UNDERSTANDING A.D.D.
Lynda Thompson, Ph.D., C.Psych., BCN
Parents and schools are
increasingly recognizing Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.) as a major
difficulty which produces academic underachievement. With at least 5% of school age children
affected, you can expect almost every class to have someone with A.D.D. or
A.D.H.D. (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Their problems may include short attention
span, distractibility, and difficulties organizing and completing their assignments. Many also have an
impulsive style; they start work without checking directions, blurt out
answers, and have trouble awaiting their turn.
ADD is not an illness and it is
not a disorder in the usual sense. It is a constellation of temperamental
traits, and a style of thinking. The
task of the individual who has these traits is to harness them and use them to advantage. Harnessing requires learning how to learn
efficiently and effectively.
The brain of the child with ADD
can be likened to a "flickering light". Everyone’s brain produce electricity and the
different frequencies of the brain waves are associated with different mental
states. People with A.D.D. produce an
abundance of slow waves and show less fast wave activity. A sudden burst of slow wave activity - Alpha
or Theta - in the middle of a complex
task is equivalent to the individual being tuned out, for
that moment in time. People with
ADD can attest to the frustration of continually finding that, despite the best
of intent and even despite major interest in a topic, they miss key points and sections of a
lecture only minutes after it has begun.
Although most people occasionally experience getting to the end of a
page of reading only to realize that their mind has been somewhere else,
persons with ADD who have not developed specific counter strategies do this
most of the time. With ADD one may be
thinking very intently and creatively internally while ignoring what is being
said by a teacher. In addition, even
when the individual has not been thinking about something else internally,
their mind has not, so to speak, gone into gear and become actively involved in
the passage. Being actively involved
requires a state associated with faster brain waves - Beta activity.
What may be very confusing to
parents is that often the individual with ADD may exhibit superb concentration
and focus in specific situations. This
may even, at times, be superior to their peers! Children with ADD may, for
example, become totally absorbed in games of Nintendo, certain T.V. programs, building with materials such as Lego or
Playmobile and so on. Only some of these
activities are exceptionally fast changing therefore this is certainly not the
only factor which might account for their intense concentration. In the 1970's, while doing data collection
for her thesis on the effects of Ritalin in hyperactive children, Lynda
Thompson (now Director of the ADD Centre in Mississauga) noted that a
disproportionate number of the ADHD boys who were hockey players `played
goalie. This is a position which makes the most of inborn characteristics of
many ADHD children. The goalie receives
individual instructions and does not therefore have to pay attention during
strategy sessions in the dressing room.
When on the ice, their attention can wander when the puck is at the
other end of the arena without adversely affecting their performance. However,
when the puck is in play close to them, they appear to become mentally
"locked on" to it and
virtually nothing distracts them, including screaming fans.
The mental state of hyper-focus which
ADD people are capable of is very adaptive in a goal-tending situation. It can,
on the other hand, irritate a parent whose repeated calls are ignored because
the child is in hyper-focus in front of the T.V. or Nintendo! Many scholars and senior business persons who
have ADD note that they can "lock in" to focus on documents that they
are creating, or plans they are developing and virtually nothing can distract
them when they are in this type of activity.
In our experience, most of these individuals attribute their success to
the development of metacognitive strategies to deal with their difficulties in
concentrating. (These strategies are
taught at the ADD Centre in Mississauga.)
This in turn may have made them better students than persons who had never
had to work at learning how to learn! One example of such a person is a
brilliant physicist who became an expert in test-taking strategies and has
published 18 books on that subject. Yet he still has trouble sitting through a
lecture without impulsively calling out a question or comment!
The life history of many creative
geniuses, from Mozart to Edison and Einstein, suggest that they were A.D.D.
individuals. What makes the difference in whether a person with attentional
problems is a success or not? It depends
on whether they learn to harness their abilities and use them to
advantage. Fortunately there is a new
approach to helping both children and adults learn to self-regulate their brain
waves to improve their concentration.
This educational approach is called Neurofeedback or computerized EEG
feedback. Within 40 to 60 sessions
people can acquire the skill of producing brain wave patterns which are
associated with focusing and concentrating.
Unlike stimulants, Neurofeedback
training appears to have a direct long term effect on increasing the child's
ability to remain focused (decreased slow wave activity) and spend extended
periods of time concentrating in a problem solving manner (increased fast wave activity). There is a
significant decrease in the phenomenon of tuning out (associated with Alpha
and/or Theta activity) when the child is expected to be carrying out an
assignment or listening intently in class.
In addition, Neurofeedback
appears to have a similar effect to stimulants in that it increases the child's
"natural guards" to inhibit or avoid
impulsive actions. Children already taking medication can continue while
training, however, most find that they can gradually reduce the dosage as self
regulation is mastered.
This training first became
available in Canada at the University of Alberta in Edmonton in 1991. It has
been available in Ontario at the ADD Centre in Mississauga since January 1993.
The ADD Centre has a Toronto Training Centre on Yonge St. above Lawrence.
Neurofeedback training is
virtually the opposite of therapy or
treatment by means of medication.
In Neurofeedback training children quickly recognize that no one is
doing "it" to them. They are
totally in control, responsible, empowered and working it out for themselves. The feedback is nothing more or less than a
useful tool which allows them to learn self-regulation.
See Also: THE A.D.D. BOOK: New Understandings, New Approaches to
Parenting Your Child
William Sears, M.D. & Lynda
Thompson, Ph.D.
