ADD/ADS/ADHD/AUTISM/ASPERGER'S  SYNDROME/TURRETES SYNDROME/and RELATED LABELS __________________________________________________________ By Peter K. Sharpen (Cert.Ed., Dip.S.E.) © 2004     I have been a teacher for over thirty years. Twenty or more of those years teaching children with Learning Difficulties and so forth. I have always had my doubts about labelling children, especially since coming across the notion of ADD and so forth. The notion has always rankled me, somewhat.     Being an ordinary chap I lived a varied life before teaching. I had worked in many varied situations, all dealing with people in all walks of life, whomsoever they may or claimed to have been.     I have always been doubtful about labelling, as I said, even before I read about General Semantics  which, apart from anything else, states that, whatever you say a thing is, it isn't. In describing something, one necessarily moves up to the next level and so on until a definition becomes worthless. Language makes a mockery of words.     Labelling is a convenient method of describing something for the purpose of general communication. However, using words, always leads to poor communication without a face-to-face stance. I wrote about this over forty years ago and I'm now fifty-nine.     Labelling, has also caught up with the times. Those times revolve around a great deal of mis-guided illusions/descriptions about behaviours. Realistically, they also revolve around keeping a job in medicine of some kind and the pharmaceutical industry which is happy to serve it. If this sounds cynical, it is; tough. It is, I believe it is a matter of vested interests, whatever they may be.     In other words, if you can label something, you have a sort of ownership of it. If you are 'qualified' you can make decisions as to outcomes that affect others. It is, of course a huge responsibility, but hey! it's not your life. However, I will try to refrain from being too cynical.     Life is a continuum. All things in life (especially qualities) are thus. The world is crinkley, not linear. "No leaf occupies the same space twice." ('Song of the Scribe' by myself).     My own concern is also personal. It revolves round the notion of what I heard once called MDJ or Medical Dictionary Jitters. The notion was that if you looked something up in a medical dictionary, one could easily see one's self having the same symptoms. It's Aristotelian Logic:     All women have white teeth.     I have white teeth,     Therefore I am a woman.     (Actually, I am a man!)     I'll stick to simple derivatives of ADHS and so forth. ADS or Attention Deficit Syndrome will suffice, the rest is part of the continuum.     Where is the 'attention' deficit? Is it, 1)  the lack of attention of the child to his/her surroundings, or 2)  the lack of attention they get as children? Good questions I think.     I'll talk in the male vein, and especially since boys are more prone, apparently, to the syndrome than girls. I believe there are good reasons why.     I really don't know the history of the diagnosis of this 'problem'. I suspect that it went by many different names as did the diagnosis of 'Children With Disabilities' has changed, especially after the Mary Warnock Report in the 1970's. A 'Change the name, change the disease' syndrome.     What I do know is, from my own personal experience, that boys suffer mostly under present (and past) environmental conditions in respect of outcomes and expectations slightly (litotes, or understatement) more than girls. The message we get is that boys are to be so-and-so and girls their own so-and-so. This notion has not really changed much over the centuries. The boy is still the hunter/killer the girl is still the home-maker. The words may be different, the sentiments remain unchanged. The roles may have switched a bit but not really enough to be significant when you consider the labels of ADS assigned to boys. Attitudes change very slowly. It is clear that boys more than girls also live a sedentary/solitary life nowadays. Although many have interests outside the home, many children spend too much time with solitary or 'at-a-distance' solitary existence behind a television/monitor screen of some description. Mostly what occupies them is also very negative and mind-controlling. It is no wonder, to me, that they become hyperactive when forced to be placed in the 'outside' world. Monitoring of these solitary activities is the essential part parents need to play for their offspring and, of course, their responsibility. Having children is a parent's responsibility, nothing should come before that; or don't have children, it's not a 'right'. If children become a nuisance, then you are not responsible enough to have had them.     I agree with an education. However, my notion of this maybe different from a great deal of Western peoples. Australian aborigines, for example, learn how to live through their family. This family includes not only the father and mother, (who share much more of the education of their children than Western peoples) the air above and the ground beneath them, which are all One. This family includes those who know a bit more (parents and an extended family) and the others (elders) who know even more still. They have rules for survival. They are not laws, that is an invention of what we call 'westerners'. Rules are maintained by real people; laws are maintained by a judicial system. Rules work, laws don't. Some rules may be what we call 'savage' but then so are most laws. The word 'savage' and its connotations are those of Westerners. It depends on your own educative environment.     I agree with an education. Westerners fought for a long time to get one for their siblings. But what was it and why? Was it an education into how they might best live their individual lives or was it an education to inculcate them into the lives and by control of others? Do Australian aborigines control? No, they don't. Do Westerners control? Yes, they do, to perfection and the detriment of Australian aboriginals, and all the other aboriginals they have decimated.     Western systems of 'education' rely on control. "You learn this. Your learn that. Otherwise, 1000 lines- 'I will learn." or, Detention or other sanctions (the 'dunce' in the corner), many of them violent in some way. Not that this always does harm (but I'm somewhat doubtful about that). "A good spanking (or whatever) never did me any harm!" Didn't it?     There is still a school in England called 'Summerhill'. It was founded in 1921 by A.S. Neil. It offered education to its pupils. Given the students' differing backgrounds, it offered to teach them what they wanted to know, when they required it. They did and were (and are still) , in fact, very successful, even in terms of 'normal' education.     "The function of a child," said Neil, "is to live his own life- not the life that his anxious parents think he should live, nor a life according to the purpose of the educator who thinks he knows best". This book was very important to me in the 70's when I was studying to become a 'teacher'. I think it is the basis for this essay. It is still important to me, hence my inclusion of it in this essay.     Boys (and girls) want to play. Play does not only mean 'play' as in 'do anything' they feel like (though this is perfectly natural and healthy). What is play? It is the need to establish one's identity in the world. It involves all the magic of pretence, fantasy, role-play and everything else that is natural to a human child. Children are like sponges. But they only soak up all they need to know as individuals, at that time, which is why, later in life they remember those things in great detail, and which is why they reject those things that they do not find (quite naturally) what they don't need to know or don't find interesting. Stopping a child from indulging in an activity because it is not part of the current project should be a criminal offence. It may not be relevant to the system but it is certainly relevant to the child. To tell a child to 'grow up' is a sin worse than committing him to a label of ADS, or whatever. Why do some people put children down in this way? Is it because they fear they too have childish behaviours and that they, as 'adults' should be 'grown up'? What's 'childish' or 'adult'? They are expectations. Expectations are not 'real'. A child's world is real.     This leads to the problem of students diagnosed with ADS. They don't want to be there, at school, or wherever. They want to learn by themselves. We, the so-called 'adults/controllers/establishment' or whatever, are saying that they should be where they don't want to be.     Children will learn for their survival despite the system that requires them to 'learn'. They have more potential than those forced to do so. Hermann Hesse's "The Prodigy" resulted in the boy (Hans Giebenrath) committing suicide by being forced to do what he didn't want. Given that he was 'bright' he was forced to leave his learning childhood behind to become something he might have been anyway but for 'adult' interference. Hesse's book was an indictment against his own early education (strictly Western). Later he went on to learn something of other cultures.     We cannot make the world of a child safer by wrapping him in a cocoon. There is always a risk factor. This risk factor has allowed us to develop into what we are. There may be fewer risks (though I strongly doubt it) but that makes us stagnate as humans and therefore degenerative as a species.     I do not believe it is the 'right' of adults to determine a child's future. The best we can offer is the best we can under our particular circumstances (TLC). Children from the 'worst' homes have 'made it' to become famous and humanitarian; most, if not all of them. Children from the 'best' homes, are most often quite the opposite. There are, of course, many variables. The only thing we can offer our children is the best we can offer, as I said. We cannot and should not, coerce, coax or otherwise try to control them. We should give them boundaries. Children need boundaries (so do adults, of course). Boundaries are rules which are a common consent of the family and friends. We cannot 'negotiate' with children under the age of at least twelve years old. They do not have the vocabulary nor the will-power or even the care about negotiation. Negotiation is a no-no. If the rules of the house, which are sacrosanct to all living under the same roof, are made plain there will be no problems. If there are problems, it is the adult's problem to rectify the situation but not by control ("I'm your mother/father or whatever"). Do not believe the popular press on this. These people suffer the same as everyone else; they are not 'gods' to be believed, they only want to take your money. Your own judgement is best, whatever that may be. The child will sort it out if left to be a survivor and not a well brain-washed puppet. If appropriate boundaries are set early enough, the need for them later becomes less; the child is already co-operating. Setting boundaries too late, is most probably a waste of time, hence the notion of 'rebellion'. The 'Thirty-second Rule'     In perhaps diagnosing ADS, little seems to be taken into account of a truth that boys take longer to assimilate data than girls. This is, I believe, a biological truth. Women are 'designed' to be instantly available to their off-spring, it's part of woman's survival instinct for the race. Boys are not. It takes something of 30 seconds for the message to 'get through'. Instant behaviour is not possible. If this notion were more well-known, a great deal of anxiety for all concerned would be considerably lessened. I believe it could be part of a truth that boys or men, as part of their hunter/gatherer nature, need to consider an action before performing it. This would be part of their own survival mechanism. No good rushing at the oncoming tiger without considering alternatives!     None of the above disclaims that there as disabilities and more disabilities. Disabilities are also a continuum. They also depend on a perspective. What might be a disability for one person is not necessarily true for others; and it is also a perception. I might not perceive that I have a visual impairment because I wear spectacles or count it a disability. I take it as a truth I need to wear them for my survival. A person without need for such a device may see this as a disability and perceive otherwise.     With ADS, as part of a diagnosis, the former should be taken into consideration very strongly. If a child (especially a boy) does not exhibit behaviour that is a concern for his welfare and the welfare of others, then I believe he should be left alone. Administering TLC is the best care possible, remembering that we all react differently to situations.     If the child is exhibiting behaviours that are not conducive to the welfare of themselves or others, then, of course other methods of assisting that child may be called for.     As far as drugging the child goes, I am in little favour. It is often, I have to say it, a cheap way out. Not cheap in terms of finance but cheap in terms of the amount of work that needs to be done otherwise. If drugs need to be resorted to, then I believe we have failed. Given that there were no such drugs, then we can be creative enough to find alternative methods of dealing with particular disabilities, or let nature do her work, she's quite capable, despite the possible outcomes which might not suit us. We really need to rethink this situation relating to any kind of drug injestion.     If people survive the worst horrors imaginable, they can survive ADS. Frankly, I think that ADS or whatever words follow that continuum, are misnomers. I also believe that a great many of us exhibits, one way or another, many of the data that constitute putting together a 'syndrome' such as ADS.

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