The educational career of a psychiatric diagnosis: the ADHD precursor psycho-organic syndrome in Switzerland

Abstract

From the 1960s to the 1980s, very different diagnoses were used internationally for what would today fall under ADHD. In Switzerland, a precursor, the diagnosis of early childhood psycho-organic syndrome, lasted surprisingly long. The article examines the early history of the diagnosis of ADHD and how Swiss education reacted to new psychiatric diagnoses.