The Pagagraph About ADHD That Caught My Attention

I was reading an article in Time magazine back in 2009 and read a paragraph that really hit home to me, a 68 year old man with ADHD.

The article, "Better Learning Through Fidgeting", by John Cloud, covered a study on how fidgeting affected, or might be involved in the learning processes of ADHD kids.

The idea seemed to be that ADHD kids SHOULD be allowed to fidget as this helped them focus on their work. In some way, it stimulates their ability to absorb and retain data.

However, it was a description given by one of the researchers which got to me as the reporter was passing on information from Mark Rappaport, a professor at the University of Central Florida:

"...many teachers don't understand how ADHD kids process information. 'If you go into a typical classroom', he [Mark Rappaport] tells me, 'You might hear, "Take out the book. Turn to page 23. Do items 1 through 8, but don't do 5." And you've just given them four or five directions. The child with working memory problems has dropped three of them, and so he's like, "Page 23 - what am I supposed to do?"'

As I read that paragraph, at age 64, I was almost overwhelmed with a flood of memories which came out of my days as a student, as an accountant and fiscal consultant, my years in the U.S. Army, my time as a truck driver, and my days as an optician...days in which I lived in fear of "dropping the ball" as I was given string after string of instructions and information...most of which I could not remember.

I faked my way through everything, and, as often happened, I seemed to spend as much time covering up my mistakes as I did doing the work I was supposed to do.

Just one little paragraph, but it encapsulated a portion of my life over a 60-year period.