Schools Receive $400 for every Child Diagnosed with ADHD

This article comes from cultureshocktv.com. It was posted on January 6th, 2003.

Tom De Weese, writing in NewsWithViews.com, marks the moment when ADHD took a quantum leap forward as a government-sponsored “disorder.”

In 1991, federal rules were adopted which granted U.S. schools $400 for each child diagnosed with ADHD. (I’m trying to determine whether this program extends to all or only some U.S. school districts, and whether there is additional state aid involved.)

Also in 1991, the U.S. Department of Education issued a formal recognition of ADHD as a debilitating condition and ordered state education departments to screen students and give ADHD cases special services.

As a result, the number of children diagnosed with ADHD shot up.

The guiding principle here is pretty simple: that which the federal government gives money for becomes plentiful. If the government offers funds for every chipmunk with blue teeth, you can be sure people will find them in the woods—all over the place. And no one will worry about the fact that, before the money was offered, such chipmunks were non-existent.

In the case of ADHD, there has never been a diagnostic test that locates a chemical or biological root cause for the so-called disorder. That means there is no proof that ADHD, as a distinct condition, exists.

“Well, my son definitely has a problem. He can’t sit still, he wanders all over the classroom, he talks out of turn, and he can’t concentrate. So don’t tell me ADHD doesn’t exist.”

I get this all the time, and all the time I point out: having problems is real, but that doesn’t mean ADHD is real.

Here is a partial list of factors that can cause a child to have these “ADHD problems”: chemicals and dyes in food, excess sugar intake, vaccines, medical prescription drugs, heavy metals, poor teaching, failure to grasp basic subjects (e.g., reading), head injuries, parents who aren’t home, parents who don’t care, unsafe schools, street drugs, and poor nutrition.

The image to the left here, which looks like a sun, is missing “logical and rational” because people who have been diagnosed with ADHD are often not very logical or rational.

Beyond any of this, if the government keeps giving money to schools for the identification of handicaps, then that is what school officials will focus on.