I would go so far as to say that ADHD, when combined with strong giftedness is a very different disorder....it presents differently and has a different (better) prognosis. Some of the standard diagnostic criteria....such as tracable to age 7, becomes less important. (Highly gifted girls with ADHD-I in underchallenging classrooms are difficult to detect before puberty.)
I also have my doubts about the 2 settings rule...I think that often HG children with ADHD have HG, Moms either with ADHD or grew up with ADHD siblings, who are good enough at problem solving to figure out ways to co-exist with the challenges od ADHD(I) without batting an eye. Just like our Yardsticks are way off in detecting unusual levels of Giftedness it is quite to have a distorted Yardstick for ADHD symptoms.
I like remembering that ADHD is a developmental issue....kids with this challenge are maturing out of their old symptoms all the time. It is 'just' that the bulk of other students are maturing even faster and now the bar is raised again! Darn! To me it seems quite expected that kids who have more 'brains' to manage due to Higher levels of Giftedness have more work to do in managing those 'brains.' Plenty of kids I know handle this bigger challenge just fine. Plenty of kids I know do not. Having Supersensitivities is fairly common...how a kid reacts to this increased sensory stimulation says a lot about if they might also have 'GADHD'
Ok I just made up GADHD....but that's how I'm seeing the world this week....((shrugs and more shrugs))
Grinity
