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I was sort of hoping that we could get to where we could see 'hyperfocus' as both a thing that sometimes goes with ADHD and a thing that sometimes goes with just plain PG and a thing that sometimes is just part of a person's personality. I don't want to throw the whole ADHD baby out with the bathwater, but it surely does frustrate me when folks treat every 'non-ND' behavior my DS exhibits as signs ADHD.
For the most part, I think DH and I see his hyperfocus as a real asset to him. It's actually one of the reasons I fell in love--it can be really nice to have someone pay their full attention to just you! Certainly it is what got the dissertation written.
The problem is that he has only the two gears: hyperfocus and no focus. I don't think that the hyperfocus is the problem per se, but for people who have ADD and hyperfocus and are successful in school, the hyperfocus masks the underlying problem which is the inability to appropriately modulate levels of attention. Because DH was so successful in school, no one suspected that he had ADD.
We have chosen not to treat what I think is the same condition in DS because he is doing really well in school. But I do think he needs to understand that there are neurologic reasons why he has trouble remembering things that aren't interesting to him and there are ways to overcome that to some degree. We talk about strategies and brainstorm ideas. If we start to see him failing, falling behind, or suffering because of the issues, then--like Wondermom-- we would consider medication for DS.
