A Disease Called Childhood

Why ADHD Became an American Epidemic

Author Marilyn Wedge

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A family therapist offers a surprising new look at the rise of ADHD in America, arguing for a better paradigm for diagnosing and treating our children.

Since 1987, the number of American children diagnosed with ADHD has jumped from 3 to 11 percent. Meanwhile, ADHD rates remain relatively low in other countries such as France, Finland, the UK, and Japan, where the number of children diagnosed with and medicated for ADHD is 1 percent or less. Alarmed by this trend, family therapist Marilyn Wedge set out to understand how ADHD became an American epidemic—and to find out whether there are alternative treatments to powerful prescription drugs.

In A Disease Called Childhood, Wedge examines the factors that have created…

Marilyn Wedge is a practicing family therapist with a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Chicago, where she received a grant from the prestigious Danforth Foundation. She was a postdoctoral fellow in ethics at the Hastings Center, a nonprofit institution dedicated to bioethics. Wedge is the author of Suffer the Children: The Case Against Labeling and Medicating and an Effective Alternative, which was published in paperback with the title Pills Are Not for Preschoolers: A Drug-Free Approach for Troubled Kids.