Dear Grues,
I am not qualified to speak to medications and ADD/ADHD except that I was a child with very slow auditory processing who was diagnosed as having ADD symptoms and did benefit from Ritalin. Fast processing speed has little to do with true ADD/ADHD. Some students who are not intellectually inspired and/or appropriately challenged by their school work are sometimes misdiagnosed as ADD/ADHD.
As I have heard explained from several different psychologists ADD/ADHD has more to do with the reticular activating system interacting with the frontal lobes for proper executive functioning. This includes survival response or as some psychologists have called it hunter mode where the students senses are hyper alert to peripheral stimulus making them easily distractible whether they have fast or slow processing. This was true with me. According to some physiology I have read the amygdala is also involved in sorting out what is threat and what isn’t. At any rate the medications, as was explained to me, are usually stimulants that stimulate these systems to properly mediate activity.
My auditory processing and ability to focus improved from taking the Ritalin. I have known people who did not need to continue taking the ADD/ADHD medications as they got older. I took my medication until I graduated high school. I have heard several professionals say that as they mature many students’ no longer need the medication. I have known adults who have, under appropriate medical and psychological supervision, continued to take or have been diagnosed and prescribed medication to help with their adult ADD/ADHD symptoms. I was in marching band and wrestling in high school and many intramural sports in college. I also implemented the sensori-motor development portion of the Learning Disabilities Association of Springfield/Clark County's summer program for 18 years starting when I was a freshman in high school. I personally feel that my physical activity in high school and college, especially sensory integration/neuro-motor development activities like Brain Gym® activities helped me to develop the skills I needed to do even better than when on the medication.
Best Wishes,
Dave Saunders
