Carmen Keith Conners (March 20, 1933 – July 5, 2017) was an American psychologist, best known for establishing the first standards for the diagnosis of

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by excessive amounts of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that are pervasive, impairing in multiple contexts, and otherwise age-inap ...

(ADHD). Conners was born on March 20, 1933, in

Bingham Canyon, Utah Bingham Canyon was a city formerly located in southwestern Salt Lake County, Utah, United States, in a narrow canyon on the eastern face of the Oquirrh Mountains. The Bingham Canyon area boomed during the first years of the twentieth century, as ...

, one of three children of Michael Conners, a machinist, and Merle Conners, who worked in a department store. He earned degrees from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

(BA),

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

(MA), and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

(PhD). Conners is credited by many as putting ADHD on the map in the USA. In later years, he raised concerns about the high rates of diagnosis of ADHD in the United States as compared to Europe, and suggested that ADHD may be diagnosed too frequently in the US He believed the true rates of childhood ADHD were 2-3%. Conners died on July 5, 2017 in Durham, North Carolina, aged 84.

References

1933 births 2017 deaths People from Bingham Canyon, Utah People from Durham, North Carolina 20th-century American psychologists University of Chicago alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford Harvard University alumni American psychologists {{US-psychologist-stub