CURRENT AGE: 20
ADHD AFFECTS BOTH GENDERS
By Emma Zainey, 17; Katie Stergar, 15, Y-Press
Most students have sat in a classroom where a rowdy boy has a difficult time concentrating, frequently disrupting the class or struggling with schoolwork.
Michael Orozco, 16, a Westfield High School student, used to exemplify that kind of boy.
"I was hyped up all the time," he said, laughing. "I would tell the teacher I needed to go the bathroom and go to gym and not come back to class."
Other times, he would blurt out "Hey! What's this word?" while reading, or "I'm not doing this; there's too many!" when given a math worksheet.
His attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was obvious to teachers and his parents. He was diagnosed early in elementary school and got help.
But what many people don't realize is that the quiet girl in the back of the room may also struggle with ADHD.
Kathleen Nadeau, a clinical psychologist, author and international expert on ADHD, is director of the Chesapeake ADHD Center of Maryland. She has focused in recent years on how it affects girls and women. She said that girls with the disorder tend to be less hyperactive and less likely to cause behavior problems in school.
"The boys were a lot more hyperactive," agreed Rebecca Potts-Dupre, 18, who has been affected by ADHD since the third grade and lives in Takoma Park, Md.
"I was actually very calm and could just sit there and not be noticed, without seeming to have any problems."
When she was younger, Rebecca struggled to read and write, which prompted her parents to have her tested and subsequently diagnosed.
While nearly 4 million youth are affected by ADHD, the ratio of diagnosed boys to girls is 3 to 1, the national Centers for Disease Control recently reported.
Girls typically are not identified because their ADHD problems may not emerge until they are 12 or 13.
"Girls, in general, especially in elementary school, try a lot harder to do what their teacher tells them and get their homework done," Nadeau explained.
A lifelong condition
Nobody can just suddenly "catch" ADHD. "You have it your whole life," Nadeau said. "There has been a huge, huge change in the way we understand ADHD. Now we understand that girls and adults have it."
The disorder runs in families.
"If one person in the family has it, almost certainly other people in the family have it, because you inherit it from your family, and you have a tendency toward ADHD in your genes," said Nadeau.
While Rebecca isn't aware of any relatives with ADHD, Michael's mother, Deb, has it. But she didn't find out until she was in her 40s. She now receives treatment.
"Finding out I have ADHD actually helped me and Michael," Deb said. "I think it helps knowing you're not alone."
Takes a heavy toll on girls
Girls often have more difficulties in coping with ADHD than boys do.
"Social problems are a much bigger and more painful issue for girls than for boys," said Nadeau, who pointed to studies that show girls with ADHD have lower self-esteem than boys who have it.
Nadeau said girls tend to be much more aware that they are different from other girls, and they feel bad about it. They're also under gender pressure.
"Society expects females to be the family organizers," she said, and those with ADHD struggle to keep everything in order. Girls tend to be criticized more than boys for being messy.
Eating disorders also are more common among all females, according to the National Institutes for Health. A Toronto study at an eating disorder clinic showed that people with ADHD had the hardest time managing their weight.
"There is such a pressure, particularly on girls, in this society to be thin, which is much, much harder when you have ADHD," Nadeau said. "It has to do with restlessness, with impulsivity, with feeding themselves for stimulation because they are bored, and just not having good self-control."
Medication often helps
Rebecca takes Adderall, a stimulant also used to treat narcolepsy, to help control her symptoms. When she was first diagnosed, she tried non-medical therapies first. That's why she first took up yoga. Ultimately, she and her parents decided that medicine could be helpful for now, too.
"The Adderall definitely makes me focus a lot more, and it takes away that tendency I have to go on little tangents and to distract myself with things," Rebecca said.
It also can help calm her.
Last summer, when she went to China and stayed with a host family that spoke no English, her medication helped to relieve some of the anxiety of the trip.
Michael also has used medication. Without it, he said, he's hyper and spacey, stresses out over school assignments and has trouble getting them started and done on time.
"I've done Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall, all of them," he said, "but I don't do any of them anymore" because of side effects, including personality changes.
"Strattera made me quiet," he said. "It made me quiet and unenthusiastic."
Rebecca said her individuality also is altered by medication.
"I don't like to take it when I want to hang out with my friends," she said. "I want it to be worn off by then, because I want to be my regular self that says funny things."
Affects the gifted, too
Not all the news is bad when it comes to ADHD. It's a fallacy, for example, that all kids with ADHD are underachievers.
Gifted students can have ADHD, too. They usually excel in elementary school but begin to struggle with organization in middle school or high school, said Nadeau.
In fifth grade, Rebecca switched from public school to Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C. The public schools she would have attended were very big. At Georgetown, she is in smaller classes and gets more personal attention, which helps her cope, she explained.
"You have to be willing to spend extra time on almost everything, and be willing to accept the fact that ADHD is gonna be something you're gonna have to work with the rest of your life," Rebecca said. "So you need to be ready to feel comfortable asking for help from other people and not just relying on yourself."
For example, at the beginning of each academic year, Georgetown's learning specialist sends out an evaluation that lists the challenges Rebecca faces in the classroom, given her ADHD.
Rebecca then contacts each of her teachers by e-mail to discuss how she can do best in a given class. She also takes about 30 minutes every night getting organized for school the next day.
As ADHD is becoming better understood, many educators are reaching out to provide more help to students with it.
Many teachers, for example, post assignments online to help students track project due dates, quizzes and tests.
At Rebecca's school, review notes are made available online after classroom discussions and lectures for all students to access. Private lessons and tutoring are also available at many schools.
At Westfield, Michael works with a resource teacher, who gets e-mails from his other teachers about his assignments. But sometimes he gets fed up with too much attention. When teachers find out he has ADHD, they go overboard, explaining and repeating too much of the work to him, he said.
Although ADHD presents many hindrances, Nadeau is quick to point out that the disorder also has positive aspects: "For example, people with ADHD are very creative and have lots of ideas that people with different kinds of brains might never have."
Kids with ADHD often have varied interests and juggle them successfully. For example, Rebecca belly dances, heads her school's theater make-up crew, does yoga, coordinates a volunteer effort at a homeless shelter, knits and reads.
"I feel like my ADHD is a part of my personality and that's a part of who I am, and so I've never felt like I've needed to hide that from people or to try to mask that," she said. "I grew up in an environment where it's really acceptable to be a very outspoken woman and . . . not try to act like someone else."
ASSISTANT EDITORS: Becky Buchanan-Schwanke, 14; Colleen Drew, 14.
REPORTERS: Julie Kippenbrock, 13; Jeff Hou, 12.
ADHD books
These titles are available through the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library:
"The Girls' Guide to AD/HD: Don't Lose This Book!" by Beth Walker (Woodbine House, $17.95).
"Learning to Slow Down and Pay Attention," by Kathleen G. Nadeau, Ph.D., and Ellen B. Dixon, Ph.D. (Magination Press, $9.95).
"The Survival Guide for Kids With ADD or ADHD," by John F. Taylor, Ph.D. (Free Spirit Publishing Inc., $13.95).
"Understanding Girls with AD/HD," by Kathleen G. Nadeau, Ph.D.; Ellen B. Littman, Ph.D.; and Patricia O. Quinn, M.D. (Advantage Books, $19.95).
Copyright 2006 Y-Press