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So, in conclusion, I don't think that the average ADDer is very smart. My guess is that the average ADDer is less intelligent than the average neurotypical, and the few ADDer who are actually intelligent are the ones who stand out and unwillingly project the mistaken notion that the average ADDer is smart.
What is your definition of average? I don't think you can qualify that in terms of humans and their excepted intelligence. People learn and grow at different rates. Life experiences sometimes brings out (or holds back) a person's outwardly known talent and intelligence.
That said...
You mean Alexander Graham Bell , Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin aren’t smart? How about Sir Isaac Newton , Galileo or Louis Pasteur? Then, I ask you about some authors… are they smart?
Leo Tolstoy, Lewis Carroll, Samuel Clemens/ Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Virginia Woolf.
Yes, they all had ADD.
Why is it we have a narrow definition of success and a wide, wide spasm for non-success/ failure?
Good for you. You're an exception. People with ADD, ADHD Autism, Asperger's, and other related conditions will have a harder time functioning in society. This doesn't mean it isn't possible. You just have it harder than us normal folks.
Really??? Read my list of people with ADD. Are/ were those people stupid? And people have all kinds of things in their life that is harder than (normal???) other folks. It's called life. What I find hard, you may find easy and vice-versa.
The way Albert Einstein is always described, I've got no doubt he had ADD. Think "absent-minded professor". There's no correlation between ADD and intelligence.
What is your definition of average? I don't think you can qualify that in terms of humans and their excepted intelligence. People learn and grow at different rates. Life experiences sometimes brings out (or holds back) a person's outwardly known talent and intelligence.
That said...
You mean Alexander Graham Bell , Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin aren’t smart? How about Sir Isaac Newton , Galileo or Louis Pasteur? Then, I ask you about some authors… are they smart?
Leo Tolstoy, Lewis Carroll, Samuel Clemens/ Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Virginia Woolf.
Yes, they all had ADD.
Why is it we have a narrow definition of success and a wide, wide spasm for non-success/ failure?
Because we humans have a need to feel better, smarter, more beautiful than other people and it helps if we can pin the loser label on other people when they don't think like we do--because Lord forbid if we should ever admit that they're right b/c then we'd have to think that we're wrong and then we'd have to readjust our thinking accordingly. Except that adjusting our thinking is something that most of us in this club do rather well. I think.
Studies show time and time again the adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) are more often than not at an above average IQ. If you feel this is not true for you, you are the exception-not the rule. -PhD Neuroscience
Studies show time and time again the adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) are more often than not at an above average IQ. If you feel this is not true for you, you are the exception-not the rule. -PhD Neuroscience
Heh my brain is so hot, so smokin, so sexy, so all that anna bag o'chips, that when it was time to take the IQ tests, it said "dood. I am TOO COOL for that test" and it instructed me to look out the window instead.
And so I looked out the window because the birds were chirping. And then it said "dood. Teacher's dress. It's purple. You totally have to check that hue out." And so I did, and compared it with the dozen other hues of purple in the color-wheel of my brain, investigating my preferences for deep vs. brilliant, muddied vs. sharp, and concluded "yes, we truly do love that purple dress." And then, my brain said, "dood. Question #5. Answer is "some of the time." Check it." So I checked "some of the time." And I was gonna move on to question #6 (having ignored questions 1, 2, 3, and 4), but my brain said, "dood. You remember that sonnet Mr. Gerosa asked us to study this morning? Well get a load of this!" and it proceded to explain to me the entire sonnet, line by line. At that point, the next 25 questions were left to their own devices, abandoned utterly by my brain and myself.
At the end of the timed test period, I had answered three questions. I turned it in, and got an "incomplete." They were not able to measure my intelligence with a timed test. They still can't measure it. That is because my brain has exactly 40,492,773 craps it is able to give, and they are all reserved for something other than IQ tests.
Studies show time and time again the adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) are more often than not at an above average IQ. If you feel this is not true for you, you are the exception-not the rule. -PhD Neuroscience
Would you mind elaborating on that please? I mean, I'd like to think that I'm smart but how exactly does ADD play into that?
I'd like to add regarding the content in the #1 section of the article that it's been found that boys are more likely to be hyperactive, due to the difference in how boys and girls are socialized. Also, those who are hyper when young grow out of it, even though they still have ADD, simply because of socialization - it is not acceptable for an adult to be what would be inappropriately hyperactive. Hyperactivity sometimes manifests itself in fidgetiness and squirminess, especially when one tries to suppress it. Further, a lot of people don't understand this, but hyperactivity also manifests itself in the mind, driven by the same energy as outward hyperactivity - as in the mind "going 90 MPH" or "being bombarded by thoughts" - which is referred to as inattentive-type ADHD or just ADD. As for the #3 section of the article, regarding increasing difficulty with grades correlating with transitioning to middle school, I'd like to add one thing they failed to mention - puberty and sexual distraction!
I guess that article doesn't explain why those with ADD often have a high IQ, so it doesn't answer your question, but it's interesting to read anyway. I suspect the ability to 'hyperfocus' may be the answer, that is if ADD influences intelligence at all. It may even be the other way around, that intelligence influences ADD. Maybe there's an actual answer out there and I just haven't heard of it.
I'd like to add regarding the content in the #1 section of the article that it's been found that boys are more likely to be hyperactive, due to the difference in how boys and girls are socialized. Also, those who are hyper when young grow out of it, even though they still have ADD, simply because of socialization - it is not acceptable for an adult to be what would be inappropriately hyperactive. Hyperactivity sometimes manifests itself in fidgetiness and squirminess, especially when one tries to suppress it. Further, a lot of people don't understand this, but hyperactivity also manifests itself in the mind, driven by the same energy as outward hyperactivity - as in the mind "going 90 MPH" or "being bombarded by thoughts" - which is referred to as inattentive-type ADHD or just ADD. As for the #3 section of the article, regarding increasing difficulty with grades correlating with transitioning to middle school, I'd like to add one thing they failed to mention - puberty and sexual distraction!
Yes what you said here makes sense--I'm of the inattentive variety and I fidget all the time whenever I have to sit still--I'm constantly tapping fingers, chewing my lip, picking on fingernails--anything I feel that I can get away with discreetly. Lord knows I'd probably weigh 20 lbs more than I do if I didn't fidget and I've always said that I'd never be the person who flies a 20 hour flight and then ends up with blood clots in my legs b/c I'm constantly stretching my arms and legs--it's kind of a tension release and a bit of an odd mannerism. Before I got dx'ed I couldn't figure out why I couldn't sit still for a lecture or church sermon like other people seem to be able to do.
As for the last part about sexual distraction--oh yes I had major problems with that and I'm a girl. Still do and let's just say that marriage was good for me and helped to calm my mind that way. I'm not saying that I'm a nympho--pretty normal in that dept really, but the thoughts would certainly intrude and esp if I had a crush on someone.
Going to go read that article now--it looks to be a good one.
One of our patients explained this: "ADD is like having erectile dysfunction of the mind. If the task is something that really interests you, you're up for it and can perform. If it's not something that turns you on, you can't get it up and you're not able to perform." The capacity to focus and mobilize executive functions for a task depends primarily on release of dopamine in specific areas of the brain and that release of dopamine is not under voluntary control.
So true--the ADD brain cannot perform on demand! LOL. I'm using it--I've been telling select folks that I have mad kid disease, though of course we know it's not just for kids anymore. I don't really think people grow out of it--some learn to cope better than others.
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