medical perspective and for the most part contains few references from a social worker's perspective. The goals of this paper are to question some of the fundamental assumptions of this disorder and explore the treatment strategies utilized in dealing with this problem. I then apply some of these treatment approaches to two separate groups of 6 to 9 year old children diagnosed with ADD. This project looks at how the treatment strategies evolved within my own practice and then provides some radical suggestions that social workers need to consider when working with this population of children.--Page ii.