Tommy is a six-year-old African American boy who has recently been diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) by his first-grade teacher. Unlike his peers, Tommy has difficulties attending to his designated tasks at school as he is often distracted by his surrounding environment. Thus, he has not been able to complete any of his school work without constant supervision by the teacher's aide. In addition, when he is expected to sit and do his work, Tommy is either running around the classroom and disrupting his classmates or fidgeting with his hands or feet.
A close examination of Tommy's family background and his mother's behavior during the prenatal period suggests that they may have contributed to his psychological disorder. Tommy lives in an impoverished single-mother household and is the youngest child in a family that consists of eight children. Without support from her estranged husband, Tommy's mother faces considerable difficulties with earning sufficient income to feed and clothe her children. Because of her struggle to provide for her family in poor housing conditions, Tommy's mother lives in a continual state of stress and depression. While she was pregnant with Tommy, Tommy's mother suffered from malnutrition, physical fatigue and stress. In order to defuse her stress, Tommy's mother smoked at least two packs of cigarettes a day, even while she was pregnant with Tommy.
According to Wilson (1978), maternal malnutrition and negative maternal emotions characterized by psychosocial stress can result in children who are born with physical and mental deficiencies. Wilson's (1978) discussion of the risk factors faced by unborn children during the prenatal period certainly coheres with Tommy's situation. Even more pertinently, Tommy's mother's smoking habit is also likely to have contributed to his psychological disorder because nicotine undermines the fetus' development of various organs by de...