Attention Deficit Disorders: The Myths, the Facts

Myth: ADD is just a lack of willpower. People with ADD focus well on things that interest them; they could focus on any other tasks if they really wanted to.

Fact: ADD looks like a willpower problem, but it isn't. It's a chemical problem in the management system of the brain.

Myth: ADD is a simple problem of being hyperactive or not listening when someone is talking to you.

Fact: ADD is a complex disorder that involves impairments in focus, organization, motivation, emotional modulation, memory, and other functions of the brain's management system.

Myth: The brains of people with ADD are overactive and need medication to calm down.

Fact: Underactivity of the brain's management networks is typical of people with ADD. Effective medications increase alertness and improve communication in the brain's management system.

Myth: ADD is simply a label for behavior problems; children with ADD just refuse to sit still and are unwilling to listen to teachers or parents.

Fact: Many people with ADD have few behavior problems. Chronic inattention symptoms may cause more severe and longer-lasting problems in learning and relationships for those with ADD than behavior problems do.

Myth: Those who have ADD as children usually outgrow it as they enter their teens.

Fact: Often ADD impairments are not noticeable until the teen years, when more self-management is required in school and elsewhere. ADD may be subtle but more disabling during adolescence than in childhood.

Myth: Unless you have been diagnosed with ADD as a child, you can't have it as an adult.

Fact: Many adults have struggled all their lives with unrecognized ADD impairments. They haven't received help because they have assumed that their chronic difficulties, such as depression or anxiety, were caused by other impairments that did not respond to the usual treatments.

Myth: Someone can't have ADD and also have depression, anxiety, or other psychiatric problems.

Fact: A person with ADD is six times more likely to have another psychiatric or learning disorder than most other people are. ADD usually overlaps with other disorders.

Myth: Medications for ADD are likely to cause longer-term problems with substance abuse or other health concerns, especially for children taking these medications.

Fact: The risks of using appropriate medications to treat ADD are minimal, whereas the risks of not using medication to treat ADD are significant. The medications used for treating ADD are among the best researched for any disorder.

Myth: ADD doesn't really cause much damage to a person's life.

Fact: Untreated or inadequately treated ADD often severely impairs learning, family life, education, work life, social interactions, and driving safely. Most of those with ADD who receive adequate treatment, however, function quite well.

By Thomas E. Brown