During his work with children with learning disabilities Dr Allen Menkin observed how attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has been mostly considered a childhood condition, yet many adults carry the symptoms of ADHD with them through their entire lives. Significant impairments that children with ADHD experience on a daily basis stay with them when they grow up. While the responsibilities of adults are different from the demands placed on children, the difficulties that people with ADHD have to deal with don’t change much during their lives. Oftentimes, years of dealing with ADHD makes such people develop a habit of suffering in silence and invent less than optimal coping strategies.
Many people and a significant percentage of medical professionals believe that ADHD is a result of children adapting poorly to the environments in which they grow up. Many parents find comfort in the beliefs that this problem can be outgrown and that different parenting methods can change the condition. Such beliefs are very powerful because there is not enough scientific evidence to prove otherwise. However, over the past several decades researchers have been increasing the number of studies about how ADHD works in adults.
Another issue with ADHD is that for a long time the symptoms of the condition have only been associated and noticed in children. This is not to suggest that adults don’t have problems maintaining attention or don’t act impulsively, but for many years, these symptoms were either considered to be a part of the personality or were explained by other domains, such as Impulsive Personality Disorder, which is something Dr Allen Menkin wouldn’t always agree with.
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