This piece appears in GOOD
When my younger son was diagnosed with ADHD, the school psychologist
ticked off a list of symptoms (hyperactivity, impulsivity,
distractibility, etc.) and recommended medication. "Why," I asked, "Do
you consider his learning issues a disability?" With an air of medical
certainty, he responded that "these qualities are inappropriate for his
age and will make it hard for him to function in a school setting."
But what if the disability in question actually has value to society?
What if our economic well-being demands more people with that
disability? It's time that we rethink our concept of disability.
In researching disability, I came across numerous technical and legal
definitions, all devoid of social context. These definitions speak of
being "impaired," but impaired compared to what and at what cost? What
we really mean by disability is being significantly less proficient than
most at a task society deems important. A person who is under par at,
say, bending his left pinky wouldn't have a disability because pinky
bending is not viewed as important. A person who is hard of hearing
would have a disability because she is well below average at a task we
consider important. If most people were hard of hearing, then it
wouldn't be a disability. It would be normal hearing. A disability is
not something most people have, or it would be considered normal.
The definition of disability matters because once we label a person
disabled, we place an onus on society to accommodate that person and on
the individual to accept every available remedy for the condition. So if
a child has attention control problems, we consider that child as
having a disability because she has difficulty at a task society thinks
is important—sitting still and paying attention to the teacher. We
expect the school to offer accommodations—extra time to take a test—and
expect the child to accept the remedy, taking medication or learning new
coping skills.
Some disabilities, it turns out, come packaged
with high value strengths. That child with attention control issues may
be inherently more creative than most of his classmates. According to
one recent study,
the prefrontal brain systems that govern cognitive control may suppress
creative thinking. Highly controlled people are often less creative,
and highly creative people are often less controlled. As education
scholar Yong Zhou put it, "certain human qualities may be antithetical
to each other."
Other disabilities are also linked to unusual cognitive powers. Dr. Laurent Mottron argues in the journal Nature
that we must stop considering the different brain structure of autistic
people to be an impairment. "Recent data and my own personal experience
suggest it's time to start thinking of autism as an advantage in some
spheres, not a cross to bear," Mottron said.
By focusing on
fixing the disability rather than building up the accompanying
strength—by trying to make the individual more "normal"—we may be
holding him back. We force him to devote most of his time and energy at
improving at what he's not good at rather than getting better at what he
naturally excels in. Such an emphasis will likely damage his
self-esteem because he will always be worse than average at certain
tasks. And with all the time spent on improving on his weak points, he
will have little left to fully develop his strengths.
We are much
less disaffirming of the weaknesses of the majority. We don't, for
example, consider an uncreative child as having a disability because
most people are not particularly creative. According to one study, 98
percent of 3-5 year olds scored at the genius level on a creativity
test, 32 percent scored at that level 5 years later and only 2 percent
of adults. We consider being creative as possessing a special ability,
but don't consider lacking creativity as possessing a disability. The
uncreative child never visits a tutor.
During the industrial era,
the economy required far less variety of abilities than it does today.
There were few opportunities to specialize. Whole cities were built
around a single industry and a narrow skill set. But increasingly the
minority quality—the less controlled but more innovative mind—is an
indispensable ingredient of productivity. In today's economy, a young
person who would have made a lousy pipefitter or plant manager might
make a brilliant app designer.
To be sure, the concept of
disability has its place. Some disabilities don't come paired with
obvious strengths, make a person genuinely miserable, or render her
incapable of functioning independently. A schizophrenic, beset with
hallucinations, disorganized thought, and bizarre delusions, may only be
capable of functioning in society, if at all, under strict psychiatric
care. Society is right to demand that she take her meds. Likewise, some
children with ADHD are so hyperactive that they can't function in social
situations. The condition drowns out their strengths. In such extreme
cases, we should not hesitate to call ADHD a disability and treat it
accordingly.
If we had a magic wand, we would undoubtedly do
away with schizophrenia. But would we extinguish ADHD, and its attendant
positive traits? Our economic and social condition demands people with
unconventional combinations of strengths and weaknesses, and ridding
ourselves of them would cut off a source of innovation and renewal. With
a 25 percent rise in the use of ADHD drugs in the past decade, that's
precisely what we are trying to do.
It's time to shift our
thinking about what constitutes a disability and what doesn't. Rather
than change the definition of disability, we should revisit our idea of
what’s important. Is it really critical that a child sit still and
follow directions all day? Can we allow children and adults to be bad at
things most are good at and be good at things most are bad at? We
should. Our new economy needs more of them.
