I have, for a while, thought that John Burn-Murdoch, who works for the Financial Times, is one of the best statistical journalists in the business. I had, in fact, grown accustomed to accepting his data. But I will never do so again. Yesterday, the Financial Times published an article by him in which he noted:
Between 2008 and 2023, the share of students at UK universities who reported having a disability doubled from 8 to 16 per cent. At the elite institutions of Oxford and Cambridge, far from bucking the trend, the increase was even steeper, with rates quadrupling from 5 per cent to around 20 per cent.
He added:
This trend is not unique to Britain, as disability services and resources in education come under increasing strain from rapidly expanding criteria. In the US, research by Rose Horowitch for the Atlantic magazine found that 38 per cent of undergraduates at Stanford this year are registered as having a disability, as are 21 per cent at Harvard — both up from 5 per cent in 2009.
And, to contextualise this, he said:
One could argue these figures tell a positive story of improved identification and care for young people who previously lacked help and support — and certainly there are elements of this in places. But deeper interrogation of the data paints a less rosy picture, particularly in the UK and US. It lays bare systems that benefit few and frequently fail those most in need.
In other words, his whole article was premised on the idea (admittedly, never explicitly stated) that there might be people claiming to have special needs who are exploiting these to secure personal advantage at cost to others, as this implies:
The additional assistance provided for students in these categories often includes extra time in exams and additional classroom support, and has been shown to significantly boost scores. There is no question that this is a huge help to most of the young people with less acute cases.
The implication that there might be cheating going on appears to pervade this whole article.
Saying so, Burn-Murdoch appears particularly fixated on those with level one autism, which only requires low levels of support, and those with so-called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He seems unaware of the fact that you can have both conditions at once, which is then described as AuDHD. In fact, we can be sure that this is his concern because he noted this:
The bulk of the rise in special support for youngsters is cases of non-profound [sic: there is no such categorisation] autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) plus anxiety and mental health [sic: this reference makes no sense at all because mental health is what we should aspire to], all of which have flexible diagnostic criteria. Where detailed data is available, we consistently see mild, not severe, cases driving the rise.
The hint that I take from this phrasing is that, in Burn-Murdoch's opinion, those involved should "just pull themselves together". This is a view typical of the right-wing reaction to these conditions, which, to be precise, identify people who process information and learn, think, and communicate in ways that are not the same as the majority of the population. Having either, or both, is not an indicator of mental ill health: it is simply a signifier of difference, which is something that the antisocial neoliberal world cannot tolerate.
This inference is, in my opinion, callous. The suggestion that people wth autism, ADHD or AuDHD should just pretend to be "normal" when they are not is what all people with the conditions know they have been forced to live with, but should not need to do so.
The technical term for their doing so is "masking", which is the process of pretending to be "normal" in the way the majority of the population is, when you are not. It takes considerable skill, massive observational ability, and a lot of energy to do well. It places all those who have to do it at a disadvantage in society precisely because those who are deemed normal refuse to recognise the needs of those who are different. It is one of the major reasons for these people's burnout and stress, which is why the conditions are so linked to anxiety and depression, and absence from the workforce. Burn-Murdoch appears to want to reinforce this stress, and at no point does he imply that it should be alleviated. Instead, he says:
The expansion of the definitions in this direction is far from cost free.
In the UK, the ballooning special education needs and disability (Send) caseload exacerbates a funding crisis in local councils; demand far outstrips both forecasts and resources. The results are predictably dire. As the number of more mild cases receiving support has climbed over the past decade, average funding per child (including the most severe cases) has fallen by a third in real terms: outcomes for those receiving support have deteriorated and councils describe a system on the brink.
What is Burn-Murdoch's aim? It is not to:
- Argue for more provision.
- Accuse the government of inappropriate policy funding choices.
- Suggest how additional funding could be made available, as is obviously possible.
Instead, he seems to highlight the need to cut services to meet the austerity agenda by denying services to those who need them, even if they are not the most severe sufferers of these conditions. Those with real needs must, it seems, pay the price for Rachel Reeves' budget obsessions in John Burn-Murdoch's opinion.
And, to compound matters, he then alludes to support for Robert Kennedy Jr's position on this in the USA, saying:
There are also consequences far beyond education. The conspiracy-laden crusades by US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and others to discredit vaccines, blaming them for rising autism rates, would have less success had diagnosis rates not been inflated by expanded diagnostic criteria.
The hint is obvious. He is implying that the crisis in support is being created by those needing support, and that the political consequences are their fault, too. It is either that, or he thinks their conditions are made up, which he then seeks to prove as if he had not already dug a deep enough hole for himself.
First, he says this:
Careful analyses using consistent definitions show little to no change in underlying prevalence.
This may be true, but he ignores a multitude of relevant issues, which I will note below, highlighting that the prevalence can be wholly unrelated to the number of cases diagnosed.
Second, he then referred to this chart he had produced:
There are so many potential statistical flaws in the presentation of this data that it is almost impossible to know where to start, so I did the obvious thing and went and read the paper John Burn-Murdoch refers to as his baseline to suggest that:
- There is no increase in ASD symptoms in society.
- There is no increase in ADHD in society.
- Diagnosis rates are above prevalence rates, implying there must be overdiagnosis, as appears to be his goal with this piece, because it is hard to work out what else he is saying when the inference of all that he has put together implies that one thing, as do these charts.
The Swedish paper he refers to was published in English and is available here, free to access.
Having read the paper, I think it is technically flawed in itself for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the paper, as first published, was riddled with errors, as the list of corrections to it since publication shows. You could say all of these are semantic. You could also say they imply a lack of rigour both by the authors and the journal that published their work.
Secondly, this is not world-leading science. It appears that I was the 23rd person to download the paper.
Thirdly, there is an obvious flaw in the population sample used. The study appears to be about both autism spectrum disorder and ADHD diagnoses, but it is not. That is because:
- In the first instance, it relates to diagnoses in twins, and not the population at large. I should add that there are good reasons why twins are studied, and that is because they are not typical. The authors and Burn-Murdoch ignore this and compare data on general populations with data on a potentially atypical population. I think that is statistically flawed: very obviously, twins may not behave normally with regard to ASD and ADHD, most especially if there is a genetic element to it, as there can also be to twin births. There is no baseline data here, then.
- Second, it turns out the study is not of people with autism and ADHD, but of parents' perceptions of whether their children have these conditions, which is something quite different. There are good reasons why this matters.
- Many parents might have profound and deeply rooted societal reasons for not wishing to diagnose their children as being within these categories.
- Many parents of children with level one autism or ADHD are themselves likely to have these conditions, but will be undiagnosed because most older people have never considered the possibility of this as an explanation for their own lived experiences in life. As a result, they may well see nothing unusual, as far as the rest of society is concerned, about their children's behaviour. There is, therefore, a massive risk of subconscious cognitive bias in the sample group, leading to under-reporting. This fundamentally flaws the research.
- This study does not refer to actual diagnoses amongst those supposedly researched, who are the children themselves. It is a study of their parents.
- As the paper itself notes, only 41% of the parents of twins who might have been surveyed agreed to take part in the study, and tellingly, the paper itself notes:
Non-responding parents were more likely to have twins with a clinical diagnosis of ASD, ADHD, and ASD or ADHD, which may make the estimates lower than if we had access to the entire population.
In other words, the authors themselevs knew their paper was flawed by the methodology used.
- Thirdly, the sample sizes are small. As a result, they may not be suitable for extrapolation.
- Fourthly, the authors of the paper admit that diagnosis rates are much higher than they find, saying, for example:
In Stockholm County, a recent report showed a prevalence of ASD diagnoses of 5.8 % in 13–17-year-old boys and 4.0 % in girls (Jablonska et al., 2023).
And
[I]n Sweden the prevalence has increased in all age groups, but most notably in teenagers, and it has been estimated that 10.5 % of all boys in Sweden and 6.0 % of girls in Sweden aged 10-17 years had a diagnosis of ADHD in 2022 (Socialstyrelsen, 2023).
I have deliberately noted the Swedish data they themselves cite to make the cohort as comparable as possible to those children they supposedly studied (but, it appears, did not, because they asked their parents instead).
I have more issues with the paper than these, but they illustrate my concerns. If I had been peer reviewing this paper (and I have peer-reviewed a fair number of academic papers), I would have strongly advised against its publication because of all the flaws noted. That is just my opinion, but that is what peer review is all about.
But then let me turn to why John Burn-Murdoch's chart is also flawed. What he appears not to have realised is that he is making a category error. The paper he has chosen to support his hypothesis is not about how many people have been diagnosed with ASD or ADHD. Instead, it measures how many people's parents report a certain level of ASD or ADHD-like traits on questionnaires, which is something many parents will be ill-equipped to do for reasons I noted above. So the underlying paper, and Burn-Murdoch, compare two quite different things as if they are the same. Most especially, perceptions are not diagnoses because a diagnosis also depends on things the questionnaires used in this study could not fully capture because those being asked did not, in all likelihood, have the ability to undertake a diagnosis of whether the traits actally caused significant day-to-day impairment, and whether the difficulties showed up in more than one setting (home, school/work, social life). This would be, not least, because the parents involved had most likely not only not recognised their own children's behaviour but had also adapted to it, meaning they were most likely to be unaware of it or to see it as normal for reasons noted above. Comparing a symptom-based estimate with a diagnosis rate is, then, simply not statistically valid. In that case, it is not a viable basis for drawing conclusions. And yet, Burn-Murdoch drew them.
So why might he have done that, given the other, very apparent bias in what he wrote, already noted above? There appear to be three possibilities.
First, all the article might do is confirm the profound misunderstandings of those who have not bothered to acquaint themselves with the realities of ASD, ADHD and AuDHD. In other words, John Burn-Murdoch had not done enough research to write about this issue as he did. This is the kindest possible explanation for what he has done. It suggests that this FT article is just based on ignorance. I can honestly say I hope that is true, but I must also add I am not convinced.
Second, it is possible that John Burn-Murdoch brought his own confirmation bias (conscious or unconscious) to the process and then applied to the process of creating the article the approach usually described as top-down thinking, which is commonly used by those described as "normal" in society who seek to confirm their prior hypotheses by finding evidence to support the conclusions they have already reached. In other words, Burn-Murdoch believes there is overdiagnosis of ASD and ADHD, as many on the political right wing claim, and sought to prove the fact using whatever statistics he could find, about which he was not sufficiently open-minded as a result. I stress that this may be unconscious bias, but it appears to be bias nonetheless, and as a statistician, he should be aware of all those risks. If this suggestion is correct, then, given the sensitivity of this issue and its enormous significance to those who have these conditions, for this bias to influence an article in the Financial Times is deeply dangerous, not least because the whole basis of this analysis seems so profoundly statistically flawed to me.
Third, there is something else at work in the tone of this article which is potentially much more pernicious still, as there is also deeply implicit in much of the commentary from right-wing politicians on this issue, which is the suggestion that those with these conditions are somehow cheating, when they are in fact suffering ill-treatment from a society that refuses to recognise that they think in ways different from those who might be described as more normal. As evidence, I would offer the fact that at no point in the article is the possibility considered that diagnoses may still under-represent the true number of people in our communities who do have such conditions, even though the paper referred to suggests rates of prevalence below the current treatment rates. What is more, there is no discussion of whether the level of support provided is appropriate or not. There is no discussion, therefore, of why we should care about this issue. Instead, there is an attempt to at least underplay and maybe deny its existence for many who are receiving treatment using statistics that I think are fundamentally flawed, accompanied by the fairly overt suggestion that manipulation to secure societal advancement is taking place.
Fourth, Burn-Murdoch also appears fixated on the idea that these traits are more commonly found in fee-paying schools or elite unversities, as if this were evidence of gaming the system rather than evidence that parents in the schools in question can afford to pay for diagnoses, rather than wait for the extended periods that are usually involved in securing these if the NHS is relied upon, a fact he did not note. This also implies, to me, the existence of at least a subconscious cognitive bias, implying once again the manipulation of diagnosis when, in fact, a much more straightforward explanation for the observed phenomenon is available.
In my opinion, and I stress that this is all that this represents, this is not only a very poor statistical analysis that does not support the claims made, but it also shows a profound bias on the part of the Financial Times and John Burn-Murdoch, which I find deeply unsavoury. It will, inevitably, be used to foster prejudice against people who have real needs because they think in ways different from the majority in society, which difference carries the real risk that they will be prejudiced against, ostracised, and positively discriminated against within a society to which they could bring so much. That opportunity will be denied because they will be deemed to be too deviant from what, to use a statistical term, might be called the mean of normality, which is the aspirational goal that neoliberal, antisocial economics appears to have for us all. For that reason, I found this article deeply disturbing and dangerous.
I will be forwarding this post to the FT for comment. When doing so, I will reserve my right to have quoted their article in the length I have as being a public interest use of what they published.
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[…] discussed whether I should publish the articles that I have put out on autism, ADHD, AuDHD and related issues this morning with somebody who most definitely has the […]
One starting point might be ‘is society becoming less tolerable for people with ADHD & Autism so they are being pushed in the direction of diagnosis’
You have previously commented on why some people choose self employment because it fits their mental health/neurodiversity needs. Clearly if Universal Credit is being much harder on the self employed some at least will start going down the diagnosis route as a way of escaping from these requirements.
Similarly there is a paper about the increase in disability benefit claims being linked to Social Security cuts
Surely a higher-than-average incidence of neurodivergent traits is to be expected in elite universities &c simply because people with academic brilliance (or potential) are so commonly neurodivergent, and because universities and highly selective schools seek them out and foster their thinking? It would be a sad state of affairs if universities etc. didn’t do that.
This is a great analysis by Richard and a great demonstration of his understanding of the subject and his considerable empathy. I wish more people were like this.
The other wording to be mindful of in the FT’s article, which betrays the view of these conditions that the author has, is the use of “mild cases” which gives the impression that ASC, ADHD and AuDHD are diseases like the flu which comes in weak, mild and strong variants for example. Those conditions are conditions. Not diseases. They cannot be “cured” because there is nothing to cure. They are nature’s way of introducing variance into the human species and it has helped us survive and evolve and thrive for hundreds of thousands of years. Turing is just one obvious and salient example.
I would also very much like to underline how much effort is required to mask on a daily basis. It is exceptional. It is utterly exhausting. It is never-ending. I do it every waking moment of every day. To hear someone suggest that I may be “putting it on” or that I need to “pull myself together” is laughable and does nothing but show their ignorance and cruel mentality. If Dame Judy Dench had to act all day long every day of her life, she’d burn out before the end of act one.
Christopher’s point also makes me think that if anyone is thinking that non-neurotypical students are outperforming neurotypical students solely because of the additional accomodations that were provided to them, then this could very easily be tested by giving the neurotypical students the same accommodations. If they perform no better, then it wasn’t due to the accommodations. It was due to their being better.
In any case, what giving accommodations to people proves is that when we care about each other and put in place the support we need, we do better and live healthier more successful lives. If Burn-Murdoch has a problem with that then Burn-Murdoch is the problem.
Much to agree with, and thank you.
Agreed Burn-Murdoch is no longer worth taking seriously.
As a first approximation, suppose that distribution of “mentally normal” fits the standard bell curve. In which case, 32% of the population will be outside one standard deviation, (half each side), and 5% outside 2 standard deviations (again, half each side). So we should not be surprised if rates of autism, ADHD, AuAdHD, approach the numbers outside 1 SD. Whether this leads to a need for treatment is going to depend on the conditions in society — I would suggest the tolerance and help available informally are significant, and that these have lessened over, say, last 50 years. In “The Spirit Level”, Wilkinson and Pickett, there is an interesting graph relating mental illness suffered within last year to income inequality; more inequality, more mental illness. I don’t mean to say that mental illness is the same as ADHD, autism, etc; but this is suggestive.
I have always been a fan of John Burns-Murdoch’s articles…. and still am – even if this article has short comings.
However, I did not come away with such negative vibes from the article as you did. I took away that….
(1) Prevalence of these conditions has remained roughly stable. This seems reasonable but there must surely be better data to confirm or contradict this that just the Swedish Paper.
(2) Diagnosis rates have shot up. This is undeniably true…. and does NOT imply overdiagnosis.
(3) “Pushy middle class parents” have led the way and hogged the educational resources available leaving kids from poorer backgrounds under provided for. (I think private/state school difference is a reasonable way to identify this phenomenon). Again, this does not imply overdiagnosis, merely the need for better resources for kids without pushy parents.
Anecdotally, (and confined to ADHD), this fits with my experience. The finance world is full of people with ADHD – including me. Whilst “old lags” (like me) merely adapted and survived the younger intake are different and has changed a lot – I have clearly seen this over my 15 years in Graduate Training in banking. I see many more with diagnosed ADHD but still very few from poor backgrounds.
Equally, in my 40 years of Sail Training, often with youngsters that have been excluded from mainstream schooling, I have seen so many boys (and it is nearly always boys) condemned as “naughty boys” when ADHD is the obvious diagnosis. Of course, very few of these lads struggling in the school system come from middle class backgrounds. Better diagnosis for this group is needed… and is, to a certain degree, happening now.
But what does it all mean? However we choose to diagnose neuro-diversity, we need more resources for education in the State sector.
The over diagnosis of richer kids is easily explained: their parents can pay to jump a three year waiting list. They are therefore diagnosed in school, not later, or not at all. That was not referred to in the article.
Yes, there are shortcomings in the article but the greater level of diagnosis among richer kids is NOT billed as OVER diagnosis in absolute terms (he says, to quote, “To be clear, the vast majority of these young people do have a genuine requirement for extra help.”). So, the clear implication is that the difference in diagnosis rates is due to under-diagnosis in poorer kids (where you identify the cause, “queue jumping” by those who can afford the private route). Sure, he could have explicitly stated this but I don’t think at any point he is claiming that large numbers (or even small numbers) are being wrongly diagnosed.
His whole chart is intended to show over diagnosis – but does not for reasons I note. The chart is clearly designed to show this, even if statistically it is totally flawed. What else was the point of then article? I have to disagree with you.
Your report of the FT article made me angry.
I am neuro divergent. I therefore failed my “11 plus” and attended a Secondary Modern school (for those who remember them). I was lucky, I later attended Cambridge University and studied Theoretical Physics (part of Natural Sciences). I had some minimal support at University. I needed it.
Our local primary school has about 10% of neurodiverse children mainly ASD and ADHD but others too. I have this from an expert source. The majority of these children are undiagnosed.
I have noticed that Cambridge University has a disproportionate number of neurodiverse students and staff (my own experience and my expert source again). It would not surprise me if 20% of the university were neurodiverse. That, in itself, attests to the value of neurodiversity.
To suggest that many people are pretending, though I guess there will always be a very few gaming the system, makes me angry. As you say most need relatively little support, though they do need some. Two family members received such support. They both needed it. And both are now extremely productive members of society.
20% neurodiversity in elite universities sounds about right to me. Thank goodness they are now starting to get the support they need.
Thanks
I think your estimate of neuro diversity at Cambridge is about right. Indeed, our exam system probably selects for ASD so one might expect “elite” (whatever that means) institutions to have higher levels than the population at large. That this is now recognised and supported is a good thing. However, the article does not say that many people are gaming the system… it is careful to avoid saying this.
Now, those with an “anti-woke” agenda might try and twist what he says…. but we should not.
I disagree Clive: the implication of the article is very clear – and I quoted the words in question. The implication of gaming is very strong.
I will read the article in full but just wanted to initially say that, as a father of two neurodivergent sons (both diagnosed as autistic with one showing definite traits of ADHD) and as a relative of other family members both of a similar age and older who I do suspect are neurodivergent, we should be seeking for those who are neurodivergent and those who are neurotypical * to understand each other, learn from each other and be supportive of each other. Be tolerant and accepting.
Those who are diagnosed as neurodivergent later in life have always been neurodivergent, they have just been diagnosed later.
Craig
* could it be argued that neurodivergency is actually neurotypical? It doesn’t actually make a difference to be honest but it’s something that my wife and I have talked about
The term neurodivergent is difficult, I agree.
I’m OK with neurodivergent. We are still a minority.
We do need to understand one another. All are needed in a healthy society.
An impediment to that is that neurodiversity runs strongly in families. Mine is majority diverse. The comments here suggest this is not so unusual. So we see neurodiversity all the time. On the other hand, other families will not have it in their families and are less likely to recognise it when they do come across it. This makes it harder for them to understand it and, I guess, more likely to espouse the views in the FT article.
Agreed.
I think you are right Richard , the author is hinting at people gaming system, he hasn’t used good research. Most worrying to me, he talks of those with ‘mild’ and ‘less acute’ presentations – a diagnosis is based on a person meeting thresholds, and as you describe, ‘masking’ (making it look as if you ‘fit in’ when inside you feel very uncomfortable) is a hallmark of neurodiversity. The physics high-flier may not be able to show what they can do without extra time or quieter conditions. Neurotypical people can often tick off a few traits, but that doesn’t mean they are ‘a bit adhd’ or whatever. There is a lot of misunderstanding, I am not 100% clear myself, despite a diagnosis! But to add this to the list of things ‘we can’t afford’ is so wrong morally and economically.
Many thanks for taking this apart for us. The article in FT is open to interpretation to a degree, but certainly rings alarm bells for me.
Sad to know that while 20% of students at Cambridge are getting help, our prisons are full of people with adhd and dyslexia, the lads Clive Parry has been working with. And there must be women in trouble because of undiagnosed and unsupported conditions.
Thanks
Thank you Richard for your critique of John Burn Murdoch’s depressingly ill-informed article on neurodiversity. Like many I value his work as a statistician however this article in an unacceptably flawed – using a statistically flawed Swedish paper to justify his conclusions implying that the increase in diagnoses is a result of people abusing the system.
It appears that the attitude to neurodivergence is similar to thag of Universal Credit/PIP claimants and migrants. At the same time people turn a blind eye to wealthy people exploiting loopholes in tax and company registration. It is symptomatic of people acquiescing to power while punching down on those who are different and vulnerable. I think your article is worthy of a YouTube video.
Too complicated for YT I fear…
As a twin who is neurodivergent but whose parents did not realise this until well into my adulthood, there are clearly studies in the identification criteria in the study.
My lack of social skills was almost entirely masked by making friends through my brother. His confidence was supported by always having a shadow. Neither of us were typical.
Additionally, twins can have a rather different situation anyway. I rarely used the terms ‘I’, ‘Me’ or ‘My’ until my late teens, being far more likely to use ‘We’ and ‘Our’ terms. I was never going to be seen as a lonely or solitary child because my brother was always there (until he wasn’t), and we could exercise our fixation on certain things (computers, Warhammer, etc) amongst ourselves rather than bothering our parents until they asked questions about why we did that.
It took me longer to consider whether I was neurodivergent because the closest person to me was similar to me – we knew we were different to others but some of that was just put down to being ‘a twin thing’. I’m not sure using twins as a group is then liable to get the most representative results for the wider population.
As a twin I recognise a great deal there – although I was the leader.
We are still very close – and uttely unalike, except in being neurodivergent, which our parents would never have recognised, although I am sure one was.
I’m pretty sure I’m undiagnosed Inattentive ADHD. I strongly fit the list of criteria, but at 46 I’m not going to go into a waiting list or pay privately as unless I want meds in pretty sure I can manage with what I’m already doing.
Break in the 90s before it was well known, I just presumed i was lazy, disorganised, unfocused, scatterbrained, a daydreamer.
I have always struggled to focus in a classroom or lecture theatre, either catching my thoughts wandering after a couple of minutes or feeling sleepy. I forgot to do homework, or even to check diaries to see if there was anything to do. At uni I’d be pulling eyelashes out trying to force myself to focus on reading course texts. Getting an electronic device that I could add text reminders made a huge difference, later a PDA (pre-smartphone).
But as I was failing my second year at uni I feel into depression, then switched courses a couple of times and eventually scraped through with a pass. Luckily I was under the older grant/loan system, I can’t imagine how much debt I’d be in otherwise and how much stress that would incur.
Now I’ve a better idea about why I am this way, and how I can manage it. I do quite well at work, I can easily learn something I’m interested in as I’m doing it, rather than upfront learning. If I don’t find it interesting it’s a slog.
All this makes me think that if I’ve struggled on and assumed I’m inferior to others, that perhaps many more people are and that the level of diagnoses is either correct or even under what it should be.
I learned about this to understand myself and others. It has helped me to do so. The time spent has been worth it. I have decided I need to talk about it. But each of us has to work out what we want. Good luck.
I do feel the need to point out that malingering ADHD in the student population happens more frequently than in other populations. However, this is not exactly new and research is being done to make sure diagnoses remain valid.
Additionally, I don’t know if attempts at malingering ADHD have increased recently.
Gaming the system by malingering ASD and ADHD comes with downsides: while we made progress in recent years, both conditions have still stigma attached. I would assume that parents who are well-off would first consider different approaches to support their children than to fake a diagnosis.
We will need much better data to make sense of the rise in diagnoses and support needs. Currently, we are engaging in too much speculation in what it means. The FT article is weak and biased and I agree with many of your criticisms, Richard.
Generally speaking, mental health issues are on the rise and they also affect teenager and young adults. It has become fashionable to attribute this rise to the use of smartphones. A notion I find rather silly. However, if young adults have more mental health issues and face more pressure to make it through a degree programm, impairments due to neurodevelopmental disorders will weigh heavier and increase the need for diagnosis and support. Even if symptoms seem to be mild, if the environment gets rougher, coping with impairments will be more difficult.
Can you explain how you know “malingering ADHD in the student population happens more frequently than in other populations”. I have not seen data on that.