The Forums › Forums › What is it? › Other › ADD a "Developmental Disability?" › Re: ADD a “Developmental Disability?”
One may consider ADHD a “developmental disability” like learning disabilities and, I suppose ASDs (Autism Spectrum Disorders). Over the years definitions of various “maladies” have changed. My favorite catch-all term for “us” is still “minimal brain dysfunction”. Descriptive, yet non-specific!
IMHO, a developmental disability is not a diagnosis, per se. A developmental disability is a condition in which an affected individual’s development (i.e., how they function in terms of cognition and behavior) is “outside the curve”. By “outside the curve” I refer to the so-called bell curve which is used to describe the range of a given attribute in a group.
Consider height: As Rick Green has correctly observed, everybody has some height. Some have more than others. If you gatherered all the adults in the world together and measured them all and then plotted their heights you’d find the plot (graph) looked bell-shaped. Most folks are medium-sized. Few are very short; few are very tall.
Now, consider a developemental critera, like reading or attention (what’d I just write?). Then measure that. Folks who are too far one way or another are “outside the curve” and–depending on the circumstances–are “disordered” on way or another.
I’m not sure if this responds to your question. There’s always bad science out there (see, there’s even a curve for that!).
REPORT ABUSE