Book Review: Cold Comfort: Mothers, Professionals, and Attention Deficit Disorder

Abstract

Reviews the book, 'Cold Comfort: Mothers, Professionals, and Attention Deficit Disorder,' by Claudia Malacrida. Focusing on mothers of children with AD(H)D, the author attempts to make visible the experiences of these mothers as they came to terms with the diagnosis of AD(H)D and managed their child's behavior both at home and in the larger social world. To make visible the experiences of mothers of children with AD(H)D, the author conducted in-depth interviews between 1998 and 2000 with 34 mothers of children diagnosed with AD(H)D, half of whom resided in England and half of whom resided in Canada. The mothers are mainly white and heterosexual, but do vary in terms of socioeconomic and marital status. Participants were asked to tell the story of how they first came to think of their children as somehow different from other children, followed by questions that asked about labeling, assessment, conflict, and resolution with professionals and community members, and the effect of this experience on the mothers' lives. By focusing on the myriad of difficulties experienced by families with children with AD(H)D, Malacrida addresses a previously identified gap in the psychological literature on families and AD(H)D. The book is a welcome contribution to a topic that has been sorely neglected. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)