I appreciate the fact that some employers recognize that some of their employees struggle with cognitive disorders. But, asking someone with ADHD to click through a very boring presentation about neurodiversity is almost peak irony. Not to mention, trying to distill such complex disorders down to one sentence is practically guaranteed to fail.
Props for trying I guess.
I guess it depends on context. If it’s an awareness thing aimed at helping peers and leaders support people, I think it’s a good start. Most such things are inaccurate, though. This one says “challenging to maintain focus”, which is only true of something I’m not interested in. At other times, it’s more challenging to switch focus. 🙂
Mind if I hijack this thread for a related topic?
I’m on the hook for doing a short talk on ADHD in my workplace’s next all-hands meeting (I volunteered). I figure I’ll use the time to correct some misunderstandings. I’ll probably start with the name - calling it “attention deficit” is like referring to color blindness as “vision deficit” - it’s true in some circumstances, but not very useful. I’m a bit leery of going with “executive function impairment”, since I think that many people might think all congnition is part of “executive function” and hear that as “thinking impaired”, when it’s much more specific.
Does anyone have a term they like better than ADHD to describe what’s really going on with us?
I personally wouldn’t create a new term for it. ADHD is the medically and socially accepted right now and while I don’t disagree with you it’s not derogatory so not a huge need to change. The content of your presentation discussing the details and nuances of adhd symptoms is what is more important. But calling out that it’s not just attention deficit is probably relevant.
I think of it as a problem of “attention dysregulation”. At least that feels like a closer description, since attention is a very central component in many of the difficulties we experience - it just can’t be reduced to a “deficit” (whatever that could even mean).
You probably know this already, but I like to (re)phrase existing knowledge in several ways even if just for myself, because one can know something in more than one way: Attention regulation is how a brain prioritises, filters, and emphasises information about the external world, and I believe it also plays a big (and interesting) part in executive function
I understand the general concept of ‘attention’ as an allocation/distribution mechanism of cognitive resources, so calling it “deficient” feels a bit like category error. It’s like reducing the challenges faced by a governing body responsible for mismanaging an economy to an “economy deficit problem”. Just doesn’t make much sense, even if the end result looks like a deficit in resources (analogous to focus) (in some areas).
‘Attention difference disorder’ is nice and simple and encompasses the variations that happen. However, my personal favorite is ‘nonconsensual multitasking’.
I think executive functioning disorder is the best description of it. Adhd has never made sense as the name to me.
Dr. Hallowell is pushing for it to be called VAST Variable Attention Stimulus Trait since it better describes the experience from the patient’s point of view. I like the term but change in the medical industry takes time so we shall see. 😊
I’ve recently heard the term “global creatives”, which to me is maybe a bit too rosy but it explains reasonably well how we work - we can create at the global scale, but not at the local scale, if that makes sense. I.e. devise the whole system architecture or the project strategy, but not necessarily execute the details.
“ADHD is not an attention deficit, but an intention deficit” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tpB-B8BXk0&t=25
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