INSIDE PERSPECTIVES of AS & Neurodiversity

 

 

 

ADHD

 

 

   Like AS, ADHD is a collective term for several things, the main 3 being attention  ‘deficit’ (difficulty/difference), impulsivity and hyperactivity.

 

   All of which, in my opinion, can be either innate or environmental, or a combination of both) and be either useful or limiting, depending on circumstances. Like Aspies, ADD-ers have advantages in some situations and disadvantages in others.

 

   This is not a homogenous group; in fact, the two dominating ADHD types are often at opposite sides of the scale:

 

·  The inattentive (ADD or ADHD-i) type is often hypo-active, introvert, passive, intuitive, dreamy, artistic and extraordinarily sensitive. They tend to be hypersensitive to medication too and mainly just need a very quiet, stress-free environment, teaching suited to their learning style, and inspiring things to do.

 

·  The hyperactive (ADHD-h) type can be divided into those who are naturally & innately so, and those who are more HSP/AS/ADD but become hyperactive from environmental factors.

 

   “ADHD-i is more common in girls than in boys. They often get their diagnosis late, since they haven’t caused any trouble for anyone but themselves. (I’ve heard a school psyhologist say that the student doesn’t need a neuropsychiatric evaluation because she doesn’t constitute a problem in class.) ADHD-i combined with giftedness is the trickiest to detect.”

 

   “So, to make a gross generalisation, boys with with ADHD-h are noisy and run around. They get help when someone gets tired of them. Girls with ADHD-i daydream. I would think many of them seek psychiatric help due to depression and anxiety.”

- Agatha, adult ADHD/Aspie from Sweden

 

   It is very common for both types to co-occur with AS, despite DSM-IV saying that you can only have AS or ADHD. Many get misdiagnosed for this reason.

 

   “[Researchers] now believe that about 75% with AS also have ADHD. Often you don’t see the AS until the ADHD is medicated.”

- Lotta Abrahamsson, adult ADHD/Aspie teacher & author from Sweden

 

 

ATTENTION DIFFICULTY (ADD/ADHD-i)

 

   Attention difficulty can have numerous reasons, and be either purposeful or mainly an inconvenience (often depending on circumstances).

 

   “Fatigue and distractions are sure causes of ADD for me. Or often I will focus on something about a person that I'm more interested in, such as how they are saying things, the sound of their voice or if I'm trying to determine what kind of person they are, and not hear what they say, or I'll look at things with a creative eye instead of a practical eye and these types of things I attribute to purposeful ADD that I've engaged because of my own interests or boredom or disinterest.”

 

  “Then there's non-purposeful ADD. One thing I've noticed is that my brain has a mind of it's own.  At times it will automatically filter what it thinks is interesting without regard for what's important.  It will filter things I've heard before even if I've forgotten them on a conscious level, will automatically seize on the novel.

 

   “Other times, such as when I'm involved in a conversation and someone is taking a long time to say a simple thing, my brain will filter out everything the person is saying except the one important bit. Other times my brain will just not focus at all or very poorly all around no matter what I do. So I think the most frustrating thing is when my mind cannot control my brain!”

- Carrie, adult Aspie from USA

 

·  To mainly be interested in paying attention to things that are useful, interesting and relevant to that particular individual, I consider perfectly normal. Some of us have a harder time forcing ourselves to take in something we’re just not interested in.

 

   “How can the attention mechanism be at fault if attention is consistently doing its job by pointing at things of interest? If attention is not fixating on some task, is not the task somehow incompatible with the person or vice versa, but the attention mechanism itself most likely operating just fine?”

- Ric, adult ADHD/Aspie from USA

 

   “Sometimes I have no problem concentrating on things like washing up or cleaning. Sometimes I have problems concentrating on just getting out of bed - since I have something else that is more important to concentrate on.

 

   “Isn’t everyone concentrated on that which for them is most important at that particular time? If a gnu that is being hunted by a lion is not able to concentrate on how its hair looks, does that mean it has a concentration difficulty? How can anyone concentrate on something if you think something else is more important? Can real people do that?”

- Stefan, adult Aspie from Sweden

 

·  In learning situations, I suspect that everyone has a built-in guide/intuition that will make them interested primarily in the things that will be useful to us later in life - if we’re allowed to go where our interest takes us.

 

   “Throughout my life my interests went from biology to chemistry to geology to meteorology to archaeology to anthropology to environmental science to environmentalism and now to zoology. And I think my true interest is in preserving and maintaining the ecology and animals that are left on earth, and everything that came before was background exploration that caused me to zero in on where I am now. All of that background helped immensely, because all of it applies to my area of interest.”

- Tom, adult Aspie from USA

 

·  I also suspect that the things one feels an in instinctive aversion for are things that will only use up valuable ‘hard drive’ space in the head, and be more of a hindrance than an asset in life. So why not use each person’s own interest as a guide and let them skip the subjects that only feel tiresome? For those children who are born to be specialists, it may be extra essential to not have them waste precious time trying learn subjects which feel irrelevant/uninteresting/uncomfortable to study. To be forced to learn things one is not interested in is even counterproductive to learning and performing well, since we do these things best when we feel interest, joy and inspiration.

 

   “School - I've always felt it was pointless to spend so much time learning things that will never be of substantial use to me in the real world. “There literally is no point to schoolwork.  To this day I think it was a load of crap, and I am a college graduate with some graduate school experience. The only stuff I ever got any use out of was probably home economics, health, some math, English, and whatever sort of classes supported my hobbies and interests. But to date I haven't used a quadratic equation in real life, nor have I used my extensive but useless knowledge of physics to build a proton accelerator in my basement, and yadda yadda yadda.”

- Tom, adult Aspie from USA

 

·   In some cases it may be that it is a useful and interesting subject, but that it is taught in the wrong way, at the wrong time (too early or too late for one’s need) or that it’s too difficult or too easy for one’s stage of development/skill in that particular subject. Being stuffed with the wrong type of info too early will most likely only lead to ‘mental indigestion’ since one’s mind may not yet be able to process that info correctly. The precise time when one feels the strongest interest is usually the exact right time for learning it, since that’s when one’s mind is open and eager and will most easily absorb it. Doesn’t getting to learn it right then seem like the most logical and efficient thing to do?

 

   Being forced to take in history and social/political subjects as early as 4^th grade was absolutely horrid for me since we were just fed a jumble of events without being given the bigger context first in which to place these events, and since I lacked enough life experience to evaluate them correctly. Not until in my mid 20’s did I start feeling ready for and take an interest in such subjects. And at the same time, I was very frustrated to not get to learn English until 4^th grade. By then,