Jessiah Jones was a shy, introverted kid who grew up in Vallejo. He was raised by his grandparents and showed signs of a neurological developmental disorder from a young age, often hyper-fixating on his interest and struggling to pay attention in class, even failing one of his math classes in middle school. For the longest time, his early signs of ADHD were largely ignored by his teachers and dismissed by his family, who at first insisted much of his behavior was due to laziness and in need of disciplinary redirection. At 19, Jones was finally diagnosed with ADHD. 

Jones attends Saint Mary’s College of California and is majoring in business entrepreneurship. Since attaining a diagnosis, day-to-day activities and establishing healthy habits that help him stay organized and manage his time have become much easier.

“I’m just not kind of guessing or just trying to force myself onto things,” said Jones. “It’s kind of just letting everything flow naturally: I know what I can do, I know what I can’t do.” 

Jones said being unaware of the symptoms of ADHD and the shame he internalized about mental health, stemming from the old school mentality of his family, prolonged his diagnosis.

Black individuals have approximately 60% lower odds than their white counterparts of being diagnosed with ADHD, according to a 2019 Journal of American Medical Association Network study. The study, which reported on the trends in prevalence and incidence rates of ADHD diagnosis from 2017-2022, also found that, despite ADHD being the most common neurodevelopmental childhood disorder according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there’s still a substantially lower diagnosis rate among children and adults of color.

According to Dr. Napoleon Higgins — a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist based in Houston, Texas — early signs of ADHD in Black children are often not met with proper medical treatment due to parents’ fears that an ADHD diagnosis will come with negative connotations. This medical disparity is also caused by systemic barriers that create limited access to resources and education, allowing Black individuals with ADHD to slip through the cracks. 

“So often when they see a young Black child, Black male or female, who has a diagnosis of ADHD, people automatically start to believe this is a bad kid,” said Dr. Higgins. “And that has nothing to do with being good or bad. It has something to do with the brain disorder.”

According to the CDC, ADHD is a treatable genetic neurodevelopmental disorder. Symptoms, such as difficulty focusing, forgetfulness and hyperactivity, are present during childhood and usually persist into adulthood.

Stigma

33-year-old, David Arriaga, was diagnosed with ADHD at 5 years old and said that the lack of resources and treatment options in the early ’90s left his ADHD largely unmanaged despite his early diagnosis. To this day, ADHD has made his life incredibly difficult. Due to the stigma and skepticism surrounding the legitimacy of the disorder, Arriaga has experienced workplace discrimination solely from his ADHD.

“It doesn’t look like anything’s wrong with me, or it doesn’t appear that I should be struggling,” said Arriaga. “And that’s part of the difficulty with it, is that, because there’s no immediate knowledge or there’s no immediate evidence of hardship, … you assume that it isn’t a real issue.” 

Medication and Treatment

Arriaga’s mother, Tanaya Arriaga, said finding professionals that could help her son was extremely difficult since awareness of ADHD and treatment options outside of Ritalin, a stimulant medication with different negative side-effects, were limited at the time of his diagnosis.

Not wanting to struggle through her entire academic career, 20-year-old, Adriana Sanchez, took on the long process to diagnose her inattentive ADHD.

Although Sanchez has found success in taking Vyvanse, a stimulant medication that better manages attention, concentration and impulse control, she expressed how not having access to resources sooner was something she missed out on.

Disparity 

According to Dr. Higgins, because ADHD is most commonly associated with young white males, what often happens in classrooms is a young Black male will display the same characteristics of ADHD as his white counterpart except his symptoms are perceived as a behavioral problem rather than a medical issue.

Symptoms in girls are also often missed due to them primarily displaying signs of the inattentive variation of ADHD.

“So you’ll start to have issues where one kid is labeled as having ADHD and is referred to the counselor, or may be referred for mental health services, who is a white male and then you’ll have the same young Black male … in the same classroom who then is referred for disciplinary issues,” said Dr. Higgins. 

Aspiring educator and student at Howard University, Isaiah Isaac, stressed how sensitive the subject of neurological developmental disorders can be for some parents out of fear that a label such as ADHD could hinder a child’s future or cause extra strain on the family circumstances.

Dr. Higgins emphasizes that although ADHD is a 90-95% treatable disorder, symptoms are often ignored due to stigmas, biases and access disparities, potentially leading to more problems for the child down the line.

Psychiatrist and Physician Dr. Serena Amegadzie stated that technology advancements can serve as a way to bridge some of this medical disparity: Using tools such as AI, to help make tasks more manageable, or text to speech programs, to process information audibly, can help level the playing field for learners with undiagnosed ADHD.

“So the hope is that in other areas of society, people can start to find creative solutions to fund and tackle these problems,” said Dr. Amegadzie.