In an article a few weeks ago, I discussed the connections between the brain’s design and dyslexia. But oftentimes, kids and adults with one learning disability often have many, the most common combination being that of dyslexia and ADHD/ADD. It is estimated that about one in 10 people are dyslexic, but this is actually not the most common learning disability. Approximately 11 percent of children, ages four to 17, have been diagnosed with ADHD alone in 2011, and that percentage has been rising steadily over the years. This study also doesn’t account for adults with ADHD or those with ADD. An individual with ADHD has anywhere from a 60 to 100 percent chance of also having additional learning challenges. But how does that happen?

Both dyslexia and ADD/ADHD are widely believed by the scientific community to be hereditary, meaning that the “gene” is passed down from parent to child. However, with ADHD/ADD, other factors such as drinking, smoking or taking other drugs during pregnancy can also cause a child to be born with ADD/ADHD. But the scientific community wasn’t always so keen on ADHD’s significance. For quite some time, it was believed that ADHD had no neurological basis, thus it was not a brain-related learning disability, which led individuals to believe it didn’t exist at all. Entire communities, namely scientology, have claimed that ADHD is simply a myth. And while ADHD/ADD has been proven at this point to have a neurological basis, the majority of the myths about this condition still circulate.

One of the largest myths is that ADHD/ADD can be "created" by poor parenting habits, such as giving children too much sugar and letting them watch too much television, along with a long laundry list of other possibilities. After significant research on these claims was done, there was no evidence to support the idea that any number of these cases caused ADD/ADHD directly. Another common myth, which wasn’t actually disproved by science until 2007, was that ADHD and ADD was a childhood disability only, and that individuals would grow out of it as they aged and became adults. It was found that this was not the case at all, and that ADHD/ADD persists into adulthood and can affect them for their entire life.

But by far, the most pervasive myth about ADD/ADHD relates to what the diagnosis actually is. Societally, we associate ADD and ADHD with being spastic and disruptive, but that’s not the entire picture. The acronyms ADD and ADHD stand for "Attention Deficit Disorder" and "Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder." In only one of these diagnoses does hyperactivity come into play. Children and adults with ADD can be as calm and put-together as any other individual, but still have the real symptoms that go along with this learning disability. Even individuals with the hyperactive component can display symptoms in a way that is very different than the societal association, often in the form of what is referred to as hyper focus, and the reason for that is because of what ADD and ADHD actually do to an individual’s brain.

For the average individual, there is an ability to filter out certain stimuli. The color of the room, the picture hanging on the left wall, what the person next to you is wearing -- all of this can all be filtered out in order to focus on what the brain has decided is important, such as the person talking to you, your work, or an in-class lecture. For an individual with ADD or ADHD, these smaller details are not filtered out, and they notice every source of stimuli. This can cause someone with this learning disability to lose focus or become easily overstimulated. While this can be a problem at times, it can also be a gift. Having ADD/ADHD often predisposes individuals to be more creative, become more out-of-the-box problem-solvers, become extremely perceptive and intuitive, and have the ability to see and perceive and multitude of things at once. All of that energy can also be put towards an outlet or activity and strengthen their skills in different fields overtime.

If you’d like to see more on this topic, or any others like it, leave a comment below. There is so much more within this subject that is still to be discussed, such as the affects of medication, further research on the ups and downs of ADD and ADHD, and the theories that scientific community has on why ADD and ADHD arose in humans overtime. But first and foremost, it is important to understand what these learning disabilities are and aren’t, as well as how they affect those on a day-to-day basis.