ADHD May Not Be a Disorder After All

Isaac’s energy level, enthusiasm, and talkativeness were too much—at least for a traditional classroom.

He had been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); one psychologist explained that he had a high IQ but low maturity.

It wasn’t until Heather Rodden began homeschooling him in fifth grade that she realized what years of frustrated teachers couldn’t put their fingers on: What looked like a liability in one setting could flourish in another.

Like Rodden, other parents, researchers, and professionals are moving away from treating ADHD purely as a disorder that one in 10 kids have.

The word “deficit” in ADHD, they argue, obscures strengths—such as creativity, hyperfocus, and cognitive flexibility—that often accompany the condition.

“‘Different wiring’ isn’t automatically bad,” Dr. Daniel G. Amen—a psychiatrist and founder of Amen Clinics, brain-body clinics that use imaging instead of checklists for mental health issues—told The Epoch Times in an email. “Sometimes it’s simply diversity in how people think and create. ADHD isn’t a character flaw—it’s a brain pattern.”

At the heart of the matter is finding where and how people with ADHD will thrive.

An ADHD Brain

One frustration for people with ADHD is that it’s rarely lack of knowledge that holds them back. It is the fact that their brains don’t consistently concentrate.

Focus requires a coordinated effort between the brain’s frontal control system, which helps you stay organized and resist distractions; the basal ganglia, which regulates motivation by using the reward chemical dopamine; and the cerebellum, which coordinates timing and attention. In ADHD brains, that coordination is inconsistent—not absent—but unreliable under demand.

“That helps explain inconsistent performance,” Amen said. “It’s called a disorder because it can disrupt performance at school, work, and home.”

Although most research focuses on the deficits of ADHD, some studies suggest that many who have symptoms also have specific strengths.

Those with ADHD outperform others in divergent thinking, particularly in fluency (generating many ideas quickly) and flexibility (combining concepts in unexpected ways), according to findings reported in Frontiers in Psychiatry.

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A study published in Comprehensive Psychiatry found small to moderate positive correlations among ADHD traits of hyperfocus, sensory processing sensitivity, and cognitive flexibility (the ability to rapidly switch tasks, behaviors, or perspectives).

Hyperfocus is becoming absorbed in a task, sometimes to the point of losing track of time and surroundings—called flow in someone who doesn’t have ADHD, Claire Sira, a neuropsychologist who specializes in coaching adults with ADHD, told The Epoch Times.

Sensory processing sensitivity is typically thought of as a low sensory threshold—being overwhelmed by stimuli such as light, sound, and smell. However, in the study, sensory processing sensitivity was defined differently, as a sensory appreciation for aesthetics, nature, or architecture, for example.

Another study of adults with ADHD published in Frontiers in Psychiatry notes that impulsivity and hyperactivity are seen as positive by some people with an ADHD diagnosis.

In an analysis published in BMJ Open, adults with ADHD reported dual benefits in weakness traits. A 30-year-old woman said that being overly active allows her to do more than her peers in less time: “Then I get to experience more.” Another woman reported that her inattention has led to overhearing “amusing conversations.”

Traits such as impulsivity and hyperactivity can become strengths, rather than liabilities, by focusing on neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to form new neural connections possibly even after injury and later in life, according to Amen. Meditation, breathing exercises, physical activity, and learning new skills are all associated with improved neuroplasticity.

“Focusing only on deficits misses the point,” he said. “The real goal is to help people build a better brain so they can access their strengths consistently—especially when life demands concentration and follow-through.”

A Classroom Problem

However, life’s demands may partially explain the prevalence of ADHD, which some argue may be more of an environmental problem than a brain disorder.

An article published in BJPsych Advances states that children of generations past were not expected to sit rigidly and concentrate on academics for several hours per day.

Children once had far more unstructured play—here they practice hula hooping in the 1960s. Archive Photos/Getty Images

“My feeling has been for a long time that we make ADHD into a disease state or abnormality that really runs along a continuum in different directions,” retired pediatric neurologist Dr. Andrew Zimmerman told The Epoch Times.

“And we tend to see it as abnormal because we want to see children sit still in class and do their schoolwork.”

Adjusting schools and workplaces will not only lift the stigma and shame of ADHD, but also benefit everyone by making space for the skills and talents those with ADHD bring, according to psychiatrist and researcher Annie Swanepoel.

“We need to recognize that variations are the spice of life,” she wrote in an article published in Clinical Neuropsychiatry.

Everyone would likely benefit from school and workplace adjustments aimed at improving focus, Sira said. Yet there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, according to her.

For some, working in an open, busy office environment can offer accountability and motivation. For others, the visual distractions and noise can make work too challenging. They may need to work from home or behind an office door, according to Sira.

“It would be way better if we could match the environment to the person,” she said.

Zimmerman noted that children suspected of having ADHD deserve a thorough evaluation, because in some cases, inattention and hyperactivity have underlying causes such as fetal alcohol syndrome, fragile X syndrome, and premature birth that are not always identified in schools.

However, in most cases, he said, ADHD is overdiagnosed and overtreated, when the real solution could be a different style of schooling altogether.

“If I had a child in that situation nowadays, I would certainly look for [an alternative school] where they could express themselves,” he said. “So much of what is important is relationships—it’s social development, to have kids learn fairness, and how to get along—all maybe more important than calculus.”

Are We Overdiagnosing?

In less than two decades, the prevalence of ADHD diagnoses among children increased from 6.1 percent to 10.2 percent. Today, it’s 11.4 percent of children aged 3 to 17. Adult ADHD diagnoses—although they represent about 1 percent of the population—nearly doubled from 2007 to 2016.

Zimmerman has reviewed studies recently that show overlap of symptoms between clearly defined ADHD patients and typical children. He said even children with typical brain patterns have been shown to have improved focus and less hyperactivity on medication.

Such overlap blurs the line of certainty when it comes to who has ADHD and who doesn’t, according to him.

“It’s a question of: Are we unfairly treating the kids?“ he said. ”Are we penalizing them, in a sense, by making them take medication? It makes the kids look better, but it doesn’t necessarily make them perform better or certainly not feel better.”

One reason for the uptick in ADHD, Sira said, is simply the expansive demands on attention in the modern world, including screen usage, larger classrooms, and physical and emotional distractions that make it harder to stay focused.

The key is to teach the brain to shift into focus mode when needed, according to Amen.

“The problem comes when the focus-and-follow-through network—especially the prefrontal cortex and its partners—doesn’t reliably come online when it’s needed,” he said.

The brain can be supported with a healthy diet, good sleep, and regular exercise, according to Sira.

“If you wanted to actively build your ability to regulate your own attention, meditation practices do this because that’s literally what meditation is—learning to recognize when your attention has wandered and bring it back—whatever is happening with sensory awareness and mindful movement,” she said.

For children, martial arts and dance can teach discipline with mindful movement and improve attention. Adults can also grow those skills and should, she said, as neuroplasticity should be a lifelong goal.

Finding the Right Fit

In some cases, those with ADHD learn to adapt to the way their brains work, Zimmerman said. Other times, they modify the environment to maximize the way their brains work.

In Isaac’s situation, the right environment didn’t change who he was; it gave him room to thrive as himself. He is a senior this year, and although he’s not interested in college, he’s been mowing lawns since he was 14 and now also has a job with the family business. He works on vehicle upholstery, remote starts, and audio systems. He’d like to land a job working with his hands when he graduates—and by most measures, he’s already well on his way.

Isaac Rodden working on his car. Courtesy of Heather Rodden

Rodden credits Isaac’s flexible schedule—rather than a rigid, time-blocked one—with teaching him something many of his peers won’t learn until much later, if at all: how to manage himself.

“I realized that ADHD wasn’t the bad thing everybody made it sound like,” Rodden said. “I told him, ‘This is a gift God gave you, and this gift is going to come in handy.’”