I went to the site for Temple Grandin. I only got to read the article, but she seems to know her stuff. She was talking about the different kinds of thinkers.
She really nailed the visual thinkers, having to compute people's words into pictures, and then take their own pictures and compute them before they can spit out what they are trying to say back.
With adhd, the person has to do it, before they forget what the heck they were talking about. If they are talking to someone that is impatient or say, for example, a doctor, who is trained to anticipate what the patient "is going" to say...and interrupts...he will give that person new pictures, and the conversation is run off the track and neither knows it, at the moment.
That's why it is so important to listen to children, and let them get stuff out. Later, they may realize that what was said in the conversation wasn't what they meant at all :cry: They tend to be either very passive and let others lead them, too tired of their own minds, to fight to get it out right, or they get irritated with the whole process, and act out.
They seem normal on the outside, but their is a traffic jam going on inside their heads.
I don't know as much about autism, but I am intrigued. I don't think the two are all that far apart. There are a lot of children being needlessly medicated, but more often than not, they are being treated and overmedicated by family doctors, who don't have the knowledge and experience in that area.
So, the kids that really do need help, and who knows better than the parents and the grandparents...the ppl that are with them the most, in their own environments, where they can try to be as much of themselves as they can manage...these children, many of them, are going overlooked.
I have one daughter in the gifted range and i knew it. I also have a daughter who is at the high end of average and above in a few areas, and has adhd. Teachers of both of these kids, said they didn't see these things. The gifted daughter had sat scores that proved it, and she spent a year in a special class. She opted out, and I gave her my support all the way.
The other daughter was punished most of her third grade year by being isolated at the back of the room, with her desk turned backwards. Know when I found this out? About two years ago. She is 26 now. I would have made buzzard stew out of that teacher. I held my tongue for my daughters sake after she told me, but for closure, I went to that school. The principal used to be one of my teachers and was still there. She knows me well. My daughters third grade teacher is still there too.
I talked to the principal for an hour and a half, but never said a word to the other one. No point. She is one of those, can't be wrong, kind of ppl, and it wouldn't have done any good all those years later, but I got the whole thing out of my system, and shed some light on some of the things this teacher pulled over the years. She used to paddle one little boy, every single day!!! mind you, after lunch. Every day. Until his parents found out. I enjoyed hearing how they went to see this teacher and confronted her and the mother made it clear in no uncertain terms that she would be contacted if her son was disruptive etc. and there was to be no more daily spankings of any kind. I guess I am venting.
Probably help me to go look some stuff up. I always said, knowledge is the antidote to anxiety. So much of the time, it is for me. :wink: