Letters

To the Editor;

In response to Thomas Armstrong's Commentary,"ADD as a Social Invention" (Oct. 19, 1995), I very much appreciate the analogy that "children who have been labeled ADD are the canaries of modern-day education; they may be signaling us to transform our nation's classrooms into more dynamic, novel, and exciting environments."

As an educational consultant, I know too well that students with the attention-deficit-disorder label are the referral du jour. What I have found to be the most useful theoretical framework is an ecological approach--that is, ADD is a problem because of a poor fit between the individual student and his (usually; her, less often) environment. Change the environment, as Mr. Armstrong suggests in his Commentary, and play to all students' interests and intelligences, and we no longer "need" the...