Welcome! My name is Katy McCarthy and I am a student at Michigan State University and this my capstone project.

Throughout my last semester in undergrad I have been thinking about different media representations of ADHD and their effects on parents and children. I am particularly interested in media representations of alternative treatments for ADHD such as behavior therapy, parent training, and diet restrictions. I will use both scholarly and media sources, which I have extensively categorized and studied to help you (parents) think about how they are represented in the media and if you think they may be a useful treatment for your child who struggles with ADHD or ADHD-like symptoms.

GOALS:

1) Provide a comprehensive understanding of three alternative treatments; behavior therapy, parent training, and restriction diets.

2) Teach YOU how to spot media sources regarding ADHD and its treatments that may be misleading or untrue.

3) Help YOU decide if your child may benefit from an alternative treatment alone or in supplementation with a medication.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), also referred to as ADD, diagnosis and treatment is a heavily debated topic among parents, teachers, and doctors alike. It is debated as a physiological, psychological, dietary, or environmentally related disorder. Social media has contributed greatly to the debate by acting as a platform for people to voice their personal opinions on the origins of the disorder. In the media, ADHD has been portrayed in a number of ways; ranging from the child with a genetic disorder that physically cannot focus, to the child who engages in too much time in front of the television and doesn’t care to focus in the classroom. The debate may be brought about by the seemingly vague definition of ADHD by the National Institute of Mental Health as, “a brain disorder marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development.” Furthermore, inattention is defined as “a person who wanders off task”, hyperactivity is defined as a person that is constantly moving, and impulsivity is defined when “a person makes hasty actions that occur in the moment without first thinking about them” (1).

     Throughout this website I will be referencing a dataset I analyzed, which consisted of academic sources from scholarly journals and media sources which were comprised of news broadcast, newspaper, and social media encounters with alternative treatments. I assessed 11 of these types of media by determining if various themes showed up in the article. There were 9 themes I looked for in my dataset; focus on children, the mention of parents as a source of ADHD, recommendation of medication to supplement alternative treatments, mentions of mood or threats if ADHD is not treated, mention of adulthood ADHD, the usage of a chart to determine the effectiveness of the alternative treatment, a mention of the differences between how ADHD presents in boys and girls, the acknowledgement of diet as a treatment, and a mention of the controversy surrounding ADHD, its treatments, and its causes. My findings will be mentioned throughout the website and are summarized in my dataset page.