ADHD AROUND THE WORLD
My Capstone Project
WHAT IS A CAPSTONE PROJECT?
A capstone project is a year-long research project on a topic of the Global Studies Senior's choice. During the school year, the seniors collect research and data and create 3 products, one being a research paper, to present on Global Studies Capstone Evening in May. This was changed a bit this year due to COVID-19. The final product presentation will be held online through Google Meet and students are only required to create one additional project, along with the research paper.
RESEARCH PAPER
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Culture
This paper goes in depth about the differences between ADHD in ethnic groups in the United States, as well as differences in rates, diagnostics and treatments in the United States versus other countries, specifically underdeveloped ones.
ADHD INFOGRAPHICS
I created two infographics summarizing what I learned about ADHD. "ADHD in a Nutshell" discusses important everyday facts about ADHD, and "ADHD and Race" includes information about the connections between ADHD and race and socioeconomic status. Both infographics include interactive charts, graphs and images. I created these infographics using a website called Venngage. I worked with the different templates and images to make the final results compelling and colorful, as well as understandable. Overall, these sources help make the complex facts and numbers in the paper more understandable and give consumers a visual.
INFOGRAPHIC IMAGES
These are some screenshots from the infographics I created. To access the entire infographics, use the buttons above.
PLANNING MY PROJECT
I went through the planning process at the beginning of the academic school year. I answered all of these questions while I was deciding on a topic, and it was a really helpful exercise. It helped me focus in on what I was really interested in and I was able to center my research on what I didn't know yet.
MY TOPIC
My topic for my capstone project is ADHD around the world. I want to find break apart the divide between the extremely high rates of ADHD in the United States and the low rates of ADHD in other countries. I want to compare all aspects of ADHD, from diagnosis to treatments, and gather knowledge about how those differences impact society and what they say about it.
WHAT I ALREADY KNOW
At this point in the process of creating my capstone, I had a pretty good basis of knowledge on ADHD specific to the United States because of my own experiences with it. I have ADHD and I have gone through the process of diagnosis and treatment plans, and I live life with it. I also wasn’t diagnosed until after I was 12 or 13 years old, so I have had experiences with it before I even knew what it was. I know my own symptoms and struggles within my diagnosis, and I know what I need to do personally to stay focused and get things done in an efficient and thorough way. I also have a general amount of information from my dad, as he is a psychotherapist.
I also know that the United States has one of the highest rates of the disorder in the world, and France has one of the lowest. This information lead me to find out that all countries have a lot of variations in terms of mental diseases and disorders.
WHAT I WANT TO LEARN
There are a lot of different factors that I want to learn about in relation to my topic.  Firstly, I want to learn about the process of diagnosing ADHD in different countries. Though I have experience with this in the United States, I still want to make sure to gain more knowledge about diagnosis in the U.S. to make sure that I am looking at the topic from a well-informed perspective. I also want to discover the different treatments for ADHD around the world, especially because there are so many options to treat it and it will most likely vary between countries. This all connects back to the main question of why rates of ADHD differ so significantly between different locations in the world. Â
Going further into my research about ADHD outside of the United States, I want to find out what factors are contributing to the smaller or greater rates of the disorder. I wonder if there is a solution to the large number of people/kids diagnosed with ADHD, and what other countries with low rates of ADHD can show to the United States and other countries struggling with this.
SOME OF MY QUESTIONS
Is ADHD preventable?
Why are there are rates of ADHD in some countries than in others?
How is ADHD treated around the world?
How is ADHD diagnosed around the world?
What does a higher/lower rate of ADHD say about that particular society and how it is being handled?
Is ADHD purely genetic?
How early are kids typically diagnosed with ADHD (around the world)?
Are there factors that contribute to a country’s higher or lower rate of ADHD? If so, what are they? (the way people are raising their kids?)
What percent of each state/each state’s children have ADHD?
What are the different types of ADHD?
What is the formal definition of ADHD?
How does severity of ADHD vary between different locations?
MY RESEARCH PLAN
My plan for collecting information is to start with simple but credible articles and books that will give me a factual and professional background on ADHD to use as a basis for the rest of my research. A lot of my questions listed above will mainly fall into this category of research. Next, I will look deeper into the factors of diagnosis and treatment in different countries and dive into each country individually to get a clear view of each location in terms of ADHD. Then I plan to look at the factors contributing to ADHD (surrounding environment, etc.) for each location specifically. After this research is done, in which I plan to use books, articles, movies and other sources, I want to start my experiential research through personal surveys and studies based on my knowledge and to get my own data set to add to my research.
MY FINAL PRODUCTS
Three products are required for a Global Studies Capstone project. One of them is the required 7-10 page research paper, and the other two are designed by the student. The options are essentially limitless, but as of right now, I am planning on creating an infographic, or series of infographics, about ADHD around the world and how it varies in different countries. I also am interested in making a video discussing my findings and studies on ADHD.