What is ADD or ADHD?

What is ADD or ADHD?

Attention Deficit Disorder is a neurobiological disorder of the central nervous system which is most often characterized by disturbances or difficulties in the areas of:

• attention
• hyperactivity
• impulsivity

It has had many different names over time and has been around for a long time.

Symptoms of ADD or ADHD

Inattention

This is often thought of as short attention span which is the easiest way to explain it. However it seems that this is also an issue of the components of the process of attention. Meaning they will have trouble picking what stimulus to focus on, trouble sustaining that focus over time, dividing their focus between other relevant stimuli and trouble shifting focus to another stimulus. (Basically their brains are always going to they have trouble picking which item whirring around in their mind to focus on and to pick which other ones might also be relevant, they have a hard time focusing on that for a long time because other more interesting things are distracting them and then sometimes they have the problem of shifting focus from one thing to another especially if that shift comes up suddently.) These may show up categorically as an example workaholics (they have trouble shifting focus to things other then work long after they should have changed it to other things, some people would call this over focused), single mindedness is another one that is similar, procrastination (cant selectively focus attention and doesn’t know how or where to get started, if whatever it is they are trying to focus on isn’t interesting to them then it is even harder for them to focus on it), and boredom.

Focus is easier when the person is very interested in what they are trying to focus on and believe in their success at it. It takes people with ADD a lot more effort and stimuli to focus and stay focus and motivated. It isn’t that they don’t try and it isn’t that they are unmotivated it just takes a lot more effort then people who don’t have it.

Examples of Inattentive behavior:

• Often fails to give close attention to details.
• Often makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities.
• Often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities.
• Often becomes easily distracted by irrelevant sights, sounds and extraneous stimuli.
• Often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace.
• Often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities.
• Often avoids tasks, such as schoolwork or homework, that require sustained mental effort.
• Often loses things necessary for tasks or activities, like school assignments, pencils, books, or tools, keys and so on.
• Often is forgetful in daily activities.
• Rarely follows instructions carefully and completely, if they don’t right it down when they hear it they wont remember it.
• Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly.
• Making careless errors
• Time management issues
• Difficulty completing tasks or projects in general
• Difficulty staying organized.

Hyperactivity

Is difficulty inhibiting behavior. It is not necessarily what people think about when they hear the word hyper of people bouncing off the walls though it can and does occaisionally happent that way. Most of the time people with Hyperactivity in ADD talk way to much and rather fast.  These people are in constant motion. They may engage in excessive fiddling, fidgeting, leg swinging, and squirming or constantly readjusting themselves in their chair. These people are very active in general and may take on lots of hobbies and exercise or even second jobs to keep them busy. The hyperactivity depending on how it is presented can actually sometimes help get more things accomplished but this isn’t always the case.

Impulsivity

Is the difficulty controlling impulses. These people do not stop and think before they act or speak. They say and do whatever comes into their mind without thinking about the consequences. They might say something inappropriate and regret it later, blurt out a response to question before a person is done speaking to them or interrupt a conversation, or have difficulty waiting for their turn in line or in a game. They may be careless with assignments or with other things. This may also lead to some people impulse shopping. It takes a lot of effort to keep these impulses in check.

There are generally three types of ADD or ADHD:

Combined Type (hyperactive, impulsive, inattentive)

Inattentive Type

Hyperactive, Impulsive Type

* This information came from my own knowledge as well as from the book “You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!” By Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo. As well as some things from this website http://www.add-adhd-help-center.com/symptoms_add_adhd.htm