Thanks to Scott Barry Kaufman for this great positive piece on the power of creativity and ADHD here in the Scientific American. The Author Kaufman suggests that there is a link between a fast brain that allows unfiltered messages to come through all the time, and unfettered imagination. Acting on impulse is not always bad – especially if you use those impulses to create something new. And working memory…pah, who needs it when it comes to artistic or scientific endeavour. Isn’t google our new working memory after all these days?
Having a good imagination and being creative is something that most intelligent ADHDers have always known about themselves, and what is particularly poignant in this piece is the study that shows the ADHDers who were encouraged in a gifted and talented programme in the US, seemed to score higher than the neurotypical gifted and talented group. I can’t help thinking that the spark of recognition and encouragement, often so absent from the life of an ADHDer, whose overarching life experience is of being somehow “in the wrong” (particularly at school) or “getting it wrong” (sometimes ADHDers unconsciously stick a spanner in the works to juice up a boring day). So to find that encouragement and acknowledgement has far more significance and impact on an ADHDer’s performance than that of a usual A* student is noteworthy.
Also, I do love an article with a cartoon (See above) for humour, and a labelled drawing of the brain, (for educative purposes). So this article satisfies on every level. Most of all because it offers a positive spin where so many negatives prevail.
Hats off to Scott Barry Whatsisname. Sorry, Barry, four paras is a long time to keep your name in the Pre-frontal cortex. Especially when I have just learned where exactly it is.
Better Late than Never 