What is ADHD?

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a neuro developmental disorder characterized by symptoms of

inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. ADHD, earlier referred to as ADD (attention deficit disorder),
is much more difficult to understand especially if the awareness regarding the illness is limited. As per
the DSM-5, recurrent symptoms of ADHD should have existed since before the age of 12 years. Despite
being a prevalent behavioural illness, it can be quite challenging to identify, particularly in girls. Due to
little or no knowledge / awareness in society of mental illnesses, many children go undiagnosed. A
prevalent myth surrounding ADHD is that adults can’t have it, or children who are diagnosed grow out of
it although a person who does gets diagnosed is likely to have it forever due to the nature of the illness
being neurological.

ADHD is much more than not paying attention or being impulsive many times kids who have ADHD also
have comorbid disorders or conditions like, SLD (Dyslexia, Dysgraphia), RSD (Rejection Sensitive
Dysphoria) autism spectrum disorder, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder. A lot of people with ADHD
have low self-esteem as well. Individuals with ADHD may appear absent minded, tend to zone out
during conversations, have poor working memory and lack of motivation for doing normal everyday
tasks that are not “stimulating”. They also lose interest in things very quickly and may appear to be on
the go always. They also have hyper fixations, and they can hyperfocus. Individuals with ADHD also have
difficulty with task initiation and then completion, they also engage in fidgeting and stimming
behaviours and most prominent symptom of ADHD is not being able to sit still and / or make eye
contact.

If we see ADHD from a neurological perspective, their frontal lobe isn’t fully mature, that is why they
face difficulties in executive functioning. People with ADHD also tend to have low level of dopamine in
their brain, i.e., their brain is wired for seeking stimulation resulting in hyperactive and impulsive
behaviours along with not being able to sustain attention on tasks which seem boring.

Let us look at what executive functioning is, and what it consists of:

Executive functioning skills are the cognitive processes that help us to strategies, plan, attention, focus,
remember guidelines or processing information, and organize numerous tasks successfully.

1. Self-awareness: consists of self – Directed attention on things

2. Inhibition: other name is self - Restraint

3. Non-Verbal Working Memory: Being able to keep things in your mind and recalling / remembering
information

4. Self-motivation: Without any immediate external consequence how well are you able to motivate
yourself to initiate or complete a task

5. Emotional Self-Regulation: The ability to use the preceding four executive functions to manoeuvre
your poignant state.

6. Verbal Working Memory: Inner monologue

7. Planning and Problem Solving: Essentially how we play with information in our cognition to come
about new ways of doing something.
Living with ADHD is hard because it effects your executive functioning skills and almost all aspects of
your life, having said there a lot of ways people with ADHD can do better – medications are one source
of treatment, along with that psychotherapy: mainly CBT is used to help clients do better, with adequate
amount of social support and right guidance people with ADHD can achieve great heights and become
very successful in life. Don’t let a diagnosis hold you back in any way!