View Full Version : he only learns things he already knows a lot about


shmoe727
10-03-06, 06:16 PM
hello everyone i'm new here and i wonder if any of you have had a similar experience.
my boyfriend blake and i have been together for 3 years. he was diagnosed with ADD when he was a child and he hasn't seen a doctor or anything about it in a long time so it's unsure if he still has it or even if he could have been mis diagnosed. His brother was diagnosed as well at a young age and is stil on medication at 23. Blake is 21 and i have noticed that some of the things ADD ers are said to have he doesn't. like he isn't really creative at all. he's mostly interested only in gears and cars and computers and facts rather than ideas. he deffinitely thinks on a more concrete level. and he isn't a social butterfly and he isn't out going. so when they say that it's helpful to remeber the good qualities of the ADDer like how creative they are etc it really doesnt help me at all and it's very frustrating. not that he doesn't have good qualities but still. i am not sure if he really has ADD though so that might explain it. but he has most of the other symptoms like he can't remember things and he has a hard time keeping focused and he has trouble organizing and keeping track of his finances. i also looked up LD and he could have that but he doesn't really have a hard time learning as long as he is interested. he has an incredible capacity to learn things about cars and gears and physics stuff but languages and music he struggles with, and he doesn't really have any enthusiasm toward learning it even though he likes music and he knows that he needs to improve his english skills if he wants to succeed. i can understand that he is more inclined to physical sort of things and so he's more interested in learning about them but it's SO extreme and he seems to only have a problem learning about certain subjects while in others he excels. if anyone has any insight on this sort of thing please share it because so far it seems that no one has quite the same problem as we do for some reason. thank you very much.

speedo
10-03-06, 09:13 PM
schmoe727

If he had ADHD as a child he probably still has it today. Some of the things you describe do not sound much like ADHD, but sound more like something in the autism spectrum. Perhaps PDD, or even Asperger's syndrome. Bear in mind, that it is possible, and not uncommon , for a person to be intelligent and gifted and still have a learning disability... and can even be quite disordered in certain facets of everyday life. It varies a lot from one individual to the next.

It could also be that he is just a guy who likes what he does a lot and does not care to "get outside the box" with something new.

Here are a few links that I hope you will find useful:

http://www.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/autism/pddnos.html

http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28574

good luck

Me :D

sloppitty-sue
10-03-06, 09:48 PM
And I was just thinking - by YOUR description, shmoe727 - that he sounds VERY MUCH like someone who has ADHD. :rolleyes: I don't believe that ALL ADHDers are outgoing and creative??? It's very possible that I've "missed something" important, there. But saying that all ADHDers are very creative, etc. sounds very UNSCIENTIFIC and stereotypical.

I'm not picking on YOU, schmoe727, but because I'm thinking about it NOW - please forgive me for continuing on (in your thread) by saying that it is very important that people realize that - just like the rest of the population - ADHDers come in all kinds: generous, stingy, loud, shy, humorous, humorless, sociable and popular, odd and an outcast, successfull in career and relationships - or NOT . . . At least that's MY belief. All those comments such as, "ADDers will crack you up all night!" or "You can NEVER expect an ADDer to be monogymous!" are like those sayings such as, "Redheads have BAD TEMPERS!"

Now I COULD be wrong about this, and if so - SOMEONE, please prove it to me! :D

Best wishes to you, schmoe!
Sue

speedo
10-03-06, 09:55 PM
I agree with Sue. He could just be an add guy who likes things just that way. Don't rule out anything.

Schmoe727 have you tried talking to him about it to get his spin on the situation? Does he feel like he has an impairment there? Or, is he content as-is ?

Me :D

shmoe727
10-03-06, 11:54 PM
thank you everyone. i will see what he thinks of those websites about pdd and aspergers syndrome. and i se what you mean that it could just be his personality. everyone has strong points and weak points that's true but somehow it seems a bit too extreme. yes i have talked to him about it a lot. and when i do he does seem to think that he is unlike everyone else in the way that he is so overly knowledgable at one thing at the expense of all others. we have really good mutual friends who also have add which helps. i have heard people talk about ADD rants where they will go on about things and kind of go off on a tangent in a way and can also jump from one subject to another. our ADD friends tend to do this pretty often but balek doesnt for some reason. his childhood was also very hard for him and his parents weren't always very good at helping him from what he has told me. his parents divorced and his mother remarried they moved and just the general atmosphere of the home life were troubling for him. our ADD friends all came from very good homes with very stable family life which may account for some of the differences between them and him. and so it's possible too that he doesn't have any other learning disability but he hasn't really had a very good chance or a very good start and has fallen behind that way just from the situation. sorry if i sound like i just want everyone to be the same lol i don't. i really appreciate everyone's differences and their strengths and weaknesses but it seems really that he is different in some way possibly aside from ADD