In the book, The Short Bus, Jonathan Mooney’s thesis is that there is more to people than their disabilities, it is not restricting nor is it shameful but infact it is beautiful in its own way. With a plan to travel the United States, Mooney decides to travel in a Short bus with intentions of collecting experiences from people who have overcome--or not overcome--being labeled disabled or abnormal. In this Mooney reinvents this concept that normal people suck; that a simple small message of “you’re not normal” could have a destructive and deteriorating effect. With an idea of what disabilities are, Mooney’s trip gives light to disabilities even he was not prepared to face, that he feared. Mooney embarks on this trip, starting in LA to his first destination at Arizona, to go beyond what is normal. Starting from his own personal history at Penny Camp Elementary. As Mooney travels he meets extraordinary people labeled abnormal, whom he soon felt weren’t that abnormal at all and were only suffering labels invented by man. During these meetings with people, Mooney explains that many terms society uses today were invented around the 1950s. This is especially odd because it is used so prominently and it was not discovered too long ago. The idea behind diagnosing ADHD is lack of attention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness; these characteristics alone to base diagnosis on is vague and leaves room for many mistakes, which have been evidently made countless of times. Mooney in his explanation of these labels shows that characteristics deemed inappropriate in society leads to the belief of mental incapabilities, which can only give those diagnosing the belief that anyone with these symptoms is broken. What is eventually understood is that, alth... ... middle of paper ... ...ing little room for imagination. It shows the negative effects that people will go through when under the thumb of society, it shows the importance of each, individual person being equal despite their variance. The Short Bus, is an important mark in Human Rights history; it is important because it accounts for people, people who have had very little representation prior and people who can now begin believing that their disability isn’t the end of who they are and can become. In relation to Human Rights, this is just another violation to peoples basic life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness that has guided this country for many years; it is a discrimination that needs to end and a discrimination that almost everyone has participated in at one point in their life. Works Cited Mooney, Jonathan. The Short Bus: A Journey beyond Normal. New York: H. Holt, 2007. Print.
Marcia Clemmitt is a staff writer, who is also a veteran social-policy reporter. She holds a position as a high school math and physics teacher on the side of being an author. Clemmitt earned a liberal arts and science degree from St. John’s College in Annapolis. She has obtained a master’s degree in English from Georgetown University as well. Throughout the report, Clemmitt goes into detail about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also known as ADHD. She questions on whether or not that the mental illness may be overdiagnosed for patients. In her studies, she states that within recent researches, the diagnosis for ADHD
It can easily be said that most playful, curious children lie somewhere on the spectrum of what is considered ADHD, which is why the biological basis of the disorder has been continually disputed, as described earlier. This allows for biases and factors based on socioeconomic placement and race to creep into the diagnostic process, which is often described as “frequently discrepant and [lacking] an objective diagnostic basis” [4]. Overdiagnosis is rampant amongst the pediatric community, as the National Health Interview Survey shows that “9.5% of children between the ages of 4 and 17 were diagnosed with ADHD”, however, even that large percentage of children with ADHD is not evenly distributed. “Twice as many boys as girls” [6] were diagnosed with ADHD, which reflects a pervasive idea in modern society that men are inhrently more raucous and inconsiderate than women. The nature of men has essentially been evaluated to be a certain way, and the overdiagnosis of ADHD among young boys underlines society’s reinforcement of that
Stolzer, PhD, J. M. (2007). The ADHD Epidemic in America. Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, 9, 109-116.
The CDC website is a government sponsored website that provides the public with details about various diseases and disorders. Specifically, it has a section on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder which details everything from symptoms and diagnostics to managing ADHD in the educational environment. This section of the website is meant to give a sufficient amount of information for the general public looking into ADHD for the first time. The information is nowhere near a complete analysis of ADHD, but it sufficiently informs the reader. It also directs the reader to various other websites if they are in need of more information. The webpages contain many of the elements of pathos, logos, and ethos, which will be analyzed in the following paragraphs.
Now after explaining what is ADD/ADHD we are ready to cover the controversy surrounding it. As this topic is vast and you may find a lot of different reasons to discredit this disorder and psychiatry in generally I would try to focus on the main and most prevalent discussions. Covering the criticism around the way of diagnosis, history, policies in the US and UK, the media and finally as a conclusion end this essay with my final humble opinion on the matter and hopefully have helped you to reach a decision.
Mooney, Jonathan. The Short Bus : A Journey Beyond Normal. New York Godalming: Henry Holt Melia distributor, 2008. Print.
The argument made by the speaker Salif Mahamane is and portrays logos and pathos on many occasions throughout his speech. However, he lacks information that appeals to ethos. His hypothesis is that ADHD is not a disorder, but instead those who are diagnosed with this particular neuro-cognitive profile are misunderstood. Their schools, home and even themselves have lost patience and are forced to behave and think based on a narrow and subjective perspective.
Nearby resident Stephen Sweetman provides examples of making and remaking on City Road, in relation to connections and disconnections between people. Disconnected with disabled people, until a severe disablement of his own, Stephen soon became further disconnected, this time with people from the outside world. Family members connected with Stephen by introducing him to the use of a wheelchair. This action enabled Stephen to connect with fellow wheelchair users yet, after experiencing ‘discrimination’ (Havard, 2014, p.77) held against disabled people; he remained disconnected with the rest of society. While acknowledging how far society has travelled, along the road to securing acceptable disabled rights, Stephen stated,
This tone is also used to establish an appeal to pathos which he hopes to convince the audience of the fact that handicapped people are still people and not less than anyone else. A very prominent example of Peace’s emotion is displayed when he says, “Like many disabled people, I embrace an identity that is tied to my body. I have been made to feel different, inferior, since I began using a wheelchair thirty years ago and by claiming that I am disabled and proud, I am empowered,” (para. 15). This declaration demonstrates to his audience that Peace is honored by who he is and what disabled people can do and that he is tired of being oppressed by the media. Peace also makes this claim to support his thesis in the first paragraph that states, “The negative portrayal of disabled people is not only oppressive but also confirms that nondisabled people set the terms of the debate about the meaning of disability,” (para. 1). This is Peace’s central argument for the whole article and explains his frustration with society’s generalization of handicapped people and the preconceived limitations set on them. Peace’s appeal to pathos and tone throughout are extremely effective in displaying to his audience (society) that those who have disabilities are fed up with the limits that have been placed in the
ADHD is an exceedingly real diagnosis for many children in the United States. Are we over diagnosing our little ones just to keep from dealing with unpleasant behavior? “ On average 1 of every 10 to 15 children in the United States has been diagnosed with the disorder, and 1 in every 20 to 25 uses a stimulant medication” (Mayes, Bagwell, & Erkulwater, 2008). Several believe that virtually all ADHD diagnoses are retractable with appropriate discipline of children instead of being so hasty in medicating them. The material found on the CDC website describes facts about ADHD, it clarifies the signs, symptoms, types, causes, diagnosis tools, and treatment forms of ADHD. What the article neglects to go into is the reality that there is a considerable amount of controversy surrounding ADHD. The CDCs usage of ethos, pathos, and logos and by what method the website manipulates them to affect the reader will be the basis of this paper.
The term “disability” is repeatedly used to engender shame and ostracism in society. It can be interpreted as derogatory due to the underlying implications of defectiveness. The word in itself dips into dangerous territory, given the undeniable fact that all members of the human species have boundaries and limitations. Nevertheless, those whom do not fit the confines of normalcy are bound to face oppression on a routine basi...
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most frequently diagnosed neurobehavioral disorder in children and young adults (Schilling, Walsh & Yun, 2011). Though there is a breadth of research on the topic, the fact that individuals with ADHD have to overcome many difficulties throughout their life, like failing to inhibit inappropriate actions that can otherwise lead to antisocial behavior, severe injuries and in many cases end with imprisonment with 40-70% of detainees being diagnosed with ADHD (Rösler et al. 2004, as cited by Schilling, Walsh & Yun, 2011), suggests that there is still necessity to discuss the dominant explanations for this disability. The following essay is going to briefly state the definition of ADHD according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), it will then outline and evaluate the present genetic and evolutionary position on ADHD.
C. Keith Conners; the founder of the ADHD program at Duke University with a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard University, said during an interview with The New York Times: “The numbers make it look like an epidemic. Well, it’s not. It’s preposterous...This is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels.” (Schwarz, 2013). This addresses the controversy over whether or not physicians overdiagnose the Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; due to the sudden increase of ADHD diagnosis in the past decade, many have reason to believe that physicians are misjudging the criteria used to determine whether or not an individual has the disorder and others are lead to the assumption that due
In the essay “Disability,” Nancy Mairs discusses the lack of media attention for the disabled, writing: “To depict disabled people in the ordinary activities of life is to admit that there is something ordinary about disability itself, that it may enter anyone’s life.” An ordinary person has very little exposure to the disabled, and therefore can only draw conclusions from what is seen in the media. As soon as people can picture the disabled as regular people with a debilitating condition, they can begin to respect them and see to their needs without it seeming like an afterthought or a burden. As Mairs wrote: “The fact is that ours is the only minority you can join involuntarily, without warning, at any time.” Looking at the issue from this angle, it is easy to see that many disabled people were ordinary people prior to some sort of accident. Mairs develops this po...
Correspondingly, it is vital that stories about people with disabilities are told in a positive way where their abilities are stressed more than their disabilities. Unfortunately, that is not always the case when stories are told in the popular press. So much so that many organizations publish guidelines outlining appropriate ways to write about people living with disabilities. One such organization is The National Center on Disability and Journalism (NCDJ) their guide outlines language for journalist to use when writing about people with a disability. In fact, NCDJ (2015) recommend to refrain from labeling a person as handicapped unless it is vital to the story. Furthermore, to avoid using handicap and handicapped when describing a person. Instead, refer to the person’s exact disorder. (Axel, et al., 2015). All in all, portraying them as individuals and not just a person with a di...