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Years ago, the Autism Spectrum category got an overhaul to include subcategories, making it more organized and easy (at least for me) to navigate. I’m wondering if we could/should get something similar for ADHD.

Right now, we just have an “ Attention and Developmental Disorders ” category full of ADHD and semi-ADHD-related articles. It’s a subcategory of Disability Issues and Psychological Disorders. @Galactic-Radiance and I have discussed the idea of getting the ADHD category a little more organized.

I’m imagining something similar to what we have right now for autism. Here’s what the category tree could look like:

  • ADHD (with the main category containing mostly articles for people with ADHD)

    • ADHD Diagnosis Process
    • Interacting with People with ADHD
    • Supporting People with ADHD
    • ADHD Treatment (for articles on medications, supplements, therapies, etc.)

And some questions:

  • Some of our articles mention “ADD,” which has since been relabeled as a type of ADHD. Should we include the outdated term for clarity (i.e., “ADHD and ADD” as the parent category instead of “ADHD”), or let it be implied?
  • Some people with ADHD view it as a disorder (i.e., something wrong), while others see it only as a disability (i.e., a difference in ability not accommodated by society). Should we take it out of the Psychological Disorders category or leave it in?

@Galactic-Radiance has been doing a ton of ADHD research, so Alex, please feel free to share your thoughts here.

I also admit an ulterior motive: I was recently diagnosed with inattentive type ADHD, and having some nicely-organized subcategories would help my flighty brain focus so I can start making some big article additions/improvements.

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@Anna , I’d like your opinion too!

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I think it’s super that the category is getting editing love and attention! It’s such a good area for us to cover well- kudos to you and Alex for digging in there.  

I can’t speak too much to potential organization in that topic area itself - but I trust the folks like you who know the topic better, as well as people like Flickety who know our category tree inside and out, to weigh in on those specifics. As usual, we’d just want to double check any naming conventions and structure with both common searches (using Google Trends or similar), as well as the most universally accepted diagnosis literature… but keeping in mind people don’t always search with the medical terms, so it’s a balancing act getting the pages/categories right for the most number of people! 

I can, though, I think, speak a little to the overall category project right now. I don’t want to hijack your thread, so I’ve done that here instead, but it’s probably worth checking out for context, if you don’t see big changes in this area right away:  forums.wikihow.com/discussion/comment/871168/#Comment_871168
It’s possible there’s a case to be made for this being an exception to the hold, but if not, I don’t want you to feel it’s being ignored by any of us!

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I was diagnosed with ADHD (combined presentation) quite recently, and have been researching ADHD in general quite intently for the last few months, so here are my thoughts on organizing the ADHD articles!

In general, I think it would be best if we had a dedicated ADHD category; while “Attention and Developmental Disorders” does catch most of the ADHD topics, I’ve seen topics on other disabilities (e.g., learning disabilities) or just plain attention articles being placed into there by mistake, which suggests the category name is too broad and might be confusing people. In addition, the name is a bit of a misnomer, because “attention and developmental disorders” is a broad term that, on the rare occasion it’s used, covers all sorts of conditions, from ADHD to learning disabilities to autism to Down Syndrome, and the latter two’s categories aren’t tucked under the Attention and Developmental Disorders umbrella here. (And if we want to be picky, which I do, ADHD is neurodevelopmental, not developmental; it doesn’t result in delayed milestones or unusual growth.) I’ve requested a subcategory on learning disabilities in the past because we have a lot of those that are just floating around, so I’m hopeful that will solve the LD topics landing in “Attention and Developmental Disorders”, but it doesn’t solve other attention-related topics landing in there.

As for the subcategory requests, I support them if there’s enough of them to warrant them, though I would prioritize them in this order based on @Anna ’s comment in the other thread:

  • Treating ADHD (we have multiple pages on treating ADHD and its side effects, like sleep disturbances, with both medical and natural remedies)
  • Supporting People with ADHD (there’s a lot of “help your child with ADHD” kind of topics)
  • ADHD Diagnosis Process (I’ve noticed some dups in the articles that would fall in this category, so I’m not sure how many would be left after cleaning those up; however, if we get more diagnostic topics and “distinguish ADHD from XYZ” types, it might be a good category)
  • Interacting with People with ADHD (since most of the ADHD topics are either aimed at adults with ADHD or parents of kids with ADHD, this might need to wait for awhile)

For the ADHD vs. ADD thing, that one is hard to decide on, because while the DSM-V and ICD-10 (and proposed ICD-11) call it ADHD regardless, not everybody is up-to-date on that. I tried searching Google Trends to see which is more popular, but that didn’t help because it was looking for everything with the terms “add” in it, including stuff like “how to add something to a google account”, which is obviously not what we are looking for. That being said, I will say that I have seen and heard multiple people use the term ADD to refer to ADHD-I (inattentive ADHD), and that there are websites that occasionally use the term ADD or will say things like “ADHD, also known as ADD”.

I’m not sure ADHD fits in Psychological Disorders, because ADHD is suspected to be present from birth; it’s just a matter of when it’s recognized. Because most psychological disorders tend to develop over time rather than being inborn, and ADHD is present in childhood, it doesn’t really fit. Diagnostic criteria requires that signs of ADHD must have been present before age 12, which doesn’t apply to most other psychological disorders (e.g. depression or bipolar disorder). I’m not a professional, but considering the early age of onset of ADHD (as well as the fact that a small portion of people “outgrow” it, which doesn’t happen with most early-onset mental conditions), I’d vote to pull it from Psychological Disorders.

And now because that’s gotten super super wordy, a TL;DR:

  • More specific ADHD category, rather than “Attention and Developmental Disorders”
  • Subcats should be prioritized; top two would be Treating ADHD and Supporting People with ADHD
  • ADHD is the accurate medical term as of the DSM-V and ICD-10, but some people still say ADD
  • Remove the category from Psychological Disorders
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Wow, @Galactic-Radiance , I learned several new things from reading that, so thank you so much! I love hearing your insights.

Perhaps we should just call it “ADHD and ADD” then, and let the category description mention something about the language update? In case it helps with search terms and potential confusion and whatnot.

@Anna , I did not know that the category hold thing was still in effect; I saw the new requests and assumed that it must be over. Thanks for the info.

And in case it helps: If the category changes are implemented, I could totally be in charge of moving the articles to their new categories (if that makes it easier on Flickety).

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ooooooh id love a sub cataogory for iut since i know a lot bout it ewspecially threw experience and would lvoe to help more with ones with it too

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I know I’m late to this conversation, but I’m with @Galactic-Radiance that it’s important that we find some way to categorically address the DSM language v.s. common vernacular relating to ADD v.s. ADHD-I. I also just wanted to say that as someone who’s been diagnosed with ADHD for years, I think it’s great that you all are working to make the category’s resources more accessible. If there’s any way I can help with the process to make it easier on you guys, please feel free to let me know.

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Maybe we should have two categories instead, one called “ADHD and ADD” and the other called “Other Developmental Disorders”?

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@Kindnesschen , “Other Developmental Disorders” would be too broad a category, and doesn’t really address anything ADHD-specific. It’d likely end up making things more confusing for categorizers.

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@Galactic-Radiance Well, I see the problem. Maybe we can have a category (not a sub-category under the present Attention and Developmental Disorders) for ADHD (or ADD, as some people call it) and make other categories (again, not sub-categories under the present one) as needed for other developmental disorders? What I mean is, is it okay to completely delete the present Attention and Developmental Disorders category and make new categories as needed?

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We already have categories for quite a few other disabilities and conditions - we’re mostly trying to drill down to the best name for the category for the ADHD topics. I just mentioned that articles are getting miscategorized because the current name is too broad, and that its current name is technically inaccurate anyway, so it’s reason enough to change it. Category changes are currently on hold right now, but I wouldn’t know whether we’d delete-and-recreate an ADHD category or just rename the existing Attention and Developmental Disorders one - @Flickety would know the specifics of how category renaming and deletion works:slight_smile:

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@Galactic-Radiance Okay, I see. I agree with @MissLunaRose on the matter of naming—literally, to change the category’s name into “ADHD and ADD.”

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I’m really late to this but I definitely agree there should be a change. “ Attention and Developmental Disorders ” to me is just too broad

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@Rosybabey unfortunately category requests are on hold indefinitely.  wikiHow has way too many categories, and until there is consensus about the number of pages that should be in a category, there will be no answered requests.

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As a person with ADHD, I beleive that it should have it’s own category.

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same 

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@Axolotl-otuke Please don’t bump this old, old thread. Thanks!:slight_smile: