ADD- DISABILITY OR GIFT?

PORTRAIT OF A MODERN DAY RISK TAKER

For decades we have focused on symptomology in addressing ADD. It is our nature when we as parents and professionals face problems to enter into a problem solving mode. Our beliefs, prejudices, and preconceived notions, as well as our societal training, lead us to apply the scientific, medical model to solve these problems and our solutions reflect this trend.

While symptomatic approaches intervene in the mechanism of imbalance, they don't impact the origins of that imbalance. This approach also surrenders the solution to “the expert,” leaving the patient or student and his advocate impotent. Thus as educators, we label, negate, and unconsciously give ourselves permission to fail these children, having effectively prohibited ourselves from finding the answers. Present solutions have inadvertently damaged ADD children's self-esteem and ability to succeed both academically and socially, for they come to believe that their behavior and ability to learn are out of their control and are managed solely by a pill.

Because of the latest information learned from studies on the brain's frontal cortex and on compulsive disorders, dyslexia, multiple personalities,—and Tourette's Syndrome—we come to see that the mind/body is highly adaptable. A landmark study described in “The Archives of General Psychiatry” (September 1992) performed by Lewis Baxter and Associates shows that brain’s functioning can be improved without using drugs. This groundbreaking study shows that behavioral modifications effect identical changes in the brain’s structure and neurotransmitter-levels as those achieved with drugs. In fact, similar ongoing research on obsessive-compulsive disorders and dyslexia has presented early indications that drug therapy is the least effective intervention.

The implications for making changes without the use of drugs is enormously significant for revising the way treatment is done on ADD, as well as other disorders. Among medical professionals working on the development of new techniques to eliminate dyslexia are University of California neuroscientist Dr.Michael Merzenich, an expert in brain reorganization, sculpting and reshaping, and Dr. Paula Tallall, co-director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers University. Their work is promising for ADD children--many of them identified as dyslexic--since more than 50 percent of them suffer from co-existing learning disabilities.

Although the suspected learning disabilities in most ADD children are directly related to their learning differences and dominant brain preferences, studies on dyslexia are still an important related component in new and inspired treatment and education methods. Merzenich's and Tallall's research shows that children with dyslexia respond differently to sound than those without dyslexia. The difference is related to the “length of the sounds” in spoken words. When each sound within a word is stretched out by means of a computer, the dyslexic is able to hear it. A treatment team works to retrain or resculpt the brain to recognize sounds that gradually decrease in length, encouraging new neural pathways to form that recognize the sound at normal spoken length. With repetition, the repatterning process operates automatically, similar to the way learning to ride a bike or drive a car is retained. Another pioneer in this work, Dr. A Tomatis has developed a method that has shown tremendous promise in the area of dyslexia and attention enhancement.

Equally impressive (and having implications for ADD persons) is the related response exposure and prevention (REP) therapy used in obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD) and the habit reversal (HR) protocol, which is used to treat Tourette's Syndrome (TS). For OCD patients treated with drugs, their behaviors returned once the drugs were removed. However, those treated with REP therapy were free of their old behaviors when tested months later. The same holds true for neurofeedback training used with ADD children. When drug treatment for symptoms was utilized, the symptoms returned when the drugs were removed, and many of these children experienced even more severe symptoms than before starting the drugs. However, children treated with neurofeedback retained their ability to maintain attention after training is completed. Studies also show that meditation has similar long-term effects on attention span and a person's ability to carry out complex assignments. These studies imply far more effective and empowering techniques than medication in helping the ADD student.

Studies of person's with multiple personalities (MPD) show that in shifting from one personality to another, an MPD person can, in a matter of minutes, exhibit different readings for blood pressure, glucose levels, eye prescriptions, and other markers of bodily function. Based on these landmark findings, seeing ourselves as a mind/body system rather than as a collection of separate symptoms to be “fixed” is a more logical approach. The need for a more holistic and balanced approach rather than a strictly pharmacological one is apparent. As Albert Einstein said, "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them."

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