Update. Now 593 Members
The next time some moron tells you that you can’t have ADD because you did well in school tell them about this.
There’s a Mensa Special Interest Group on ADD / ADHD that has 225 update 593 members now. You have to be a member of Mensa to join and to join Mensa you need a verified IQ of 130.
Here’s the intro to the group
What happens when someone has both a high IQ AND attention deficit disorder? What if one or both go undiagnosed? There are many geniuses who are lost, both to themselves and to society, because the combined effects of high IQ and A.D.D. are not fully understood. This SIG is dedicated to sharing experiences, solutions, connections and hope.
I found about the group here
Here’s what a Mensa member who has ADD, is in medical school and who’s blog is called Head rush described the email conversation after he joined the group.
1 minute later, I am sitting here at my desk having a brain hemorrhage because I am trying to follow the conversation thread.
It was like listening to Good Will Hunting after drinking 97 cans of Red Bull. Nothing like 100 people firing off intellectual jokes and then forgetting to tell the punch line and instead discussing the chemical components of rocket fuel.
One common thing I notice in some of my ADHD coaching clients is that they found school easy, and very boring. They often got A’s with little effort. Because they did well in school the often were not diagnosed with ADD, because of the mistaken belief that if you have ADD you do poorly in school. Many people I know with ADD seem smarter than average.
Many ADDers do have problems in school and especially the 30% of them with learning disabilities. But not all do. Many ADDers are also gifted. Google “adhd gifted” and you’ll find 2,900 hits. I did pretty well in school and university, made the dean’s honours list and got one of my essays published. Main problem was ADD related procrastination, time mismangement and associated stress, i.e., cramming for a final the night before.
If you’re gifted and have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, what are your main challenges associated with ADHD?
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I have adhd or something haha yeah I couldnt do anything in school I thought the system was really stupid… well I know its stupid.. you dont need any of that stuff… anywho.. I failed a lot in school but mostly in math the math doesnt make sence to me just sacred geometry and pi..
I did great with independant study… I got an A in government class because I got to do it all on my own.. eveyone in my high school class got the highest of a D… now theres obviously something wrong with school if supposedly “normal” kids are failing.. when I kid like me got an A and Bs in other subjects I would normally fail in school. i got a C in math after always failing.. at least I got to understand alittle of it.. haha
The world needs to meet the needs of the new wave of evolutionized children. and stop giving them chemicals. that makes kids act all out of balance cause their bodies arent ment for chemicals… only real fresh food.. you know they kind we all have forsaken for the past century.. the past comes up to bite the world in the butt.
Spread Love and understanding
“now theres obviously something wrong with school if supposedly “normal” kids are failing.. when I kid like me got an A and Bs in other subjects I would normally fail in school.”
Not really, some ADDers do really well in things they’re interested in school.
less chemicals in food would be good for everyone, but they don’t cause ADD. see http://adultaddstrengths.com/2006/02/09/whats-the-2-genetically-inherited-condition-in-the-world/
I have ADHD and Asperger’s. I was missed at school mainly because they were like “oooh he’s got a high IQ”. My mum kept telling them yeah but there is some other problem there, and wanted to have special support but they refused ‘cos I had a high IQ and they didn’t consider I needed special support as I was just hyperactive. At the end of school I ended up with 3 C’s, after finding out I had AS and ADHD I went back to college to re-take GCSE English (I’d got 2 F’s in English at school), I then got 2 C’s at College, unfortunately at College level you can’t retake the original GCSE, you take a toned down version of it which has a maximum score of C, we did a presentation though and I was told that we would have scored A on the presentation but they couldn’t score us any higher than C due to this limitation (shame I’d really like to know what would be my proper mark in English with proper support – along with my proper marks in all my other subjects – I highly suspect in Maths and IT I could have easily got an A, but without the right support ended up with a C and a D, now though I have HND in Software Engineering).
I have ADHD but was not diagnosed until age 66. In grade school and the first two years of high school, I received straight A’s. I never studied, never completed an assignment, and never cracked a book. It was said that I had an IQ of 146, and my mom had placed me in Mensa by taking me in for testing. The final two years in high school, I barely passed many classes while I got A’s in others. I was much more interested in aircraft design and preferred the challenge of designing and building my own flying models. I won the California State Championships in hand launched glider at age 17 competing against 30 to 50 year old adults.
I never could do math. I could not sit still long enough to memorize the tables. It was simply beyond me. I am still extremely poor at math. I have been on dextroamphetamine for two months now and I finally have the ability to study without my mind wandering or falling asleep. I wish i knew my last name at the time I took the Mensa test. I most certainly cannot pass it now because of my zero abilities in math. You think a way for long enough and given time, you can become somewhat stuck, or possibly disheartened enough that the will to go through 10 years of missed events is just not wort the problems.
I have spent much of my life studying psychology, and as a person who feels well informed and perhaps even a bit uniquely gifted at that study, I can say with some conviction that the older Stanford-Binet, the MMPI, (of my youthful generation) and some of the current tests do not accurately measure or quantify everyone’s intellectual abilities nor measure all some have to offer.
Myself, as example. My friends and close associates are all gifted people. We match well, and they feel that I am gifted as well, yet I am certain I would not score well on most tests. I would love to have the opportunity to be back in Mensa. I recall it as a child and I felt like I was finally with people who were interesting to me. Relating to the usual crowd, I feel much like a person with an average IQ would feel in a room full of developmentally challenged (old term-retarded) people. I am far beyond almost everyone I know. i seem to float through problems as if they were simple things kids do for fun. In fact, I don’t look at problems, as “Problems”, but as solutions in production. It seems little is not solvable. BUT… put a time table on it and I will probably fail. I don’t know why that is, but it may possibly be a idiosyncratic neurosynaptic sort of misfire… who would know without extensive research on such individuals and I have only known two in my lifetime. Additionally, at my still young age, I have already noticed the beginnings of memory difficulties. My short term memory has taken a somewhat noticeable hit.
Just some interesting things to pass along to those of you who might be as affected as I have been with undiagnosed adult ADHD. I should have been, as I could not be contained as a youth. I recall in first grade, the teacher tied me to my desk. I was shortly advanced to the second grade and the new teacher was a bit more tolerant of my high activity level. She advanced me to the third grade in about two weeks, and I remained a few years ahead of my classmates. Fortunately, I was quite tall, so I fit well and did not receive much heckling about being younger.
Another reason I am submitting this is on a whim that someone may know a way of being tested by Mensa in any manner but the usual. It is obvious to myself and others that I am of a much higher IQ but my disuse of any mathematics for 62 years as well as a short term memory problem and the difficulties of ADHD make it unlikely I could enter. I suppose I still belong but I have no certificates nor am I able to recall my last name at that time. My mother was married many times, was herself a highly creative person and a gifted artist and designer, but she was also quite nutz. No problem, as that happens to some, but it does create a problem searching for my original identity with Mensa.
Thanks, any comments will be sent to me and I can respond.
Oddly enough I went through the same, as a child I was ignored by my teachers. I was reffered to as annoying and hyperactive. They told my parents to test me for ADHD although they never did cause they knew I was smart. I have never recieved good grades in school because I never cared enough to. I always did well on test because I liked them they were easy to me. My teachers wondered how i did so well if all i did was play my game boy or draw during the whole class. They would allow it because otherwise I was too fidgety and talked too much. I took a couple of IQ tests, I scored 165 on one and 146 on another. I could read English in Kindergarten although I learned english that very year, Spanish was my first language. I always finished my school work faster than the rest and was done w everything for the day by recess at 10 sometimes my teacher would give me extra class work so i wouldn’t disturb the rest. I have not to this day been able to complete a homework assignment on my own time. I lack concentration and organizational skill. I ussually think at 100 miles per hour and can only act at 5 miles per hour. I don’t get why I can’t concentrate on my thoughts but I know I am a very quick thinker. Let me know what you think.
In response to J Cook:
I too was not properly diagnosed with ADHD until late -age 40. As a child, I was tested in the 99th percentile, but that “knowledge” was quickly abandoned when it was decided I was “willful” and “lazy” -I honestly had forgotten I was supposed to be bright.
I understand your wanting to avoid the IQ test because of the math. But listen to me, IT WON’T MATTER. My IQ was tested in a neuropsychological evaluation, because of my complaints about my horrible memory. (I’d gone for years in and out of Mental wards, heavily medicated, continually misdiagnosed, having co-morbid anxiety and depression from the horrible confusion from high IQ and ADHD) I was crying during what I believed to be simple diagnostic cognition and memory testing. I answered almost NONE of the math questions -because I can’t. I’m marginal at simple addition, under stress? -forget it…
They diagnosed my ADHD, and had measured my full scale IQ at 146, even with a sub-score of 50% in the math.
Don’t let fear of judgment keep you from yourself one minute longer. Too much time has passed as is…
Hug,
Wendy