Moving forward: a call for Critical ADHD Studies

Highly effective early autistic activism gave considerable impetus to changes in the way autism research is conceived and carried out, notably through Critical Autism Studies (CAS). Little, though, has been similarly formalised challenging pathology-driven views of other forms of neurodivergence in research. However, there are increasing signs that this is changing, perhaps most particularly concerning ADHD. Here, we propose a tentative outline for what a Critical ADHD Studies – drawing on, bleeding into, and yet retaining its own specificities from both CAS and emergent Neurodiversity Studies – might resemble. This is neither a gate-keeping exercise nor a definitive mapping out of a field. Neither is ‘critical’, here, concerned with discussion of the validity of ADHD diagnoses. Rather, we seek points of intersection and of potential ally-ship, pulling together approaches centring ADHD lived experience, depathologisation, and ADHD affirmative world-making with related fields such as CAS and Neurodiversity Studies.<br/><br/>