Seeking an Objective Test for Attention Disorder

vements, tracked by the device’s motion detector, suggested that I tended to shift attention states, from on-task to impulsive to distracted and back.

Dr. Teicher’s invention, the Quotient A.D.H.D. System, is only one of several continuing efforts to find a biomarker — i.e., distinctive biological evidence — for this elusive disorder.

Most mainstream researchers consider A.D.H.D. to be an authentic neurological deficit that, left untreated, can ruin not only school report cards, but lives. Nonetheless the quest for objective evidence has gained new urgency in recent years.

Many critics say the disorder is being rampantly overdiagnosed by pill-pushing doctors in league with the drug industry, abetted by a culture of overanxious parents and compliant educators.

These critics say that the standard treatment — stimulant medications like Ritalin and Adderall — carries a high risk for side effects and abuse in children whose attention problems might have no biological cause.

Yet despite the perils of faulty diagnosis, the most com