It's perhaps not a disability. But, it is a disabling disorder. It imposes much greater challenge for many tasks that are straightforward for others. I barely graduated high-school on time, I was suspended from a community college for having a 0.6 GPA, and I've failed countless courses I've taken. None of my failures were due to an inability to understand the information; they resulted from challenges with the processes and procedures inherent with formal education.
Although I was suspended from community college, I had no problem teaching myself linear algebra or diff eq. I eventually was able to get a job as a software dev, it took me until age 28, when someone else perhaps could have reached it right out of college. I'm now trying to finish a dual math and comp sci degree in my spare time, and even now I've still failed trivial courses.
I was among the brightest students in my class growing up, but willfully chose to stop taking my ADHD meds in 8th grade. I was a stellar student until then. I've resumed them only very recently, but I have complete confidence that had I chosen to remain on the meds the whole time, I wouldn't have faced all the same challenges.
I don't think the evidence aligns with your understanding.
>it is a disabling disorder....they resulted from challenges with the processes and procedures inherent with formal education.
So it's not even a disabling disorder. You struggle with formal education (me too!), so maybe formal education is the problem. "Formal education" as we know it today is not a solved thing. We don't actually know the best way to spread knowledge, we just happen to be doing it this way at this moment in history.
If you want to take medication to be good at that, I HIGHLY ENCOURAGE you to do so, and I'm very happy for your current successes.
It is a terrible standard by which to create a medical diagnosis and feed children medications.
Although I was suspended from community college, I had no problem teaching myself linear algebra or diff eq. I eventually was able to get a job as a software dev, it took me until age 28, when someone else perhaps could have reached it right out of college. I'm now trying to finish a dual math and comp sci degree in my spare time, and even now I've still failed trivial courses.
I was among the brightest students in my class growing up, but willfully chose to stop taking my ADHD meds in 8th grade. I was a stellar student until then. I've resumed them only very recently, but I have complete confidence that had I chosen to remain on the meds the whole time, I wouldn't have faced all the same challenges.
I don't think the evidence aligns with your understanding.