The Myth of the ADHD Child Quotes

“A professor of creative studies at the University of Georgia, Bonnie Cramond, compared the traits of creative people with the warning signs of ADHD and found that, except for the terms used (positive for creative people, negative for people diagnosed as ADHD), they were practically identical.”
― Thomas Armstrong, The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion

“Refuting the simplistic statement that “ADHD is caused by bad parenting” avoids a more complex argument (given in chapter 7) that adverse factors such as physical abuse or trauma in a child’s home environment can impair neurological development and be linked to ADHD symptoms.”
― Thomas Armstrong, The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion

“The familial and emotional components may be most relevant for a child who is traumatized by physical abuse or other forms of stress at home.”
― Thomas Armstrong, The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion

“Children exposed to early violence display altered responses to confrontation and conflict; in essence they are ‘hard-wired’ to be anxious, distractible, highly aroused, and impulsively aggressive in situations of conflict.”
― Thomas Armstrong, The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion

“One study taken from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, for example, revealed associations between ADHD Inattentive Type and self-reported parental or guardian neglect, physical abuse, and even sexual abuse.”
― Thomas Armstrong, The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion

“A key component of the ADHD myth is that it’s a neurobiological disorder. This “fact” is convenient because it isolates the disorder from any taint of association with family problems, suboptimal parenting, child abuse, poverty, and other social ills.”
― Thomas Armstrong, The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion

“active learning (writing, reading aloud, talking with a teacher or student about the topic at hand).”
― Thomas Armstrong, The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion

“However brain functioning is measured, these studies tell us nothing about whether the observed anomalies were present at birth or whether they resulted from trauma, chronic stress or other early-childhood experiences.”
― Thomas Armstrong, The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion