Hi Shelly! Great to have your experience. I've heard the 'hyperfocus' referring to TV and computer games - and I can see how that is part of ADHD. But have you seen a bunch of kids who get engrossed in 'creative' or 'non electronic' endeavors as part of the 'not gifted, ADHD' crowd? Examples of things that others have called 'signs of ADHD/hyperfocus' are:
spending a long time creating a new animal design with those little beads that you iron into plastic blobs,
drawing graph paper when he needed it for an experiment back in his dysgraphia days
Using Microsoft paint, and going pixel by pixel at age 3 to block up the wholes so that paintcan tool wouldn't spill over.
These are things he would do over and over, just once in a while, I would see signs of intensity/perfectionism that look like 'hyperfocus' to others.
Does that fit your experience?
Thanks,
Grinity
Nope, that is entirely different than what I was referring to. : )
:
How about hours upon hours building with Legos, looking at rocks, doodling math problems, fishing, or gathering seeds.
Does that fit?
No, except maybe looking at rocks being distracted when they are supposed to be doing something else, LOL
There are so many factors to look into. I hope no one was offended by what I said, it was just my experience. I realize that it is definitely misdiagnosed at times. I was just pointing out that hyperfocusing can be a symptom of ADHD.
It is also different when a child that is completely uninterested is not focusing on an activity. You have to know the whole story and situation. I know that one of the things that DS's teacher mentioned at our last meeting was that he was "distracted" and "not focused" and wasn't "paying attention" This was the first time anyone has described those behaviors and it was clearly a product of his environment. How could he be interested or focused when listening to her teach the other kids to read and how to add single digits? I would clearly be unfocused as well.
