Semester:
Offered:
Anne Arnett (Harvard Medical School)
First-Year Seminar 52Z 4 credits
This first-year seminar will dive into the science and fiction of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) through engagement with multiple sources, including research articles and reports, social media, news media, psychology guidelines, and clinical cases. We will use these multiple sources of information to explore the controversies about how and when ADHD is diagnosed, differences between males and females, biological and environmental causes of ADHD, rising rates of ADHD, and traditional and alternative treatments. We will approach these issues through a variety of student-led presentations, mock clinical interviews, written critiques, and class debates.
Early in the semester, the class will take a trip to Dr. Arnett’s laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital to see a demonstration of how electroencephalography (EEG) is used to measure brain activity in children with ADHD. Altogether, the goal of the seminar is to use the topic of ADHD, broadly, to practice reading and understanding scientific articles, think critically about media, work collaboratively with student peers, and learn how to generate scientific hypotheses.