The thing about looking at children one thinks are ADHD, often they miss that they might be gifted. I have a piece in my queue that covers this idea. I had teachers at a school tell me that’s what they believed about my kiddo. Turned out he is highly gifted. When you’re looking for ADHD, that’s what they find, especially in children. Rarely do they recommend gifted assessment before hooking a kid up on the ADHD drugs.
Thanks for the interesting link! I hope that there are good ways to find out whether a child is precocious in a way that imitates ADHD symptoms; there are presumably a range of things that could mimic ADHD symptoms and hopefully they have good ways to rule out those things before making a diagnosis.
My understanding is that it's very common for gifted kids with ADHD to get diagnosed very late because they can pass their classes without doing any work; that's a tragic thing because they can make it all the way to university (or whatever) without anyone diagnosing them. And I assume that the other big factor is how difficult your particular K12 education is (I've experienced both easy and hard schools); the sooner you start to struggle, the sooner there's a chance that you'll get diagnosed.
The thing about looking at children one thinks are ADHD, often they miss that they might be gifted. I have a piece in my queue that covers this idea. I had teachers at a school tell me that’s what they believed about my kiddo. Turned out he is highly gifted. When you’re looking for ADHD, that’s what they find, especially in children. Rarely do they recommend gifted assessment before hooking a kid up on the ADHD drugs.
Here’s a description from CHADD about how giftedness and ADHD can be confused: https://chadd.org/attention-article/giftedness-adhd-a-strengths-based-perspective-and-approach/
Good luck in your search.
Thanks for the interesting link! I hope that there are good ways to find out whether a child is precocious in a way that imitates ADHD symptoms; there are presumably a range of things that could mimic ADHD symptoms and hopefully they have good ways to rule out those things before making a diagnosis.
My understanding is that it's very common for gifted kids with ADHD to get diagnosed very late because they can pass their classes without doing any work; that's a tragic thing because they can make it all the way to university (or whatever) without anyone diagnosing them. And I assume that the other big factor is how difficult your particular K12 education is (I've experienced both easy and hard schools); the sooner you start to struggle, the sooner there's a chance that you'll get diagnosed.
Wonderful and thought-provoking article on ADHD, Andrew! Keep up the good work on this important topic.
Thanks!
Great piece!
Lots of good information and a fascinating topic!