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To the Editors:
An article you printed Might 3 entitled “Accommodating Mental Health” contains incorrect details about the character of psychological sickness and ADHD and the necessity for lodging for these populations. This data may do untold hurt to an already marginalized group.
Your article states:
“For psychological disabilities specifically, lodging needs to be seen as a brief resolution, mentioned Weis.”
“Lodging are good and applicable for individuals with these situations,” he mentioned. “However we ought not lose sight of therapy. I imply, anxiousness, despair and ADHD are treatable situations. What we actually wish to do is say, ‘Let’s use lodging till you’ll be able to deal with this situation by way of remedy and/or medicine.’ We don’t need individuals saying, ‘I’m simply going to depend on lodging for the following six months or eight months or endlessly.’”
Nervousness, despair and ADHD are treatable situations. That’s appropriate. Nonetheless, there’s at present no treatment for any of those situations. They’re lifelong situations. To suggest that there’s any therapy that may negate the necessity for lodging as a way to make studying accessible for all learners is harmful. It not solely places studying in danger, it places lives in danger.
As somebody with ADHD who can be an professional in instructing and studying, I’ll converse to that situation particularly. ADHD is a life-threatening situation. To cite Drs. Hallowell and Ratey, two medical docs who’re specialists on ADHD who additionally dwell with ADHD, “Ignorance regarding ADHD costs lives.” There’s knowledge that exhibits a 21-year reduction in life expectancy for as much as 2/3 of individuals with ADHD. It is a lifelong, neurobiological situation. Remedy and remedy alone are inadequate to create situations for achievement for the overwhelming majority of ADHD learners, and any assertion on the contrary is in full contradiction to the newest knowledge on ADHD and the assist of ADHD learners.
Learners like me, learners with ADHD, are usually not magically capable of navigate a essentially ableist formal training system with remedy and/or medicine. Our profound struggles with govt features (e.g., focus, focus, time administration, prioritization, choice making) might be lessened, however not eradicated, by sure therapies. Whereas remedy and drugs might be vital components of our therapy plans, people with ADHD want fixed and constant assist by way of formal lodging, inclusive studying design, and caring, educated educators. We additionally want neurotypical clinicians, educators, and editors to teach themselves concerning the nature of those situations and to cease perpetuating incorrect and ableist viewpoints.
I implore your readers to start or proceed to hunt out specialists who dwell with anxiousness, despair and ADHD as a way to study scientifically correct methods grounded in disabled individuals’s life experiences. Nothing about us with out us.
–Karen Costa
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