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My son is dyslexic and has ADHD. He also has one or two symptoms from the spectrum. He is 56 years old and never took a medication. He is living a very successful life; one marriage still successful, working at what he enjoys doing and most of all being the best dad in the whole wide world to his one and only child. Life has never been easy for him and every day he has to deal with the mistakes he makes. He doesn't let it get him down. I call him My Hero!

And now imagine what those individuals with ADHD who have persevered and accomplished "great things" in spite of their ADHD could have accomplished without it. Even ignoring the fact that they may have been capable of even greater accomplishments just focusing on the sheer additional effort they needed to invest into getting where they did is enough to think about. It is a crippling mental disorder. Everything about it is disheartening. Is that to say you should just give up on life and not try to accomplish anything after you're diagnosed? Absolutely not. But just because that's the case does not mean we should sugar coat the actual impacts of this disorder. What you're also ignoring is the range in severity of ADHD from one person to another. A decent number of children (I think it might be 1 in 3 but you'd have to look it up to confirm) actually manage to "outgrow" their ADHD and for them as adults the symptoms are non-existent of incredibly minor. It is a spectrum just like Autism is and when you look at Autism you have people on one end of the spectrum that you would barely be able to notice they have ASD and then others with the exact same disorder that are completely non-verbal. ADHD is no different. Dr. Barkley is providing a generalized lecture on research he has performed. He is not making it sound as though success with ADHD is impossible. He is providing a generalized breakdown of how the disorder impacts those with it. Just because YOU decide what comes next and your life can be full of meaningful lasting relationship with hard work as you state it doesn't mean ignoring the very real impact of this disorder on ALL aspects of your life is the correct course of action and thinking that's the case you would be mistaken to take that position. Please be more careful with how you decide to speak on mental disorders and mental illness. Your comments was incredibly dismissive. You basically make it sound like those struggling just need to focus more and work harder and not to worry they will be able to succeed in anything they put their mind to when that is just absolutely NOT the case. Notice how so many people with ADHD who have achieved the type of great things you are talking about tend to be in specific types of fields? A lot of creatives for example have been very open with ADHD. We need to stop acting as though just through hard work you can be a success and focus more on guiding people with disorders to the TYPE of work that is well suited to how their brain actually functions. As an example of this people with ADHD make FANTASTIC emergency responders, firefighters, paramedics, nurses. They also thrive in creative fields although admittedly it is not particularly easy to make a living in them. They tend to do very well in high stress situations so something like a Chef could be a good path as not only does it tickle that high stress dopamine but the job itself is often novel and constantly changing which keeps you engaged. Yes. With ADHD you can be a successful person with meaningful relationships in spite of your ADHD but doing so does not magically negate the sheer volume of what you must cope with on a day to day basis and ignoring the disheartening aspect of this does NO favors to anyone. It even can make those who have found success feel like failures because they don't FEEL like a success and are constantly battling these demons they deal with where you make it sound like all they had to do was "work hard" and they would all go away.

@@AustinDaSilveira Thank you for this reply.

Recently diagnosed at age 59. Agree with this comment. Dr Barkley is trying to break through the lack of awareness that people have, including people with undiagnosed ADHD. You can have successes despite ADHD but it’s inconsistent and the symptomatology is always popping up somewhere. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to handle all these aspects of self regulation. So you mess up on a regular basis. Looking back at my life is a series of “starting overs”. Somewhat of a shit show, compared to a neurotypical. So I think Dr Barkely tried to be really clear about the problems so people will recognize themselves and get help sooner to avoid having this long string of failures. He doesn’t sugar coat so problems can be faced clearly. We shoot ourselves in the foot all the time, wouldn’t it be great not to? While you can make improvements over the course of your life, it’s slow going and a lot of wreckage along the way.

He is just speaking facts and reality. He is an expert, he probably knows more about this than anyone here, and indeed, he's responsible for the modern understanding that ADHD is a disorder of self-control and inhibition, that it can effect adults as well as children, women as well as men, and his lectures are chock full of things to do that are effective, humane, and backed by evidence. He has helped millions with ADHD to start their journey with it, and his research insights offered new and profound ways of looking at the disorder to better help people with it. He isn't making it impossible, he's just speaking on reality, and then offering ways to intervene that actually are effective and help those with ADHD. I'm eternally grateful I came across his lectures and research, he helped me understand I'm ADHD and autistic.

There's the slide link in the description 🫶🏻

@@sarahisabel2150 the link is dead

This opinion isn’t based on science so it’s not reliable

Don't know.

at that time I had 25.

Don't give up. Reach out to Pakistani teachers in the USA. Or even in the UK. See if you can mobilize them to help you by establishing a "hotline" where your educators can call for help. Try to do what we have done, create a website for your educators, a Facebook page and a newsletter. Pass on to them information that you tap into which might help them with the particular problems they are facing. Search the internet for sites that specialize in providing information to special ed students. The only ones I'm familiar with are in English. Find our website. It is full of useful information. www.specialedslu.org. An unrelated site is www.understood.org. University of Southern California's Mind Institute is a great source of information as well. I hope this helps you.

I am interested in learning more about Dr. Barkley's position with respect to neurodiversity. It's a term that applies to mild to profoundly disabling cognitive differences. So it's hard to understand his opposition to it. Can you provide some direct evidence of his alternative position? I am genuinely interested in exploring it.

@@neurodiversityresourcecent4970 I will seek out the bit of his speech I’m talking about, it might take me a bit but I’ll get back to you. He doesn’t directly mention neurodiversity but rather how he strongly disagrees that there is any benefit to having ADHD and that it needs to be treated almost all of the time if you’re an adult who still reaches the diagnostic criteria. Correct me if I’m wrong but neurodiversity is (among other things) the belief that certain disabilities are only disabling as applied to the current societal structure, these disabilities should/can be celebrated, and they don’t need treatment. Just from listening to his speeches it seems obvious to me he doesn’t agree with any of those ideas as they apply to ADHD. Personally speaking here, neurodiversity makes absolute sense as applied to autism since autism isn’t inherently disabling. But I think it’s well established that ADHD is disabling a condition with no benefits to it, and the vast majority of people with the condition require some sort of treatment.

@@wilhelmvg9978 Now I understand. I am going to give you a link to a video I made, Understanding Our Students, ( th-cam.com/video/ImySyp3I2Gg/w-d-xo.html) which Dr. Sheldon Horowitz explains what it means at about the 8:41 point. My understanding is that Neurological diversity means that the variations which occur in human brains are both a natural variation and a disability. They cannot do well in a world geared for neurotypical people without support. So it's a matter of learning what their strengths are and finding ways to for them to use those strengths to learn and to thrive. Neurodiverse people have strengths as well as deficits. So how well they perform is situation specific. In some situations they will shine. In others they will not do well. The important thing is that they do have strengths and those strengths need to be recognized and celebrated. Here is another video which gives a slightly different approach from an ADHD perspective. th-cam.com/video/ALJ3CFRRZpo/w-d-xo.html I hope you find these videos informative, entertaining and useful.

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Thank you for your helpful comment. Yes, it is important to give credit where it is due.