Myth vs Reality
Myth – People With ADHD Can Stop Their Symptoms If They Try Hard Enough
Reality – ADHD is a widely researched, documented and accepted mental health disorder. Expecting someone with ADHD to sit still and focus for extended periods is like asking someone in a wheelchair to climb a flight of steps. It is insensitive and impractical.
People with ADHD are often intelligent and have a good chance of being capable in the classroom or workplace, but most classrooms and workplaces are not designed for people with ADHD.
Studies show that children who are allowed to fidget with something, stand during class and have periods of activity learn better in the classroom. Rather than trying to change the students in the classroom, schools might do well to change the classrooms where the students are taught.
Myth – ADHD Is Caused by Eating Too Much Sugar and Watching Too Much TV.
Reality – This one is a bit tricky. There are several factors to consider, and the key word is “cause.” Simply stated, there is no proof to say that sugar or screen time causes ADHD. That said, there is evidence to point towards sugar and TV causing ADHD-like symptoms.
The impacts of sugar are common knowledge. When a child eats too much sugar they begin to display signs of increased activity levels and short attention spans, but these signs do not mean that they have ADHD.
Similarly, if someone drinks a lot of coffee and begins feeling shaky, flushed and more irritable, they do not meet criteria for an anxiety disorder. Sugar, like caffeine, is a drug. It creates changes when put into your body or the body of a child.
TV fits into the same principle. Some research shows that when children watch fast-paced cartoons with frequent scene changes they perform lower on tests that measure cognitive capability and impulse control. The results found were immediate, like sugar consumption, and it is reasonable to think that they would wear off after time has passed.
Also, there are links associating increased screen time to higher rates of ADHD. This is only a correlation, though, not cause and effect. A reasonable explanation is that kids with ADHD want to watch more TV.
Myth – My Child Is Calm and Quiet. He Can't Have ADHD.
Reality – ADHD presents differently for different people. When you imagine the stereotypical child with ADHD, you probably see a white male who is “bouncing off the walls” and struggling to pay attention in school.
But this isn’t always the case. Actually, ADHD is broken up into three separate groups. They are:
- Combined presentation, which means they have both hyperactivity and inattention symptoms
- Predominately hyperactive presentation, which means they have the impulsivity symptoms without poor attention
- Predominately inattentive presentation, which means that they have symptoms of poor concentration but not hyperactivity.
The last group really breaks the conception of what ADHD looks like and can be harder to recognize and diagnose.
