http://www.knpd.org/mittsfita/dokumenti/adhd_challenge.pdf

This is only available in .pdf format, but well worth the read.

printing to read at work later.. :)

I started to read this tonight. This is a GREAT article!! I'm about 1/2 way through it. i can see so much of my/ my sons life in it. I can't wait to finish it & see what else it has to say!

Thanks Blue! If you come across anything else along these same lines, please send it my way.

I will Wits ;)

i like that article.

that was a pleasure to read. the article notes that adhd children are especially assisted by word processors because they can't write quickly. has anyone else encountered this phenomenon? i certainly can't write quickly, for whatever the reason. how could adhd factor into this?

i can relate to the hypothesized children of this article. i was placed in a gifted program when i was in elementary school. interestingly, my district has separate 'gifted' classes for (a) math and (b) reading/writing/everything else. i was one of five or so gifted students that wasn't simultaneously in the accelerated math class. i was in the 99th percentile of all of my standardized tests, even math, but i just couldn't do math with the other gifted children. and i absolutely hated school. every child dislikes school, but i utterly despised it. midway through high school, into my sophomore year, i tried (and failed) to convince my parents that i should drop out. nevermind that i was earning straight As - i just hated the idea of school.

i would procrastinate for hours. if i had 30 min of homework, i could stretch it out to six hours. i would pace and multi-task to avoid doing work. even though i knew that i should be doing it, and even though i would set myself to doing it, it just wouldn't get done efficiently. sometimes i would sit and read books completely unrelated to school if it meant that i didn't have to sit and read books that i was supposed to be reading.

junior year of high school, i tired to remedy my academic despair with the completely impractical solution of going away to boarding school. the novelty of the first several months of that experience gave me a short respite from my academic problems. then as i adjusted to my environment, i started suffocating again. so i went back to my old high school, with a novel distraction - i was graduating early and dual-enrolling in a local college.

somehow i made it through high school. did i study? absolutely not. did i turn in work on time? curiously yes, by working under immense pressure. i.e., i would have three term papers. i would seriously try to write them in the three months that i had to finish them. but always, work like that would start and finish in the hours before a deadline. every adolescent procrastinates. but i did it to an absurd degree.

i'll be going to college next year. and i can thank 'adhd metathinking' for overcompensating for some distinct cognitive deficits, like the aforementioned hatred of routine and an impaired ability to do math. my ability to read people - when necessary (as i otherwise miss some social cues) - enabled me to ace my college interviews.. i was 'a perfect fit' for swarthmore, johns hopkins, george washington, and rice, where i'll be next year.

of course now i'm terrified because i'll have to learn how to study. and i'll have to learn to appreciate routine.

if you have a gifted child with adhd, and they're starting grade school, get ready for some battles with procrastination, routine-induced existential suffocation, and aberrant study habits. but let them march to the beat of their own drum, with the inflexible expectation that they'll succeed, and they'll make it. and when it comes time for applying to college, colleges will get that they're exceptionally different.