ADD across the Life span: Birth to Aging

It is in continually observing the same pattern repeated on test measures across gender, age, socioeconomic status and education, that the theoretical foundation used to define ADD (what it is and what it is not) was formed at United Psychological Services. Test findings led to the conclusion that ADD is a developmental disorder spanning the life span, with the propensity to appear differently depending upon the age related task demands.

Different symptoms emerge at varying times or developmental ages, depending upon the person and their environment. ADD symptoms seen with the Inattentive type usually manifests when reading and independent work becomes necessary requirements in the school setting (around the third grade). When children have to read and write for longer periods of time or to be responsible for their own work, avoidance and procrastination emerges often hiding reading difficulties. There are nodal periods or specific developmentally related time periods, whereby there is a greater likelihood for genetic attention problems to emerge. For example, the third grade is a primary demarcation, the first time in the child’s academic career that independent work is required, meaning that the child has to produce something on his or her own. That ‘‘something’’ is usually a written paper based upon material that the child was supposed to read and understand. These tasks are directly affected by ADD symptoms, or more specifically what we seen as the long-term consequence of the compensation of attention symptoms; the spatial deficits. Thus, the reading problems of the ADD child or adult, the reason why we believe that ADD becomes primarily problematic due to emotions (avoidance and procrastination) and reading (math) difficulties.

There are those who believe that ADD crosses the life spectrum while others continue to argue that ADD is a childhood disorder that is resolved by late adolescence/young adulthood. The criteria necessary to diagnose ADD in an adult is the documentation of learning difficulties and/or ADD symptoms in childhood. This documentation may be school records or the adult’s recollection of not enjoying school. This can be problematic for many reasons:

• A bright individual may not report struggling through school.
  
  
• If the person is middle aged (symptoms may have remained dormant until exacerbated by stress, nutritional and hormonal factors.
  
  
• The structure in school precluded attention symptoms from emerging as well as the absence of the fast pace currently seen today whereby children must attend preschool to keep up and kindergarten is actually first grade.
  
  
• College was not as demanding allowing a full two years to wander around until finding one’s expertise, perfect for the ADD individual. There was time to acquire maturity and the development of study skills.

In using a specific battery comprised of a group of tests assessing attention symptoms, the child, adolescent or adult is evaluated on brain behavior measures removing the “guess work” associated with a symptom based diagnosis. In using these specific tests for fifteen, now almost 20 years, an unmistakable pattern is evident on a continual basis on each and every test profile. These patterns are clearly seen in the five year olds as well as the seventy to eighty year old individuals.