DAILY MAIL COMMENT: This ADHD gravy train must be stopped...
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All doubt can now be put aside – the diagnosis of autism and ADHD has become an issue of massive concern.
A landmark Government-commissioned report found perverse school and welfare systems are incentivising parents to pigeon-hole their children as unwell.
In some cases, any traits and insecurities these youngsters suffer from are just a natural state of human existence.
Rather than being diagnosed with a mental condition, they would do better to read Nietzsche, who philosophised that hardship is a fundamental part of life.
The last 25 years have seen a huge surge in autism and ADHD cases, partly thanks to snake-oil private clinics which rarely, if ever, conclude a client is not neurodiverse.
Well-meaning parents are drawn into the con by the prospect of concessions for their child at school or university.
Meanwhile, the ignoble ones are motivated by the likelihood of getting their hands on welfare hand-outs via the rampant 'personal independence payments' (PIP) system. Over-diagnosing marginal cases is also unfair on those suffering acutely with the conditions.
All in all, the report concludes children risk being harmed, with their potential stifled by misdiagnosis. Furthermore, the role of social media is clear: it is an untrammelled source of poison which too often persuades youngsters they are neurodivergent or sick.
Landmark Government-commissioned report found perverse school and welfare systems are incentivising parents to pigeon-hole their children as unwell
It falls to parents to protect them from this toxicity, hard as it is to drag teenagers away from the web. Ministers, too, must act. In particular, they should fully take up the report's recommendations on regulating private clinics.
Large sections of the welfare-obsessed Labour Party believe that benefits hand-outs like PIP are always justified and even sacrosanct. Most importantly, this report provides important evidence that such attitudes are dangerously deluded.
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