{"id":5939,"date":"2017-03-03T20:05:36","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T20:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/?p=5939"},"modified":"2017-03-03T20:05:36","modified_gmt":"2017-03-03T20:05:36","slug":"ever-evolving-attention-on-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/blog\/ever-evolving-attention-on-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"Ever evolving attention on attention"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed\u00a0childhood conditions. Awareness of the behaviors associated with the disorder extends back two centuries, but only recently have researchers gained a deeper understanding of ADHD\u2019s complexity and scope.<\/p>\n

Medical research described symptoms characteristic of ADHD as early as 1798. But it wasn\u2019t until the early 20th<\/sup> century that an emphasis on studying the disorder began to take shape. The modern conception of ADHD was first described by George Still in \u201cThe\u00a0Goulstonian\u00a0lectures\u00a0on some abnormal psychical conditions in children,\u201d published in 1902 in The Lancet<\/em> (1: 1008-12; 1163-8).<\/p>\n

Research continued, and in the 1920s and 30s, ADHD was attributed to brain damage caused by encephalitis. In the 1960s, a discovery concluded that this condition could exist without brain injury. As the understanding changed, so did the terminology. Between 1980 and 1987, the condition was officially known as\u00a0attention deficit disorder<\/em>\u00a0(ADD), while before that it was known as\u00a0hyperkinetic reaction of childhood. <\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although ADHD is now widely accepted, it took scientists and medical professionals years to propagate the diagnosis into the mainstream.<\/p>\n

As pediatrician and author Perri Klass wrote in the New York Times in 2011<\/a>: \u201cAs recently as 2002, an international group of leading neuroscientists found it necessary to publish\u00a0a statement\u00a0arguing passionately that\u00a0attention deficit hyperactivity disorder\u00a0was a real condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the activity resulting from that struggle, \u00a0we see ADHD research flourishing in the 2000s. For example, a simple search in Web of Science<\/em>\u00a0for related research on ADHD reveals 24,820 articles. Of that research, 70% was published since 2008. Expanding our search field for the topic \u201cattention deficit\u201d doubles our results to 48,266 articles, 60% of them published since 2008.<\/p>\n

As researchers continue to debate the attributes of ADHD, analysis of citation patterns indicates a reliance on older works. As noted above, the observations collected in Still\u2019s \u201cGoulstonian\u00a0lectures\u00a0on some abnormal psychical conditions in children\u201d are considered the modern basis of ADHD, but they didn\u2019t become popular until the late 1970s. From there however, through cited works, they continue to influence ADHD research today.<\/p>\n

\"adhd Citation analysis of<\/em> \u201cThe\u00a0Goulstonian\u00a0lectures\u00a0on some abnormal psychical conditions in children,\u201d published in 1902<\/em> (Lancet, 1: 1008-12; 1163-8).<\/em><\/p>\n

As research continues to clarify the underlying causes of the disorder and to make treatments more effective, we can expect to see the trend of citing older research continue. Present discoveries owe their existence to past developments and theories. Some archives deliver data that proves fundamental to new directions; others serve to caution those who would pursue an already-disproved theory. All provide essential building blocks of data for today\u2019s researchers, students and faculty.<\/p>\n

When you access the backfiles of Web of Science<\/em> you\u2019ll get a centralized source to make historical connections accessible and usable for your research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Medical research described symptoms characteristic of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as early 1798. But it wasn\u2019t until the early 20th century that an emphasis on the disorder began to take shape. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":5945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[36,78,24,32,54,34],"class_list":["post-5939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academia-government","tag-analysis","tag-early-career-researcher","tag-research","tag-researcher","tag-tips","tag-web-of-science"],"acf":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":5939},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"pll_sync_post":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}