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Comment by Izkata | Hacker News Reader

> People with ADHD ("ADD" is a very outdated term)

The old naming scheme made more sense than the current one. Under the current definition there are three types of ADHD, of which the "inattentive" type used to be called ADD because it doesn't have the "hyperactivity" trademark. So for that type "ADHD" is a misnomer that causes people to not even consider they may have it.

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That's a fair point and I'm probably just being overly touchy. I have ADHD-C and (perhaps unsurprisingly) favor ADHD-* nomenclature for distinguishing inside the umbrella. I think a large part of my aversion to "ADD" is because in the past I've mostly heard it used by people who saying they're "so ADD" when describing normal behavior (the same way people refer to being "OCD about X").

'ADD' does seem more likely to be used in that flippant way by people who don't have it, but IME ADHDers who self-describe with the term 'ADD' are just older, and for whatever reason have some kind of identity attachment to the nomenclature that was current when they were diagnosed.

That makes sense. I think the earliest evaluation I have is a 1996 one (probably for school accommodations) which uses "ADHD". This tracks with the 1987 terminology switch.

I heard they wanted to change it to just ADD in the DSM5, but it would apparently cause a lot of trouble in various statutes that specifically reference ADHD.

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