Monday, February 27, 2006
ADHD
I recently finished reading several books about ADHD. I started researching attention issues after a particularly draining workshop with Grade 1-3 gifted kids. I learnt a lot about sequencing activities and teaching so that all children could learn more easily and effectively. However, the characterisics and behaviours identified as the "symptom cluster" for ADHD could just as easily be a gifted person, acting this way for any number of reasons.
What does this mean? Are all gifted people ADHD? Am I?! I recognized myself in many case studies. It makes my head spin a little. Especially because according to some experts the only way to know for sure if you have it is to try stimulant medication and see if it alleviates your symptoms. About 2/3 of people diagnosed with some form of ADHD respond to meds - so what about the other 1/3? What hope or help for them?
My interim conclusion is that we are in the infancy of all brain sciences and in future people will look back on this time and shudder at our ignorance. There's no doubt that our medications do wonders for many mental illnesses and that we have made enormous progress. But in terms of understanding what is really going on inside someone's mind and soul and treating it by applying chemicals to their brain, I think we have miles to go.
Technorati tags: ADHD gifted brain science
What does this mean? Are all gifted people ADHD? Am I?! I recognized myself in many case studies. It makes my head spin a little. Especially because according to some experts the only way to know for sure if you have it is to try stimulant medication and see if it alleviates your symptoms. About 2/3 of people diagnosed with some form of ADHD respond to meds - so what about the other 1/3? What hope or help for them?
My interim conclusion is that we are in the infancy of all brain sciences and in future people will look back on this time and shudder at our ignorance. There's no doubt that our medications do wonders for many mental illnesses and that we have made enormous progress. But in terms of understanding what is really going on inside someone's mind and soul and treating it by applying chemicals to their brain, I think we have miles to go.
Technorati tags: ADHD gifted brain science
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jo_jo, as a hyper and easily distracted teacher of all sorts of hyper kids, I wonder if we should look at ADD & ADHD as an asset rather than a problem. When students and teachers experience the joy of learning, ADHD or not, they focus and complete tasks extremely well. Maybe school needs to finally change instead of forcing the kids to change. Sorry, if I'm ranting a bit...it is state mandated test week.
"Are all gifted people ADHD?" Unfortunately, I think many gifted people are misdiagnosed as having ADD or ADHD, and are treated chemically to mimic "normal" behavior. There's a parallel one could draw to the world in Huxley's Brave New World...
oooh. I read somwhere, but I'n not sure that I save the arcticle in question, that one's reaction to ADHD drugs is NOT a sign of whether or not one has a condition called ADHD. Rather, current information suggests that these drugs work in the same way on anybody -- however they do tend to shrink the brain.
To Uninterlaced: What happened to you would not have happened to you in the ostensibly more backwards colonial society I come from. What this implies to me is that the world has lost something -- and it is NOR colonialism. Rather, this contemporary world as thrown out the baby with the bathwater, in its opposition to what it only vaguely understands about "colonialism" and its "elitism".
The lesson today? You WILL be punished if you are not entirely flat, boring and conformist. You will be unconsciously, and unthinkingly flayed.
These ass-heads who will punish you actually believe themselves to be appropriately punishing "elitism".
The lesson today? You WILL be punished if you are not entirely flat, boring and conformist. You will be unconsciously, and unthinkingly flayed.
These ass-heads who will punish you actually believe themselves to be appropriately punishing "elitism".
# posted by 
: 4:21 AM
: 4:21 AM
I have some ADHD tendencies. While I have never been diagnosed I have been treated as if I had some terrible disorder by some in my life. Of course that had to be cleansed. So I no longer am around these people.
I know that when I drink coffee it helps me to focus on things. It also helps my oldest daughter who is probably ADHD. Again I don't like the social stigma that being "diagnosed" gives.
I am not sure if I'd try any other stimulant. I hardly take aspirin for headaches trying natural ways to alleviate the problems.
I think that maybe right now the drugs are just a step. We certainly have a long way to go.
I know that when I drink coffee it helps me to focus on things. It also helps my oldest daughter who is probably ADHD. Again I don't like the social stigma that being "diagnosed" gives.
I am not sure if I'd try any other stimulant. I hardly take aspirin for headaches trying natural ways to alleviate the problems.
I think that maybe right now the drugs are just a step. We certainly have a long way to go.
Drinking coffee does help humans concentrate. You don't need to be adhd to experience this effect with coffee.
Imagine if they gave Da Vinci or Aristotle meds? Conformity leads to a flat world, not one that goes round. (and they gave Socrates meds and look where it got HIM?)
And, Unsane, you were right with 'effect' ... but have coffee anyway :-)
And, Unsane, you were right with 'effect' ... but have coffee anyway :-)
# posted by : 1:09 PM
: 1:09 PM
This is what I have exactly wondered in my whole life in college as a psych major -- ADHD vs. giftedness. Thank you for your interesting posting!!
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# posted by : 11:41 PM
: 11:41 PM << Home
