"Where were all the kids with ADHD 40 years ago then?"

[colditz]

Help me to answer my dad, who has delivered a fantastically ignorant diatribe (mainly along the lines of Ds1 "can't possibly be autistic, he's always smiling at me. He's a happy boy Colditz, he's not Autistic") but he has raised a point I can't answer.

Where were the children with ADHD 40 years ago?

Where were the children with High Functioning Autism?

According to him, and many people in their 50s, there WAS no ADHD, or CERTAINLY there wasn't in their school .... so ... where were they?

"It was in the 40s that Bruno Betelheim first diagnosed and studied autism, so there must have been some."

It was Leo Kanner in 1943 who first identified autism. He said he'd noticed cases of the new disorder since 1938.

Bruno Betelheim believed it was due to "refrigerator" mothering.

"I also lost my temper and asked him if he had ever wondered, considering that Autism has such a strong genetic basis, if he's never wondered about his older brother, who lives in a jet ski shed and builds jets skis all day - every day, and who hasn't been seen at a family event since his mother's funeral 13 years ago...

but apparently "he's just antisocial" "

I love the way families do this! (Lots of it goes on in mine) Just deny there's any problems, deny the elephant in the living room, just to keep up some misguided notion of face!

There were plenty of kids who had symptoms of ADHD when I was at primary school in the 70's. One boy, who obviously found it really hard to stay seated was TIED DOWN to a chair with a skipping rope for an entire lesson. . Plenty of them had the cane/slipper on a regular basis.
I remember thinking it was wrong all that time ago, even though I was only 6...

Diet is not a cause of ADHD.
The most recent research shows that in a child with ADHD, the frontal lobes of the brain (which control sequencing, processing, impulse control etc.) are underperforming. There is also lower than normal levels of neurotransmiters. Which is cause and which is effect is still being studied. This is why drugs like ritalin, which are actually brain stimulants and not tranquilisers, work. They stimulate these areas of the brain to perform at normal levels.
So it's not red food dye.
Anyway, in answer to the original OP, I'm with most of the other posters. I can clearly remember children who would now be diagnosed with ADHD, ASD or dyslexia in classes with me at school. They were the kids who were sent to remedial classes or sat next to bright kids because obviously the ability to read is airborn. The kids who just could not stay still or lashed out were the 'bad' kids parked permanently outside the head's office. They were the kids that never turned up to school or left just as soon as they could.
Or they were the kids who ended up at the Special Schools or residential schools.
OP, I feel for you. My PIL just won't accept that my girls are on the ADHD spectrum. Apparently, if we were less indulgent and disciplined them more harshly, that would sort everything out. I was tempted to ask if a good thrashing would sort out dd2's dyslexia too, but managed to hold back. According to FIL, most mums just want an ADHD diagnosis so they can keep the kids drugged up and get an extra 15 quid a week on benefit. TBH, I've given up on trying to educate them. Not good for my blood pressure.

Sorry, just to say, I think Colditz's grandfather is wrong to say it "wasn't around" forty years ago. Plainly that's not true.
There were certainly schools for autistic children in the seventies: a family friend worked in one.

Kanner's identification of what he called an entirely new condition came a few years after mercury was introduced to vaccines. The campaign "It's no mystery, it's mercury" has some of its basis in the similarities between autism and the symptoms of mercury poisoning.

Again, I'm not going to do links or anything like that, but if anyone is interested there are various studies out there.

Just my 2 pennethwsworth and it rather echos what duchesse wrote.

My high-functioning autistic uncle won a place at Kings College aged 16 to read physics in the 60s. He then did his PhD, worked in nuclear physics, pioneered a computer firm, never married and now works in politics.

I'd hate the thought of him being labelled with some blasted medical word - he's lived an extremely full life despite not having done the traditional married with kids thing.

I must admit I don't like this view that "it was just the naughty remedial kids". It's very diminishing.

I think that's one step away from saying (and allowing sceptics to say) "Well exactly it's just the naughty slow kids there's no disorder at all".

I think that's very retrogressive. It seems there are new disorders and in increasing numbers too. For me it mirrors the increase in asthma and allergies. Many people say "Well we just used to call it childhood bronchiolitis and have done with it", which diminishes the problems many people have and the issues they need to deal with.

I am fairly sure that I was/am ADD but I was just seen as an underachiever until I was around 15 and started to concentrate more (which I think I read is a normal progression for ADD children).

skilhorse, your uncle and my OH have a lot in common.

Back, I don't agree at all. It was not "just" the naughty, remedial kids - but the children that were labelled such are now labelled differently. And in some ways, thank goodness - my beautifully weird little boy gets help with the language problems that stop him accessing society, and celebration of his achievements, and support with the sensory difficulties that make life pretty unpleasant for him a lot of the time. It is not diminishing to acknowledge that 25 years ago, when my brothers and I were at school, different labels for the same set of behaviours were used. (I had a lovely label - Disturbed Child. DB1 was "disruptive," DB 3 "naughty." None of us have tested IQs below 135, none of us left school with qualifications that reflected that - all of us left at 16.)

Yeahbut- You wouldn't believe the number of ADHD pupils at the secondary schools I taught who were downing 6 cans of Coke before lunch, instead of breakfast.

Backto- thank you for putting me straight on that. I must have been misinformed back in the mists of time (Baccalaureat philosophy course). I did remember that BB attributed it to the mother. But then, Oliver James also blames most things on the mother even now.

BWH- I have another label for you and your siblings: "Bored". Bet that's one they never used.

I can remember a little girl being tied to her seat back in the 70s. It was in a rural french school and she was Dutch so the teacher just assumed she was the product of lax Dutch parenting. She was removed pretty sharpish by her parents (I wonder if the tying incident had anything to do with it?)

My brother was misdiagnosed as "hyperactive" 25 years ago. The doctor told my mum to keep him away from any foods containing E102 as that was what caused it...
No other tests, no specialists. The fact that he was actually suffering petit mals and then freaking out after them was not considered and now, sadly, he lives with epilepsy. It breaks my heart as the medication he's on prevents him from focussing on anything for long periods of time.
A friend of mine was only diagnosed as having aspergers a few years ago - she is 40. Pretty much everyone that met her thought she was either incredibly rude or a manic depressive.
These conditions have always been with us, but finally are being recognised as such. We just need to educate the older generation...

my friends a gp and she thinks a lot of the children don't actually have ADHD - the parents get them registered this way so they can get extra benefits. Realise this isn't the case for many and anyone having to look after a child like my ex childminders has my utmost sympathy

I met a woman once with learning disabilities (not sure what exactly but she had a fairly low IQ and was quite childlike), and she said when she was at school in the 50/60s she had to wear a dunce cap .

chefswife you are talking out of your a**e! .

sakura that's so true about families! My FiL made my dh and BiL share the box room in a 4 bedroom house so he could have the other 2 free bedrooms one for his train set and one for his darkroom!

he left MiL to go and live in a derelict barn in Ireland. he dresses like a tramp, is obsessive about time and spent the entirety of our wedding sitting with his head in his hands refusing to speak to anyone. MiL refuses to accept there's anything odd about this, I personally think she must have driven him mad by her incessant inane chattering

StarlightMcKenzie - I was recently diagnosed with dyspraxia as an adult, my neurologist said he noticed a strong link between babies born in distress using forceps and conditions such as dyspraxia.

As a child I was always considered 'odd', I was quiet, shunned other children, played by myself a lot and preferred adult company. I remember one teacher asking me (age 6/7) why I didn't just make friends with the other girls on my table, all I could say was 'I don't know how to'. I was also called 'the little girl who can't do anything' by a different teacher at the same age. I'm in my early twenties so this was only in the 90s! The same teacher who asked why I wouldn't make friends also sighed that although I should have been brilliant at gym as I was so small and skinny I just seemed to have 'no balance'. Children with SN have always been there, people just haven't realised. When I went to secondary school I was very unpopular and poorly organised so the school had to help me make friends and to organise myself. But no-one noticed what was really wrong, one teacher realised I have dyscalculia at 15 but said I wouldn't get a diagnosis in time for my maths GCSE. It was only when my driving instructor told me I 'needed my f***g head checked' (he was a charmer!) that I started googling my symptoms and realised what was really going on.

Luckily no-one's tried to say it doesn't exist yet and that I'm 'just clumsy' (although my boyfriend seems to think i'm 'just bad at maths' and that having a learning difficulty known to cause problems with either maths or language (I was excellent at English, awful at maths) is nothing to do with it). But I do know people who maintain dyslexia doesn't exist and is 'just an excuse for thick kids' but they've shut up since I've been diagnosed. (I think my honours degree from a top Uni shows that SN doesn't equate to lack of intelligence :D) Sadly some of my friends ignored my message to say I'd been diagnosed though (I confided in a few during the process but they didn't seem to feel the need to message me back when it became official) so it's hard to know how many people believe me

Im going to be really blunt here (its allowed as I too have a disabled child) the thing with the word 'disability' unless you look disabled people dont believe it Im sure it would be much easier for people who were diagnosed just to be tattooed on their forehead- just so people believe they are disabled.

This really really pisses me off.

I feel that nickschick, I told an agency once about my dyspraxia and I could tell they were just being polite when they nodded and looked serious. Funnily enough they never found me a job I'd be 'suitable' for in my chosen field and another agency (who didn't know I have dyspraxia) got me a job in less than two weeks!

There was an interesting documentary on BBC3 (you can iplayer it) about the people that were affected by managable health problems, such as panic attacks and agoraphobia, being locked away in institutions for most of their lives.

According to the documentary, some of these places didnt close until 2005, so the dark ages were no so far away.

These conditions have always been around, just labelled differently.

My brother (only 25, so at school in the 80's & 90's) was regarded as 'thick' until my enraged mother educated the school on Dyslexia.

The same reason lung cancer from smoking didn't exist.The same reason people didn't die of radiation poisoning. The same reason people didn't die from asbestos related diseases 40 years ago.

I knew a couple of kids in the 1980/90s who were 'hyperactive' and/or 'allergic to E numbers'....and a friend who was diagnosed with dyslexia a week before GCSEs. And always a few kids who were seen as 'odd' or 'loners' by the majority.

Now that there is a greater understanding of these conditions is it making any difference to the kids in school? I mean, are other children more understanding? I assume the teachers are....

Yeahbut, I also don't believe that hyperactivity is caused by food additives, but I think that some people (myself included) are very sensitive to them and it can make their behavior different than it normally would be.

borderlass Avocado fat, not chip fat... as an example.

I've never read, nor claimed to have read, anything that I said. I came to the information through two different women, one who's child is Autistic and the other whose child was diagnosed ADHD, but after getting a second opinion, went to a Naturopathic doctor and after about month of complete over haul of diet according to whatever tests they took, he was 'normal'.

That's as far as I'm reading because clearly hearing snippits of what others have come across that goes against any grain, is considered shit.

I don't know about the 70s but a view of the 90s is that the children were there but things just weren't picked up enough of or that they were but a lot of teachers didn't want to know or didn't know how to help.

I got put in the remedial group for english in year 2 (1990) because my hand writing was bad. I was miles ahead in reading, my creative writing was brilliant (apparently - I'm not arrogant, honest ) yet because of my hand writing I was put in remedial group. I only have one memory of it and don't think it lasted for very long - it certainly didn't have any affect as my hand writing to this day is awful. I never could master holding a pen the 'correct' way despite being told off and people trying to force me to.

In addition to that my coordination was awful. I hated sports because I couldn't catch a ball, I couldn't do a head of heels or any other gymnastics, I certainly couldn't hit a rounders ball!

My social skills were lacking and still are. I have always had friends but these friendships don't come easily to me. Although my part in friendships didn't get any easier as I got older, I found that probably from about 18 people were much more accepting in general. At school outside of my friendship group people could be cruel - once I hit university people seemed to be more accepting. Or maybe not - maybe there is just the opportunity to meet a wider range of people as there were still the bitchy girls there!

I do have a full and successful career but one which requires a lot of communication with other people and I find it very difficult and tiring - it was a natural career for me to go into however because it involves a lot of writing and I was good at english so thought I should go into this.

Sorry, I'm going on but my point is that even in the 90s people missed a lot of symptoms or signs for things. From what I have said above and from a few other things that I don't find a hindrance but are just oddities about me, I think that I sit somewhere on the autism spectrum although high up (maybe the coordination difficulties are more dyspraxic though).

My DP has dyslexia as well. My MIL was told by the teacher he was stupid and that she should get him put into a 'special' school when he was in year 2 (this would be 1989). She wouldn't believe that he was stupid and they were lucky to have quite a bit of money and she was a SAHM. She taught him to read and write herself at home. Meanwhile they got him assessed for dyslexia and were told his IQ measured at 144 and that he was certainly not stupid - he was very bright but dyslexic. He ended up going private which for the majority of people is not an option. He achieved GCSEs, Alevels and a degree at good grades.

Moving forwards a close relative has been diagnosed with Aspergers and ADHD. He is in MS secondary and going through the statmenting process. The amount of ignorance that comes from a lot of the teachers including his Aspergers and ADHD being referred to as 'diseases' (said in a tone of disgust). It angers me that teachers even to this day seem to know so little - why can't it be made more of a priority to educate trainee teachers on SN, especially when a policy of inclusion is in place in this country!