The status and significance of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as a psychiatric disorder, is increasingly contested on both scientific and ideological grounds.
Emerging research evidence challenges core assumptions on which the classical medical paradigm is premised – that ADHD is the manifestation of a singular and discrete, congenital neuro-cognitive dysfunction, categorical in structure and culturally invariant in expression.
At the same time the increasingly influential neurodiversity movement offers an alternative conceptual framework for understanding ADHD. This is built on its claim that rather than being a disorder, resulting from dysfunction, ‘ADHD’ is merely a different way of thinking and acting, of intrinsic worth constrained by societal structures and neurotypical expectations.
Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke will explore the implications of these challenges for both science and practice going forward, as we shift our focus from ‘fixing’ dysfunction to accepting and supporting neuro-divergence to promote successful development.
Edmund Sonuga-Barke is Professor of Developmental Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. He is Deputy Lead of the Child Mental Health and Neurodevelopmental Disorders Theme at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.
Motivated by his own experience of growing up with learning difficulties his research focuses on understanding the origins of neuro-developmental differences, particularly variations in attention and impulse control (i.e., ADHD), and their impact on mental health. To this end, he employs basic developmental science approaches to study the genetic and environmental bases of risk and resilience and the role of mediating brain processes. The ultimate goal of this work is to develop more effective interventions that reduce impairment and promote growth.
Professor Sonuga-Barke is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (elected 2016) and The British Academy (elected 2018). In 2019 he was elected a Skou Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry. He has also been Elected Member of Academia Europeae in 2023.
Professor Sonuga-Barke graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from the Bangor University in 1984, and four years later the University of Exeter awarded him a doctorate for his thesis "Studies in the development of economic behaviour".
This lecture will be given in English.
Refreshments will be available after the lecture.
