I don't recall reading about Dr Allan Frances before - but he turned up on Radio National yesterday morning talking about his views on overdiagnosis of various psychiatric problems (ADHD in kids being one issue), and he sounded pretty convincing and sensible to my mind. (One thing I did not know was that there is apparently a much greater proportion of the youngest kids in classes who get diagnosed with ADHD. He thinks there is no other explanation for this other than kids who are too immature for the class having worse behaviour, and it being turned into a medical problem.)
The RN interview can be heard on the ABC website, but I don't know how long for.
His Wiki page indicates he has been running his arguments for a long time. It would seem he is not being paid much attention, though...
Allen Frances wrote "Saving Normal" in 2013. He was the chairman of the DSM IV group. The book is about the tendency to pathologise so many behaviors. It is a good read. The youngest kids-ADHD linkage has long been known and studiously ignored. We need to be careful about the way children are now being diagnosed as unacceptably different. The histories of brilliant individuals are littered with stories of people being unacceptably different. S.B. Kaufman wrote "Twice Exceptional", a book about how the very bright and creative are much more inclined to be unacceptably different than the general population. ADHD is one aspect of that. I haven't read the book. SBK was an FBF. I found him tedious and mediocre. For a time he was the world's most popular psychologist. An indictment on the profession.
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