High IQ Is No Help for Those With ADHD

http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=6698

by tokenadult • 17 years ago

38 56 17 years ago

opa.yale.edu

rjurney9• 17 years ago

Would be interesting to see the results of the same tests with a group of 120+ IQ ADHDers on Ritalin/Adderall/etc. I would think the impairment would go down significantly.

russell2• 17 years ago

Adderall helps a lot. I have family members with ADD. One says it helps a lot with insomnia, as well as concentration. (Apologies, I accidentally hit the downmod button.)

rjurney9• 17 years ago

I love Adderall. Without it, I can't even take the trash out. With it, I can plan months and years in advance.

cyunker2• 17 years ago

I take Adderall. Helps with ADD, but for me it causes insomnia.

russell2• 17 years ago

Another myth, even among doctors, is that this is a condition of children who run up walls and across ceilings. Not so. It afflicts adults who are not hyperactive. It is characterized by periods of intense concentration and other periods of complete inability to focus. It is pretty easily treatable with amphetamine type prescription drugs, which help them to calm down and concentrate, exactly the opposite effect from most of us. Unfortunately it is harder to diagnose in high IQ adults, because they are better at disguising the symptoms.

tokenadult8• 17 years ago

Thanks to you and to the other participants for your replies. I see a real opportunity here to further advance the psychology of human mental abilities by further investigating the distinction Keith Stanovich

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=97803001238...

http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss-Psycholog...

draw between "intelligence" (I would say "IQ," but his terminology is standard) and "rationality." There are various forms of human cognition, and IQ tests miss many of them. Stanovich reports that there are mental tests that would reliably show, among adults with high IQ, who has executive function problems and who does not.

rkts• 17 years ago

Are you related to this Stanovich guy, or do you just like repeating yourself?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=536558

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=565842

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=588797

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=518828

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=559054

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=514086

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=480331

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=497733

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=483771

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=514856

This is just from a quick Google search. I'm sure there are more.

cstejerean• 17 years ago

"It is characterized by periods of intense concentration and other periods of complete inability to focus."

"They tended to procrastinate and be forgetful and had difficulty in harnessing their talent to complete many daily tasks"

Crap, I guess I really might have ADHD. Would effective and safe is the prescription medication?

rjurney9• 17 years ago

Everyone is that way to some extent, but if you have ADHD its severe. Treatment is effective for most people, and its completely safe for adults. Occasional concern for children.

tokenadult8• 17 years ago

"It is characterized by periods of intense concentration and other periods of complete inability to focus."

"They tended to procrastinate and be forgetful and had difficulty in harnessing their talent to complete many daily tasks"

What's scary for parents is that a lot of that sounds like "teenage boy," and I'm not sure how well I understand differential diagnosis of ADD as contrasted with adolescent brain restructuring. I know young people whose parents have told me that the young people have ADD, and some of those young people are BRILLIANT. Some other young people I know seem every bit as disorganized, but who am I to diagnose someone, even my own child, without a lot of clinical experience?

rjurney9• 17 years ago

I had to explain to my neurologist yesterday, that it was the old model for ADD where it just 'went away' and that the new model for ADHD is that it often persists until adulthood, and that even though I'm almost 30 I most definitely need to take amphetamine salts daily to accomplish meaningful work with computers.

Even doctors don't understand.

aswanson2• 17 years ago

A friend of mine got perfect math SATs at 12 and started taking college math at 13. He never got past freshman year to graduate, just jumped from school to school repeating freshman year, dropping in and out of college. I think he had trouble with anything that required long-term logical reasoning that could not be done in 1 shot.

He constantly rocked back and forth and could never sit still, even into his 20s. His eyes always darted back and forth when talking with people. I don't know what he's doing now -- he seemed to be overclocked with very little cache and ram. Wonder what became of him.

whacked_new2• 17 years ago

For high level abstract, symbolic reasoning, low cache and ram is a critical impairment. At that level SAT math really means nothing. In fact, college math at 13 doesn't even seem that impressive -- I believe after Kumon level J you get into calculus and plenty of grade-school kids take this.

It could have been a genuine problem for him, but even with the best drugs, I wouldn't expect some kind of "unlocking your potential" moment.

I remember reading a study that found the biggest difference between high-performers and their peers precisely that of attention control. It involved looking at lights moving in a particular pattern. When the pattern was detected, normal people showed increased brain activity. High-performing individuals showed decreasing brain activity, presumably because they optimized the pattern recognition process, and focused all the resources there.

tokenadult8• 17 years ago

I believe after Kumon level J you get into calculus and plenty of grade-school kids take this.

Here's some quantification of the number of students who take calculus before the "usual" age in this era:

http://www.maa.org/columns/launchings/launchings_05_07.html

mad442• 17 years ago

Years ago, when I was a phd student, I had been to the psychologist at the university health center because I was unable to concentrate on anything. I had filled the ADHD diagnosis survey they gave me beforehand, and I was convinced I had ADHD. The psychologist discarded the survey and focused on a personal problem I had that time (my dad has been in a very bad accident). She told me there is nothing wrong with me, except that I was having a bad time. Her evidence was that I had a brilliant academic record (best student researcher, my GPA was not that good though). After all, when I am really interested in something I could concentrate very intensely for a couple of hours on that thing. She asked me if I would like to have some help with time management and organization techniques. I told her that I had read so many books on that, that I could give a seminar on it myself.

I was actually very relieved with her diagnosis, because, well, it sounded good, and I dislike the idea of medicating myself. But my problems came back frequently to haunt me. There have been numerous days when I couldn't get myself to do a simple task such as paying bills (just the physical act of writing checks and mailing). It sounds weird, but when I have many things to do, my brain shuts off and reacts by refusing to do anything at all. I know about getting things done and every conceivable productivity technique, but I never can get myself to put these in practice. I am very disorganized, and this costs me a lot. I am doing considerably good in my academic career, but doing awful in taking care of trivia.

I always took pride in doing OK without having to take any medication, but I guess I could do much better with medication. It hurts sometimes to endure these symptoms, but I have been able to carry on so far, so good. I don't know, after reading this article, I think maybe I should be seeing a psyciatrist this time, and get a second opinion.

wheels5• 17 years ago

I think the "paying the bills" thing is pretty normal, at least within a certain class of folks. And it's something you can learn to work with.

I have all of my bills auto-paid. I've learned from experience -- having the power cut off, the phone cut off, the internet cut off -- that it just works better that way. I've never had a shortage of cash, but sometimes even opening the envelope with the bill inside seems oddly intimidating.

But again, you can work with that. Now everything is auto-paid; I don't even bother to open the bills. Nothing gets cut off anymore. I still get the odd annoying thing to deal with, and I've tried to get in the habbit of when there's something that I catch myself ignoring to open it immediately. I've also become a huge user of to-do tracking and set deadlines for myself -- having my daily checklist with past due things staring back at me in red works wonders. Everything goes in there. Mails to family, mails I need to respond to for business stuff (I have a hot key that creates a to-do list with a 24 hour deadline to answering a mail), stuff that needs to get done for a next release. It helps immensely.

These patterns are far too normal, especially among gifted folk for me to be willing to call them an illness and my feeling is that medicating people for these things represses some of the responsibility to build coping mechanisms that people have traditionally used to deal with this sort of thing since time immemorial. They also change your personality. If I weren't so restless when doing stuff I find boring, maybe I wouldn't have done as many interesting things? Maybe I'd still be working in a standard 9-to-5?

Surely there were smart people that had to overcome difficulty focusing before the intervention of amphetamines.

jamesbritt2• 17 years ago

"I don't know, after reading this article, I think maybe I should be seeing a psyciatrist this time, and get a second opinion."

Please, do yourself a favor. Don't suffer. Take drugs.

Been there, glad I did. They're not a cure-all, but they certainly help.

And, yes, under a doctor's supervision. Try to find a doctor who will work with you, and give you the leeway to try different things until you find what's best for you.

liminalist• 17 years ago

Yes, I have to second this. Almost 50% of adults diagnosed with ADD have a substance abuse problem by the time they get help for it, and something like 30% have major depressive disorder.

If you don't get actual medical help, there's a very good chance you will slip into either self-medication or major depression or both in the long run. Been there, done that, lost years of my life in the process. Learn from my life, please.

j_baker• 17 years ago

I don't think this is really anything new. In fact, my IQ was used to help prove I'm ADHD (basically, with my high IQ, I shouldn't have had such a low GPA).

rjurney9• 17 years ago

My 'IQ' hid my ADHD, because until highschool I got by without studying or paying attention or doing homework. I'd ace the tests, and it was enough to pass. In highschool, I needed to study or at least pay attention and didn't. Teachers said I was smart, but lazy.

I think its a pretty common situation. Nevermind that some people are independent learners, and the public education system is ill suited to this style of learning.

jibiki• 17 years ago

> I think its a pretty common situation.

Yes. That sort of story is quite common even among people who don't have ADHD.

If you are in 8th grade, and you are capable of learning all the material without doing any homework, then it is just not rational to do homework.

tokenadult8• 17 years ago

I don't think this is really anything new.

What may be new here is the changing view of what happens to the high-IQ, ADHD child upon growing up. I think there was a time when the high IQ score would have been taken as a prediction of all the usual socioeconomic success correlated with high IQ, but now the more nuanced view is that adult workers need other forms of cognition (broadly characterized as "executive functioning") to thrive in the workplace.

CalmQuiet3• 17 years ago

I've got quite a lot of distractibility, but my office mate really does. He got connected with the work of Edward Hallowell, specifically "Driven to Distraction" ( http://www.amazon.com/isbn/dp/0684801280 ) and has since had his doc get him on ritalin. It's just been a few weeks, but he seems a lot more focused to me.

It's making me wonder if I need to talk to a doc about trying me on one of those meds. Doesn't seem like it's much of a risk, does it?

[I've struggled mightily to force myself to focus - to no avail - and know that I could be way more productive if the mind would obey better :/ ]

ninguem2• 17 years ago

I know someone like that (high IQ/ADD, diagnosed by a psychologist) who refuses treatment. I think this person would benefit a lot from treatment but I have been unsuccessful in getting my point across. Any suggestions?

rjurney9• 17 years ago

Assuming they don't have heart issues, get em to try someone else's ritalin/adderall once? If it has an overwhelmingly positive effect, they might seek treatment. If not, it only lasts a few hours.

ScottWhigham2• 17 years ago

It's their life. If they are smart and understand what they want, I wouldn't push it. Sorry.

grandalf3• 17 years ago

I was diagnosed very with mild ADD and have had my IQ tested and it's pretty darn high.

I went to the doctor and asked for Ritalin once during college and I found that I used it just like caffeine -- I'd be extra focused for a while on getting things done and then I'd realize I was staying awake way later than I planned. But I'd be tired the next day, and so the Ritalin seemed like it was more of a stimulant than a treatment, with one pill equal to about 10 shots of espresso.

I never refilled the Ritalin prescription -- it was no fun being medicated and staying up late and then being tired the next day. I noticed that I was far better at doing mundane tasks that required focus, but FAR less curious and less prone to switching tasks if I was bored.

Notably, I read tons of linux man files at the time and learned how to use a lot of command line utilities that I'd never had the patience to learn before.

But I'd also find that I'd read articles that were actually quite boring and upon finishing them I'd regret wasting the time.

There are a lot of occupations where my Ritalinized state would be an advantage. But one thing I love about my current approach to life is that I am able to leverage my own strengths. Sometimes being a bit scattered is a huge benefit. I also get the "hyper focus" common to people with ADD and there are days when 4 hour chunks go by as if they were 10 minutes and I realize I've accomplished incredible feats of productivity (and yet I remain energized).

Once in a while (maybe once every 2 weeks) I have a very scattered day. I have come to appreciate those days as good opportunities to restore balance. I use them to do extra exercise, eat extra healthy food, pick up the guitar, take an afternoon nap, etc. They are my brain's way of telling me that it wants a change of scenery.

I also find that regular, vigorous exercise and a bit of caffeine in the morning is far more effective than Ritalin was at giving me the ability to avoid being too scattered.

The best insight (which I actually learned from a comment here on HN last year) is that when I do find myself procrastinating it's my brain's way of telling me that I'm not happy with some decision I've made -- maybe an approach to some code, etc. So I use it as a cue to revisit what I've done and most of the time sure enough there is something lurking that was bugging me, and once I address it my productivity is back to normal.

Bottom line: I view mild ADD as a huge asset. I am extremely productive and while I have not yet managed to achieve my desired level of financial success I think I have plenty of ability to get done what I want to get done and tremendously enjoy the creative process and focused work involved.

CalmQuiet3• 17 years ago

Thank you for great insights. Gives me pause about... possible mixed-blessing that ADHD (at least if mild) can be - or the drawback of being too focused (beyond what real discrimination would want).

One issue for me: I find that caffeine makes me physically jittery and muscularly tense. I wonder what smaller doses of ritalin might have done for you (or might do for me)?

grandalf3• 17 years ago

Yeah good question. My suggestion would be to talk to the doctor about side effects and request the option of trying each of the pharmaceutical treatments (perhaps for a month each) before making a decision about which you ought to be on.

I do recommend trying them, at least to satisfy your curiosity... and some people really find them helpful.

One thing I should also mention is that I've found that other aspects of diet seem to correlate with ADD symptoms. Getting plenty of exercise, taking an omega 3 supplement, drastically reducing sugar, and eating a fair bit of leafy green veggies are all things that I attribute to helping me focus more quickly. There are probably some websites/books dedicated to this topic, and it might be worth exploring.

ajju• 17 years ago

If you drink coffee, switch to tea. I find the tea bags detestable but Chai made at home, the Indian way [1] or, in a pinch, from Starbucks works well.

[1] http://www.chai-tea.org/rec/rec103.html

rjurney9• 17 years ago

Anyone else find it humorous that the posts by those with ADHD that take pills for it are much shorter and concise than posts by those that have untreated ADHD?

ScottWhigham2• 17 years ago

I come from a bit of a different perspective here in that I started out taking Ritalin as a kid - I was probably 8 or 9 instead of in my teens. It was awesome. Ritalin showed me what it was like to be "normal". I took it for about a year and, for me, once I had seen "normal", I was able to just settle down. I still hyperfocused and was fidgety but I was able to recognize those times whereas, before Ritalin, I had not known that what I was doing was odd/different/good/bad.

High IQ Is No Help for Those With ADHD

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