Albert Einstein, Whoopi Goldberg, Thomas Edison, Nelson Rockefeller, Richard Branson, Ted Turner, Steve McQueen, Leonardo da Vinci, Robin Williams….Nobel Prize Winner, Genius, Actress, Talk Show Host, Inventor, Vice President, Billionaire Businessman, Media Mogul, Actor, Painter, Comedian….ADHD, Dyslexia, Autism, Aspergers, learning disabilities, attention disorders, behavior problems.  One list of people.  Two sets of labels.  Those labels both describe the same list of people.  Labels have power and they can be limiting, but from just this small subset of a truly large list of talented and accomplished individuals, we have to recognize that not only should we not allow labels to be limiting, we need to quit trying to bucket people into categories.  We spend too much time trying to find what is wrong with a student or child rather than encouraging the unique ways that people interact with the world and helping them to blossom into the great person they can be.  And, we are also failing to recognize, on many levels, how we are designed as human beings.

Largely, this article will focus on ADHD, but my thoughts extend to those who have been identified with other “disabilities.”  While I respect that there is something that is chemically happening in the brain for those with ADHD (it is a neurological disorder, that can be identified by brain scans, and not simply, as many believe, a behavior disorder defined subjectively by the input of educators and clinicians), I’m not entirely convinced that it’s an episode that is a traumatic episode for the body. I also struggle with whether it’s a disorder at all.  Before explaining the latter point, I want to explain why I make mention about whether or not it’s a traumatic episode for the body.

Very early in my career, I worked in a locked residential treatment facility with severely emotionally and behaviorally disordered youth.  This was before I’d begun my graduate work and was my first professional experience. I was in the camp of people who believed that we over-diagnose and over-medicate many of these “difficult” children.  This was a brilliant staff and a great experience.  I remember witnessing some symptoms with a youth and I was reluctant to share them due to 1) thinking it really wasn’t my place to provide this type of clinical input, and 2) I was worried about the impact of adding an additional label that this child would have to carry with him as well as more medication to his regimen.  One of the most enlightening things that the psychiatrist shared with me as we discussed this case and my concerns is that, with many disorders, when a person experiences the symptoms of their disorder, particularly if it’s something where body chemistry changes or something becomes unbalanced, this can be traumatic for a person’s system to experience and therefore, the medications are eliminating this trauma.  This was forever a changing outlook for me, in general, on medication.

With so much evidence that so many individuals with ADD/ADHD are highly successful, creative individuals, who’s to say that this is not an indication of advanced brain functioning?  We don’t say that individuals who are poor singers, dancers, artists, sportsmen are disordered; however, we have only arbitrarily decided that reading, writing and ‘rithmatic are the subjects by which we would set our standards.  Truly, when humans inhabited this earth, these were not the skills that were required.  We needed to be able to farm the land and survive.  Throughout evolution, somewhere along the line, some majority decided that this is the way the brain should optimally work, that people should be forced to sit and be still and learn in this fashion or they are “disordered.”  As I have watched, those with the attention deficit diagnoses tend to excel in other areas, particularly arts and sports.  No, I have not gathered up these children and conducted testing to support my hypothesis, but I’ve witnessed enough to wage an argument that I’m not so sure I agree how we determine what is or is not a disorder (I do have a graduate degree in Forensic Psychology, so I am very clear on diagnostic criteria and am not holistically against the DSM, but I think there are some worthy points that deserve further consideration).  I also would strongly argue that we need to accommodate different learning styles and allow our youth more opportunities to have success. We need to recognize different talents and steer people towards their skills.  This will build esteem and keep them engaged.

We did not initially inhabit this planet as a species to be still and studious, sitting 6-8 hours a day in classrooms or working in the corporate world.  We needed to be very physically active to farm, survive and evolve.  The active, creative brain that we find in the individuals that we call disordered serves us well in making the great advancements that we needed throughout time.  I see this as evidence less of a disorder and more as individual differences.  Many struggle with taking in information in various formats and are capable of great achievements.  It is the labels themselves that often create the disabilities and the frustrations that the teachers and other authority figures have in trying to work with children identified with these disabilities.  I go back to my example about expectations around sports and arts. If we expected non-athletic children, those who couldn’t sing, or those who were not artists to have to suddenly develop this talent, to be forced to spend the entire day trying to achieve this, labeling them, and in some cases trying to find a way, if possible to medicate them in order to enhance their athletic abilities, etc., we would see our mild-mannered bookworms acting out due to the frustration, ridicule and inability to please the adults around them.

As we move toward adulthood, it doesn’t become any easier to carry these labels with us.  What a person has been identified with in their childhood carries into their adulthood, affecting their self-esteem and in some cases, even interferes with opportunities for employment.

In the day and age we live in now, we throw around the diagnoses of the DSM so casually and I really think we need to take a long, hard look at whether diagnoses should be identified as disorders or if we should start recognizing the different ways that people interact with the world.

I will clarify that I do think that it’s important to identify signs of dyslexia, learning disorders and attention disorders that interfere with learning for which we do have methods to help people overcome and give people tools so that they do not have to live with these problems throughout their lives. I also realize that I’ve opened the door on the debate over medication and I don’t think this article leaves enough time to tackle that debate.  I will say that I strongly believe that if we are allowing people to interact with the world in the way that they are naturally designed to excel, I strongly believe that we will decrease the need to alter their chemistry in order to force them to live within a one-size fits all world.  That said, I believe there is much more to the subject.

When it comes to learning disorders, attention disorders and even other emotional and behavioral disorders, we need to recognize the areas where these individuals excel and not just focus on them as “disordered.”  Just simply because they do not fit the mold of our idea of what a typical learner should be does not mean that their brain is not functioning exactly as it was meant or that they are not designed to achieve great things.

In the “Programming that Works” category, I will speak more to the solutions for accommodating different learning styles, dealing with behavior problems that come up due to related frustrations and helping all learners thrive and recognize their potential.