Diagnosed and Disconnected? ADHD, Parental Governance, and the Stratification of Adolescent Romance

• In Event: Disability and Social Connections

Abstract

How does disability shape access to social connection in adolescence? Sociological research has established Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as a paradigmatic case of medicalization, demonstrating how psychiatric authority expands through schools, families, and pharmaceutical regimes. Yet the relational consequences of diagnosis—particularly for adolescents’ intimate lives—remain underexamined. Disabled youth are often positioned as immature, risky, or developmentally suspended, and are studied as students or patients rather than romantic actors. We argue that ADHD diagnosis functions as a relational classification that reorganizes adolescents’ incorporation into romantic life.

Using data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), we construct three mutually exclusive groups based on diagnosis timing: never diagnosed, diagnosed by age fifteen, and diagnosed after fifteen but by early adulthood. We examine romantic incorporation at age fifteen through measures of current dating, dating experience, and parental attitudes toward dating and sexual activity. Multivariable models assess whether diagnosis timing predicts romantic participation and parental governance, adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics and stratifying by gender.

Preliminary findings indicate that early diagnosis is socially patterned and associated with lower likelihood of current dating and more restrictive parental attitudes toward both dating and sexual activity. These patterns are particularly pronounced among girls, suggesting that disability stigma intersects with gendered norms of risk and autonomy. Later diagnosis shows weaker or distinct associations, highlighting the importance of classification timing as a life-course sorting mechanism.

By foregrounding adolescent intimacy, this study extends medicalization scholarship into the domain of social connections. ADHD operates not only as a clinical label but as a mechanism of relational governance, shaping who is permitted intimacy and under what conditions. Disability classification thus stratifies not only institutions but access to belonging itself.

Authors

• Danielle Xiaodan Morales, University of Massachusetts-Boston

• Eralp Kaan Karduz, University of Massachusetts-Boston

• Aaliyah Hassan, University of Massachusetts Boston

• Isabella Rebecca Epshtein, University of Massachusetts-Boston