ABSTRACT
Just as our understanding of the symptoms, epidemiology, and course of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has evolved over the past several decades, our understanding of the etiology has similarly changed. Once, ADHD symptoms were viewed to be caused by inappropriate interactions between a boy and the world around him-his parents, teachers, maybe even his church (Rafalovich, 2001). According to theorists like Klein and Anna Freud, the latency stage, which was believed by Freud to occur between 6 and 12 years of age, is a time when children may develop restlessness, mischief, and social detachment. Klein (1963) wrote, “The motor discharges which the little child achieves through fidgeting often become condensed at the beginning of the latency period into definite stereotyped movements which are usually lost to view in the general picture of excessive mobility which the child presents” (p. 144). Thus, fidgeting is viewed as a physical overcompensation for the emotional state of anxiety.
