Just a gifted child or ADHD?

[Archon]

Originally Posted by k31kozumi

i am "gifted" and have adhd. i've read it is very common. many autistic people have high iqs too.

That's not quite the case, ADHD is seperate to intelligence and a typical autistic person is more likely to have a lower than average IQ.

[k31kozumi]

i have to disagree with you on that as i keep up with scientific journals on the subject. i am including high functioning of course.

[Archon]

Then perhaps you should say "Many people with High Functioning Autism have high IQ's" so as not to mislead people.

Currently literature doesn't suggest however that people with ADHD are more likely to be in the gifted range than the rest of the population.

[Barliman]

Originally Posted by Archon

That's not quite the case, ADHD is seperate to intelligence and a typical autistic person is more likely to have a lower than average IQ.

More specifically Archon, an autistic person is unlikely to be able or inclined to perform an IQ test.

Performance of an IQ test does not measure IQ- unless you are a willing and enthusiastic participant. As for me- I could not be bothered to do one- just another damned form to fill out.

Who cares whether a neurotypical can measure my intelligence or not?

I am still trying to work out a way to assess their sensitivity -in my experience they don't make gauges with that low a reading on them.

[Barliman]

Originally Posted by Archon

Then perhaps you should say "Many people with High Functioning Autism have high IQ's" so as not to mislead people.

Currently literature doesn't suggest however that people with ADHD are more likely to be in the gifted range than the rest of the population.

ADHD and intelligence appear to be independently distributed. I guess no matter how much RAM you have you can still overload it. Intelligence, sadly, does not equate with wisdom.

[Archon]

I think you might be misrepresenting my arguments ever so slightly.

[Barliman]

Originally Posted by Archon

I think you might be misrepresenting my arguments ever so slightly.

Hi Archon- I'm not quite sure I follow you here.
Autism is an odd field- the number of "savants' is quite high- but having a friend with a child with severe classic autism, and a neighbour wih Aspergers' I am very aware that their extreme social sensitivity puts them in aposition where their true talents may not be visible.
Anyhow- please expand and lets see where the discussion takes us.

[Archon]

Basically I made two points.

1. That having ADHD is generally not thought to have a causal relationship in either direction with intelligence.

2. That

many autistic people have high iqs too

is a misleading statement considering that 30-50% of children with autism meet the criteria for mental retardation. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/285/24/3093

Things I did not comment on:

The relationship between intelligence and wisdom
Whether you could be bothered to fill out an IQ test
Whether a neurotypical person can measure your intelligence
The so called "sensitivity" of anything or anyone

Thanks. I don't really want to be made to defend statements that I never made or ideals that I never held.

[Barliman]

Originally Posted by Archon

Basically I made two points.

1. That having ADHD is generally not thought to have a causal relationship in either direction with intelligence.

2. That is a misleading statement considering that 30-50% of children with autism meet the criteria for mental retardation. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/285/24/3093

Things I did not comment on:

The relationship between intelligence and wisdom
Whether you could be bothered to fill out an IQ test
Whether a neurotypical person can measure your intelligence
The so called "sensitivity" of anything or anyone

Thanks. I don't really want to be made to defend statements that I never made or ideals that I never held.

Archon,
I.m sorry if my point appeared flippant- it was actually deadly serious. It also did not deal with the direct content of your comments- but it did deal with their underlying assumptions.
You know a very close friend from high school has a child with classical autism- (the severe type), and one of our next door neighbours is a young man with Aspserger's syndrome- who we have now known for 19 years. Now I know there is much more than meets the eye to both of these people-but their experience is very different to mine- and I do not know how to connect with it. I do know that some very interesting accounts are arising on autistic websites, and by autistic authors. It is way too easy to make invalid assumptions about what autism is or is not and whether the current forms of intelligence testing have any validity or not when applied to people who think so differently from the mainstream.
I simply cannot conceive how one could make a valid assessment of the intelligence of any autistic person. We have enough problems even being sure that our instruments are valid in comparing Americans of Anglo-Saxon background with Americans of African heritage.
These tests are actually only valid when they compare people from similar backgrounds to the person who designed the study. The issue of designing IQ tess that are valid across cultural lines has bedevilled psychology for years, and as far as people of autistic backgrounds are concerned we are virtually a separate (inferior) species.
As far as IQ tests go my point about not caring what some little man with a white coat and a questionnaire thinks is valid. Do you know how many years I suffered by being misdiagnosed by these people?. Do you know how much harm they caused me, and how much harm I subsequently caused my own family as I blundered about trying to resolve the situation? Do you know how much direct danger I was placed in by their incompetence and intellectual arrogance?

I am sorry if this is coming on too strong- but these are not the results one associates with a profession that claims to have all the aswers. Not only that but I have just spent the weekend extricating one of my friends form the danger she was placed in by these people.

[Archon]

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, I'm sure she's doing better now with your help.

When it comes to the underlying assumptions in my posts you are referring to, I don't see myself having made any. Obviously this subject is rather a raw nerve for you so perhaps your passions are colouring what you are inferring?

Notice I said "meet the criteria for mental retardation" instead of "are mentally retarded". Notice also how I said "likely to have a lower than average IQ" rather than "are less intelligent than normal people".

If this comes across as me trying to wash my hands of this, good, that is the intent. You are arguing a point that I don't oppose. Furthermore I don't even feel qualified to play devils advocate, I don't know nearly enough about autism to try.

[Sun_Tzu]

A bit of rant coming, please bare with me, I'll try to keep it at least somewhat structured.

Firstly, to the OP, giftedness and ADHD is not an uncommon combination and in fact since I joined Mensa I've met more people with ADHD within the organization than I have in my normal life. This is not to say that there is any particular correlation, although some studies have found some degree of co-morbidness between extreme levels of intelligence and some forms of mental disorders, but simply to state that it's not as uncommon as some people think.

I'll say that although my experience differs quite a bit as my educational environment didn't allow me to fasttrack my studies or channel my intellectual curiosity within the school, leading me to seek out various stimuli outside of education, I still recognize many of the issues you've faced. High functioning ADHD as it's sometimes known is particularly nefarious since our high level of intelligence allows us to mask many of the problems that normally indicate ADHD in children and young adults. You're able to fake it much of the time, simply stringing together external knowledge, logical reasoning and cues given to you during various modes of testing. The problems which do remain, in particular the inattentiveness which we share, is often misjudged as a symptom rather than a catalyst. Although hyperconcentration or "flow" as it's sometimes known isn't a generally recognized effect of ADHD, it's still something that most ADHD-sufferers speak of, and further hinders diagnosis as a person can at times seem not just perfectly normal but almost superhuman.

Some of your problems are however not rooted in ADHD. Although impulsiveness and hyperactivity can be troublesome in terms of forming friendships, much of what you describe as your social awkwardness is infact rooted in your giftedness. This is probably a bit easier for you to grasp since you've grown up with the knowledge, but the basic problem is that we form our own normative reality. Our minds as they function are our only models upon which to base assumptions about the functioning of other peoples minds. The problem is that the mind of a gifted person differs from that of a regular person in a very fundamental way, in effect we see the world in greater detail than others. The problems stem from the inability(or difficulty) to reduce the level of complexity which we perceive to the level which others perceive. This requires a conscious effort, and even so the translation will always be lacking. How can you explain the experience of the forest if all you can speak of are the trees? Another common example is that of the gifted child who's paralyzed when asked to draw a bird, because while all the other children have a general concept of a bird, the gifted child has several complex concepts of subspecies of bird and lacks the qualifying information to take further action to complete the task. And old and somewhat disreputable(because it's not politically correct) term for this problem of translating complexity of thought is that of "Communication Gap". Simply put, you're more likely to get along well with people who are closer to you in terms of intelligence as you achieve that feeling of "seeing eye to eye", something so extremely rare for gifted people.

Now as some have chosen to babble on about intelligence and IQ without quite understanding the field of psychometrics, I'll take a stab at debunking some of the incorrect information while elaborating on the basis for the previous segment.

Intelligence is a concept which we've created to describe a potential. There are propositions about there being multiple types of intelligence, but no other than general intelligence is measurable in any objective way. Emotional intelligence(perhaps the most famous alternative intelligence) is infact simply a collection of morals, measuring therefor conformity and not any sort of potential(I'd argue that if the potential were ever to be measured objectively it'd most likely correlate heavily with general intelligence). Whilst there's no evidence for multiple types of intelligence, there are well recognized subtypes of General intelligence, the most notable divide being between fluid intelligence(raw potential) and crystallized intelligence(knowledge). The distinction is important because it's the basis of much of the misunderstandings about IQ testing. Early IQ-test(and most web-tests you'll encounter) measured crystallized intelligence. Whilst these do build on a foundation of potential(fluid g), these are highly effected by cultural and socio-economical factors. However this is in no way representative of intelligence testing today, and infact hasn't been for around 50 years now. Modern IQ tests attempt to determine pure potential through abstraction, making the assumption that intelligence is a means of processing information and determining meaningful connections. These tests correlate perhaps strongest to the working memory of the individual, which also explains the premise for the communication gap. A larger working memory allows an individual to perceive and process more details in any given situation which leads to complexity of thought. This is also why geniuses play a singular role in advancing human knowledge, as the insights required can not be synthesized easily from even a large number of less complex understandings of reality. IQ testing is however not infallible, as your IQ is still impacted by socio-economical factors through nourishment and better living conditions, evident in what's come to be known as the Flynn-effect and why the increases witnessed have since stalled in most developed countries.

In terms of ADHD detection intelligence testing does have a role to play, but the issue is a complex one. In terms of most sufferers, IQ-tests or more simplified working memory stress-tests will be sufficient to show a dip in performance indicative of the inattentiveness associated with ADHD. However, for high functioning individuals the tests may be insufficient meaning a breakingpoint and subsequent dip is either never reached, or is reached at such high levels of cognitive function that the breakingpoint is simply deemed the normal limits of the persons abilities. In such cases the individual may however themselves recognize an unexpected drop in performance, which may be useful for helping determine high functioning ADHD.

In terms of choices and causes of action, it's important to realize that ADHD isn't just a trait or even a collection of traits. ADHD is caused by an accumulation of genetic predispositions which serve to alter your brainfunctions. It's literally in your DNA. This explains many of the issues of co-morbidity, as genes are often shared between similar conditions and if enough are present a individual may exhibit symptoms of multiple conditions. This also means that each case of ADHD is unique as none of us have the same exact genes interacting to produce our condition. This allows for a sliding scale of severity of the condition and also lies as the basis for the assertion that it's present in all of to a degree. The reason however it's not a trait is the same reason as we view blindness as a medical condition as opposed to a personality trait; ADHD is diagnosed on the basis of it's disruptiveness to a persons ability to lead a normal life. Various treatments are available and their effectiveness will differ based on your individual case, again because of the mix of genes involved. The variety of the condition also makes treating the cause almost impossible, and as such all current treatment simply tries to counteract the effects, most commonly by increasing the amount of dopamine available either by blocking re-uptake or by forcing greater release of the neurotransmitter(methylphenidates contra amphetamines). Increased amounts of neurotransmitters helps to create and maintain focus and may alleviate feelings of tiredness or hunger.

There's no medical basis for proper usage of drugs intended for ADHD to either diminish the ability for creativity(as creativity is derived from complex thought more so than simply quantity of thought) or intelligence(again, the underlying working memory isn't targeted, simply the means of utilizing it). I see no reason why any gifted person would need to fear losing their gift, quite the opposite, as with proper medication you may be able to better harness your gift and achieve your full potential.

And now, I need to go to the shops, as I was supposed to some 4 hours ago, before I started reading this thread and other related stuff.

[Archon]

Oh snap. What a definitive post.

That's some serious procrastination you've got going on there though.

[Barliman]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

Although hyperconcentration or "flow" as it's sometimes known isn't a generally recognized effect of ADHD, it's still something that most ADHD-sufferers speak of, and further hinders diagnosis as a person can at times seem not just perfectly normal but almost superhuman.

Interesting association- I take it you are referring to "flow" as I understand it- a sort of Western analogy of the Tao. I have always thought that hyperfocus is really astateof heightened function- maybe the ideal. ( I see it as perfectly legitimate to shut out unwanted distractions when engaged on something of great significance, and regrettable that sometimes others insist on intruding - when they can't be bothered to pay enough attention to my mind to find out why I find the subject of my concentration significant).

ADHD isn't just a trait or even a collection of traits. ADHD is caused by an accumulation of genetic predispositions which serve to alter your brainfunctions. It's literally in your DNA. This explains many of the issues of co-morbidity, as genes are often shared between similar conditions and if enough are present a individual may exhibit symptoms of multiple conditions. Various treatments are available and their effectiveness will differ based on your individual case, again because of the mix of genes involved. The variety of the condition also makes treating the cause almost impossible, and as such all current treatment simply tries to counteract the effects, most commonly by increasing the amount of dopamine available either by blocking re-uptake or by forcing greater release of the neurotransmitter(methylphenidates contra amphetamines). Increased amounts of neurotransmitters helps to create and maintain focus and may alleviate feelings of tiredness or hunger.

Strong emphasis on genes here- but even Barkely in his Consensus Statement concedes psychosocial elements in causation. I remain unconvinced that any model that does not consider the role of Mind ( the internal logic of thought, and the implications that our thoughts have for our function) will ever provide an adequate model for the understanding of any form of mental distress or dysfunction.
Mind may be an emergent phenomeon- but thought is very powerful and in fact moulds the functionality of our brains. ( Ie perceived stress and hippocampal cell death- or ability to control stress, and relative imperviousness to even severe brutality). The current obsessions with measuring everything, and evidence based medicine, blind us to the very real effects our thoughts have on our lives. We find it hard to measure thought- so we discount its importance- but there are a good many survivors of Wars who can attest to the power of thought.

[CptNemo]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

Firstly, to the OP, giftedness and ADHD is not an uncommon combination and in fact since I joined Mensa I've met more people with ADHD within the organization than I have in my normal life. This is not to say that there is any particular correlation...

Many people on this forum acknowledge a lack of correlation between IQ and ADHD.Not sure why you chose to suggest it,then denounce it. Any idea on why Mensa is such an ADHD magnet? I bet there's really good coffee there!

The problem is that the mind of a gifted person differs from that of a regular person in a very fundamental way, in effect we see the world in greater detail than others. The problems stem from the inability(or difficulty) to reduce the level of complexity which we perceive to the level which others perceive. This requires a conscious effort, and even so the translation will always be lacking. How can you explain the experience of the forest if all you can speak of are the trees? Another common example is that of the gifted child who's paralyzed when asked to draw a bird, because while all the other children have a general concept of a bird, the gifted child has several complex concepts of subspecies of bird and lacks the qualifying information to take further action to complete the task. And old and somewhat disreputable(because it's not politically correct) term for this problem of translating complexity of thought is that of "Communication Gap". Simply put, you're more likely to get along well with people who are closer to you in terms of intelligence as you achieve that feeling of "seeing eye to eye", something so extremely rare for gifted people.

When you say 'gifted' in the context above (highlighted in bold),are you saying generally gifted,or 'ADHD' gifted?

I've always had a similar theory of my own,but I always dismissed it as being pompous.I felt that if I was *really* that smart,I should be able to communicate on a simpler level. Is this where the ADHD gift impedes us?

Now as some have chosen to babble on about intelligence and IQ without quite understanding the field of psychometrics, I'll take a stab at debunking some of the incorrect information while elaborating on the basis for the previous segment.

I'll take the blame for that.We sent all of our psychometrians to a social skills workshop.

This is also why geniuses play a singular role in advancing human knowledge, as the insights required can not be synthesized easily from even a large number of less complex understandings of reality.

So...if someone discovers/invents something that is deemed an advancement,can they get their Mensa card post discovery,or is it just void?
I really never understood why Mensa was even formed.
Was it so they could decide if something fit the criteria?
I bet there's a lot of exciting debates!

In terms of ADHD detection intelligence testing does have a role to play, but the issue is a complex one. In terms of most sufferers, IQ-tests or more simplified working memory stress-tests will be sufficient to show a dip in performance indicative of the inattentiveness associated with ADHD. However, for high functioning individuals the tests may be insufficient meaning a breakingpoint and subsequent dip is either never reached, or is reached at such high levels of cognitive function that the breakingpoint is simply deemed the normal limits of the persons abilities. In such cases the individual may however themselves recognize an unexpected drop in performance, which may be useful for helping determine high functioning ADHD.

Was this the part where you were going to clarify all the babbling on the relationship between IQ,and autism? If so,I missed it!

In terms of choices and causes of action, it's important to realize that ADHD isn't just a trait or even a collection of traits. ADHD is caused by an accumulation of genetic predispositions which serve to alter your brainfunctions. It's literally in your DNA. This explains many of the issues of co-morbidity, as genes are often shared between similar conditions and if enough are present a individual may exhibit symptoms of multiple conditions.

I'm no expert,but that seems like a well-worded explanation.I've never seen it written that clearly.
Is that the leading theory? How could I find some documentation on that?

I see no reason why any gifted person would need to fear losing their gift, quite the opposite, as with proper medication you may be able to better harness your gift and achieve your full potential.

I've always felt this way too. There has been a lot of discussion here,on this topic.
What do you base that on?
Any documents you can refer me to?
It would sure help with a lot of discussions here!
Thanks

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by Barliman

Interesting association- I take it you are referring to "flow" as I understand it- a sort of Western analogy of the Tao. I have always thought that hyperfocus is really astateof heightened function- maybe the ideal. ( I see it as perfectly legitimate to shut out unwanted distractions when engaged on something of great significance, and regrettable that sometimes others insist on intruding - when they can't be bothered to pay enough attention to my mind to find out why I find the subject of my concentration significant).

"Flow" as I mean it is a term you encounter within sporting contexts, also known as "Runners High", a state of total immersion in a task where all distractions fade away. I'm not quite sure how this fits into Tao, regardless of username I'm not quite as informed on this as perhaps I should be, but I was under the impression that Tao is regarded more as a life force similar to chi? At any rate, my own musings on Hyperconcentration and the reasons for it have lead my to believe it's a distinct result of ADHD in that the inattentiveness works in your favor once you manage to initiate a state of concentration on a task. Your brains dopamine is all locked up in your task at hand and you're literally unable to pick up on external signals, since there's no neurochemicals left to pass them on. Of course your brain can't selectively know which signals to pass on, which would lead me to believe that it's a matter of signal to noise ratio, effectively when you're Hyperfocusing you're producing a huge amount of "chatter" on the subject, meaning any incoming external signals have a very small chance of getting picked up by the small quantity of available dopamine, and even though most signals are lost the large quantity of signals on the subject of interest ensures you'll stay focused on it as enough still get through.

Originally Posted by Barliman

Strong emphasis on genes here- but even Barkely in his Consensus Statement concedes psychosocial elements in causation. I remain unconvinced that any model that does not consider the role of Mind ( the internal logic of thought, and the implications that our thoughts have for our function) will ever provide an adequate model for the understanding of any form of mental distress or dysfunction.
Mind may be an emergent phenomeon- but thought is very powerful and in fact moulds the functionality of our brains. ( Ie perceived stress and hippocampal cell death- or ability to control stress, and relative imperviousness to even severe brutality). The current obsessions with measuring everything, and evidence based medicine, blind us to the very real effects our thoughts have on our lives. We find it hard to measure thought- so we discount its importance- but there are a good many survivors of Wars who can attest to the power of thought.

I emphasize genes because it's of an genetic origin. However, genes aren't good or bad in and of themselves, that's a social construct. ADHD is a social construct, because it's a problem in a artificial context created by society. As for the mind, it's again nothing more than a physical construct, the interaction between neurochemicals in the brain. Naturally, our feelings, thoughts and emotions will all effect the physical brain, as they themselves are physical events within the brain. There's nothing mysterious about PTSD, it's simply strongly enforced neural pathways which cause a high probability of thoughts being routed towards the same memories time and time again. It's just an extreme case of that feeling of sadness that overtakes you each time you hear the song that first played when you met your ex-gf. Just as after a breakup, everything seems to remind you of that other person, so does PSTD remind people of the traumatic event. The difference is the magnitude of the effect which makes it so hard to break.

What bothers me though is that you speak of an "obsession with measuring things". The ability to quantify something, to measure and falsify it, is the heart of science. The alternative isn't unknown truth, unmeasureable science, it's blind faith. You might as well be rolling the dice and hoping you get it right. I'll rather stick to science.