ADHD vs. Gifted

1/16/2014

Question:
My son's teacher has questioned whether or not he has ADHD. She asked if there was a history of ADHD in our family, I told her none. She then suggested with take him to our pediatrician for an evaluation because he exhibits many characteristics of ADHD such as not staying in his seat, inattentiveness, and disorganization. We know that he is totally disorganized. We also know that it is tough to get him to sit still. The inattentiveness is something we don't see at home. He can work on a Lego project for hours on end with no breaks. If he is interested in something, nothing stops him. Isn't inattentiveness required for an ADHD diagnosis? We know he is really bright, could he be inattentive because he isn't interested in what they are teaching?

Answer:
High ability children often exhibit intensity, sensitivity, impatience and high motor activity. These characteristics can easily be mistaken for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). High ability children may be identified as having ADHD, when their behavioral characteristics are, in reality, the result of their ability level. It is interesting to compare characteristics of ADHD and Gifted children in the list below. It is possible for a child to be gifted and to have ADHD, but many gifted children who are labeled as having A

3 Comments

Maggie Danhakl

11/26/2014 10:00:25 pm

Hi,

Healthline just published this infographic outlining ADHD statistics and numbers in a visual guide. You can see the graphic here: http://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/facts-statistics-infographic

Our users found this info very useful as it showcases the high cost of ADHD and which states ADHD is most prevalent in, and I thought it would be a great resource for your page: http://beckymann.weebly.com/blog/adhd-vs-gifted

Please take a look at the guide and consider adding it to your page. The graphic is also embeddable, so you can embed just the images if you choose to do so.

Thanks again and let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Maggie Danhakl • Assistant Marketing Manager
Healthline • The Power of Intelligent Health
660 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
www.healthline.com | @Healthline | @HealthlineCorp

About Us: corp.healthline.com

Sage C

5/21/2018 01:35:38 am

What your son is experiencing during his legos is the *clears throat* "superpower," if you will, of ADHD. It's called hyperfocusing, and it can be a real problem because it is almost impossible to tear us away from hyperfocusing. I was diagnosed with ADHD in 1st grade (seems a bit early but you could tell something was up since I was an infant, hardly ever cried, didn't always want my mom like other babies, hardly ever slept as a toddler, my mom would have the baby monitor one when I was fourish and I would get only 5 hours of sleep because I was up all night playing with my barney toy and my green bunny; sometimes captain purple vs evil bunny, sometimes pirate vs sailor. Apparently from what my mom could make sense of, the story plots were crazy intricate. Wow ok got sidetracked, anyway...)

I'm a high school girl with the typically "boy type" of ADHD. Life is rough. I'm pulling out 1500/1600 on the SATs and C's in regular classes vs A's in honors/AP. Slow/easy crap bores me to death. Slow people tick me off. If it isn't challenging, I don't have time and if I don't have time and it's challenging, I make time. When I talk in a conversation, I jump around too much for people to keep up. Though other people think I'm "slow I'm just simple a few chapters ahead.

So yes, though on average ADHD kids score 9 points lower on IQ tests, realize it's because of the ADHD itself. It's a standardized time test. The amount of time lost getting distracted by the amazing ideas in ours heads is insane. The fact that it's ONLY 9 lower should say something.

ADHD and intelligence have a positive trend, though it is hard to find. Everything about the "learning disability" is misleading. Even the name. Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder

I'm not attention deficit, I'm paying attention to everything at once in this hurricane of ideas, thoughts, sub thoughts, sub sub thoughts, completely unrelated thoughts, thoughts about the thought process in general, theory of relativity, singularities, the non-reality of time itself: you name it, I'm probably thinking it.

Now ah, ADHD hyperfocus. That is the stuff that changes your whole outlook on life. Hyperfocus is when BAM instant dopamine. Feels like your in a time-warp. Time goes by super super fast. Once I was sleeping and near the close of my dream right beofre I woke up I thought about something: How is it that "not even light" can escape the pull of black holes? Photons are massless particles, if they had mass, all established laws of quantum physics are screwed over. So I woke up at 7:30 am, with the curtains still drawn, took out my laptop and researched and researched. I learned about manifolds and partial differential equations without knowing a scrap of calculus (yet) I learned about singularities and how time is as pliable as space when it comes to gravity. Then I looked back at my alarm clock and it said 8:00. I opened my curtains to let the sunshine in annnnd... I WAS SO FREAKED OUT--- IT WAS NIGHT!! I had to look at the times on the browser history to make sure I wasn't losing my mind.

There are 4 things that trigger this hyperfocus. 1. New 2. Personal Interest 3. Challenging 4. Deadline. All other times our frontal lope is "on strike" because of the lack of dopamine being produces/genetic variants of dopamine receptors (as in the DRD4 7r variant I have) which means they recept it totally differently/environmental factors, there are tons of things.

As much as it's hard to admit, you're son sounds like he in fact does have ADHD. I know, I know, what do I know? I've never met your son, I just stumbled across this site during another research search. But these columns that you have outlined, are actually on the same side. ADHD is treated like a learning disability because of people who don't have it don't try to understand it. It's going to be hard for your son in the years to come, because schools expect every student to learn everything the same way everyone else does. ADHD isn't the issue. It's just ADHD in today's world, where we're expected to do things and perform like everyone else when we just are not physically built to.
DRD4 7r variant popped up about 40000 years ago. You know why it's stuck around this long? Because that's what kept people alive. In the middle of a stressful situation, we're calm. While everyone else is on the edge of sleep deprivation, we're the ones up at 1 am typing on some mom's blog trying to explain to her what ADHD is, past the stigma. TBH in the hunter gatherer age all the "normal" people would have ADDHDD attention deficit deficit hyper deficit disorder. This is how our society works, if you don't fit in the box, you either have to fight to get into the box or get medicated into the box. Unfortunately, it seems the only way to be successful in our schools is to get into that box. We're out of the box thinkers, heck most of the time we don't even know where the box is. Society says they want "creativity" and "original thinkers" but

Sage C

5/21/2018 01:38:58 am

.....Society says they want "creativity" and "original thinkers" but then offer the situations that only favor the normal. This is why, though I hate it, I've come to terms with having to take Adderall to get through high school. It's not fun being told something's wrong with you when the problem is that there's something wrong with your situation. If I just got taught in the things I want to get taught in, I would be a different person.

"Trouble following rules" is exactly the problem. Really they're just trying to say we don't fall for any politically biased BS and question authority because we have a strong sense of what is right and what isn't fair. People don't see it as questioning rules, they see it as "oh this kid is too stupid to follow directions." It's the same situation from 2 different perspectives.

Let's stop the stigma and spread the word that ADHD and gifted are, in fact, the same thing. (obviously there are unintelligent kids with ADHD, but personally I think it's misdiagnosed autism). It's fine if you don't believe that but really REALLY talk to your kid. Have him read my comment. If he related to this than congratulations, you should probably get him tested. If he's ADHD it means he's an underdog prodigy who will one day change the world, maybe no one will notice, but he will.

From all Angles: Just thinking...

ADHD vs. Gifted

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