Attention Deficit Disorder, better known as ADD, is currently affecting five to ten million children in the United States (Ingersoll and Goldstein, 2). In past centuries ADD was not a known disorder, and even decades ago was not talked about or very well known. Why now is this disorder suddenly affecting three to five percent of our youth (Ingersoll and Goldstein, 3), and not stopping there but affecting them into teen and adulthood? The difference we see from 1902 to 2002 is not the children's behavior, but the way in which we conceive it. The children once thought of as "lazy, stupid, bad" behavior problems are now those with this attention and learning disability.
As an eleven-year-old child, I had never heard of Attention Deficit Disorder. My older brother and I were the well-behaved, well-mannered, perfect children. When my younger brother came along, we did not know what to call his behavior. We called it "wild" before we had any technical name to call it. We just figured it was the terrible twos. Then the terrible threes came along and then the terrible fours. Every year we would say "he will grow out of it" but to our disappointment, he never did.
When Trevor started kindergarten, his teacher noticed right away that he was going to have problems in school. The words his teacher used were exactly out of the text written by Ingersoll and Goldstein. Trevor was "obviously bright and creative but has difficultly learning in the classroom because he never finishes his work, looses books and papers, and can't get organized to plan, begin or follow through a task" (12). This is when our family consulted a doctor, and then was referred to an Attention Deficit specialist. The specialist gave surveys to my mom, Trevor's teacher, and his daycare provider. Every answer that was written pointed towards ADD. At age five he was diagnosed, and that was half the battle.
At this time my family as well as myself were very unaware of what ADD exactly was.