ADHD: the end of the problem as we know it?

Abstract

This paper explores the historical shapings that have led to a modelling of ‘executive functions’ as a way of knowing the subject of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It argues that historical changes in figuring the problem of ADHD can be accounted for in terms of a process of continuous translation between neurological and cognitive scientific knowledge and contingent administrative concerns to do with knowing and managing a population. It concludes that a contemporary neuroscientific refiguring of ADHD in terms of executive functions emerges alongside a more general reconfiguration of the time and space of education, a reconfiguration in which neither ‘attention’ nor ‘hyperactivity’ might be quite the problems they once were.