I know of someone who was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as a child in the 1990s. When he turned 18, his insurance company notified him that his medication—a kind that gives kids with ADHD a better chance to succeed in school and can be quite pricey—was no longer covered. ADHD, the insurer said in effect, was a childhood disorder. What an unfortunate choice: to either struggle financially to pay for your medication or head into college or the workforce without the treatment that helps you.
The idea that ADHD was restricted to kids was deeply ingrained at the time. People thought “it was a developmental lag that just needed to catch up,” says psychologist Stephen Faraone of Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, N.Y.