I don't have classic dyslexia but I have always been a slow reader. They put me in a reading comprehension class in the 80s where they told me that my whole problem was that a "normal" reader doesn't read aloud in their head. They scan and comprend the words without sounding them out, even in their head. They just immediately know what the words say. They made me try using a ruler and forcing myself to scan-read like they thought was the right way. I endured the class until the end and then went back to my own way of reading. But I was always a voracious reader. Even tho I was slow. I was banned from the school library once for reading my books during class and even a test one time lol. So after that I e reading comprehension class they never really noticed that I had problems reading, because I was always reading. I just read my way. I may work a little harder than others but I still get there in the end. And if the book is boring then I may have to work about 100x as hard. Neurotypical people sometimes accuse ADHDers of being lazy, but I don't think they know the meaning of hard work if they haven't had to work as hard as an ADHDer to do something they find easy. In the end, despite my reading difficulty, I think books saved me. I barely got through school. I learned everything I know from reading. And all those people who did all their work and got straight A's in school didn't learn as much as I did in the end.
I can see myself in you. I also struggle to comprehend but I love to read - which actually provides us with a slight edge over neurotypical people, who prefer to read as required. Additionally, In my weird case, if I keep reading, the comprehension does improve but then my mind becomes worse in auditory language processing. As though my brain is only designed to handle only one at a time.
Interesting! Thanks you Dr Barkley! Three people in my family have ADHD and Dyslexia… a nurse, an architect, and an engineer! We all triple-check and re-read when it is important, and manage it well enough!
In grade three a tutor I had been sent to picked up on my dyslexia, I typically get the first syllable of multi syllable words but would pick my way through the word then repeat that word when presented with a word starting with the same syllable. Solution for me was read read read anything and everything to increase my vocabulary so that by subject I could reasonably guess the appropriate word - if a sentence didn't make sense then reread the sentence picking through the words. Another thing was to keep my school reading to grade level as some teachers felt threatened by students reading beyond teachers biases.
I was diagnosed dyslexic 20 years ago as an adult. The practitioner that diagnosed me with ADHD (this year) said these days if children are diagnosed with dyslexia they are usually also screened for ADHD as well.
Our kids all have adhd, and one of my twins has dyslexia. It's often a very difficult thing to work around. I didn't know that there is a connection with adhd & reading. Thank you!
I hear a lot of people vent about not being able to read books, as in we read over the words but don't process them. same problem here, I recently did a dyslexia test and jup. edit: watched the video before commenting ofcourse, good arguments for keeping the diagnosis separate ^^
My Child has add...and yet shel loves reading...especially comics and manga....shes no problem focussing on those as she finds the content most entertaining....so everyone is unique.
I have ADHD. Whenever I try to read I get super sleepy within a page or two, and then I fall asleep. This is most annoying as I not only like to read but have a stack of books waiting to be read. Audio books don't work because although I don't get sleepy, I'm distracted and not listening within paragraph or two. Sometimes I think ADHD should be Attention Deficit Heavy Despair.
Thanks for the video Dr Barkley. Regarding reading comprehension and expressive language I would like to know how I could improve it myself. I’m 20 years old and ~3 years into college at this point. Got diagnosed ADHD-I this past year, but no dyslexia. I’m trilingual through schooling and can read in multiple different scripts. Yet I struggle with comprehending texts regardless of length. I understand the abstract of the text but can’t precisely recall information. Different writing styles also affect my comprehension, for example academic style is so stiff and dry it takes days to understand a textbook chapter. In addition I very much struggle with essays. I struggle organizing my thoughts and often forget what I’m arguing for, and can’t find the right vocabulary when writing. I have heard that being multilingual and ADHD affects the ability to inhibit or suppress other languages from coming to mind when expressing language. In my case I couldn’t remember the word “train” but the German word “Zug” kept coming to mind. If can share any advice on this I would be very grateful!
I know dyslexia is comorbid, but I learned reading really quickly because the phonetic alphabet was posted around the room and I would read it when I was supposed to be doing other things. Subsequently, there were interesting things to read more so than classwork. That said, I also hit various walls, and my reading went way south after various times, including perhaps the TBI. In any case, I wonder if different methods of teaching would help - but I suppose thats true of all learning disorders. Lawyers have a high rate of ADHD according to at least one flawed study, but also, one of our very best in modern times, David Boies, is a dyslexic. The worst thing in my opinion for a lawyer with ADHD is the billable hour - thats just not the way my mind is typically capable of working.
Diagnosed with ADHd 2 years ago at 52. Before she died, my mother said I'd "had some dyslexia" and she took me to a specialist who taught me a "different way to read." I have no memory of any of this and I wish I did because I learned I do read differently, and it might help othersI read *really* fast and have good retention. If it's academic work, I slow myself down by taking notes, but novels? 60-90 paperback pages an hour. Math, on the other hand? Gah! I can learn it, if I have to, but as soon as I stop using it, it's gone and I have to go back to long division (4th grade in the 70s in the US) and start over. Even more strange (according to my very sweet psychiatrist) is I've used reading as almost medication all of my life. It's the only thing that slows down my thoughts enough to function at times. I dtill transpose bs and ps when writing and flip numbers too, but I'm super grateful for whatever they did, because reading has been the one constant joy in my life, even, at times, my only joy. Hugs to all Happy Holidays! 🤗 ❤
@@russellbarkleyphd2023 That name does sound familiar, so maybe. It really, really did and thanks for giving me a clue what to look up. Merry Christmas - you are the gift Santa brought everyone with ADHD.
Me too! I considered dyscalculia, but I think that is even more severe than what I have. But I think part of it is just lack of short term memory. When reading everything is just there in front of me, but something about memory and attention and formulas - I hate anything beyond basic algebra, but it sucks because I'm also interested in a lot of topics that they were needed for (economics and similar soft sciences).
@publius9350 I was abused as an infant on through childhood, moved too much then abandoned, so it is certainly based partly in trauma but Mom has ADHD so genetics is likely too. It's painful partly cause I learned to read and multiply in kindergarten....it was all down hill from there.
@@zak-a-roo264 - I have trauma too, and I'm not sure if I'm lucky or not regarding how much I suppressed, but I think Barkley admits trauma can have a role in ADHD in extreme cases, such as Romanian orphans. Malnutrition and high cortisol levels can definitely affect development. But generally, try and think about where to go from today, don't focus on the causality of it all. I believe in you, at least. If you are at the bottom of the hill, it's all moving upwards from here.
I was always good at reading and am very articulate, so was never picked up for adhd despite showing all of the other signs. Im female, 50. Still waiting after 3 years for a diagnostic appointment (UK) :(
If I had tics (although undiagnosed) from early childhood (I guess around 5 y old) could it be tourette syndrome ? Since I was little, I blinked my eyes excessively, twitched my muscles in various ways, made repeated movements in certain sweats (even numbers) and for certain periods I made such squeaky noises. Throughout my life I learned to hide it but it continues to this day (42 years old) and I have always associated it with anxiety. That is, dealing with anxieties (due to domestic violence). Fun fact is I have been diagnosed with ADHD just two years ago and I also have very high polygenic score for ADHD. It's probably a combination of everything, but if some problems persist for so long to this day, I guess it's genetics. Especially the tics, they are really, really persistant. I ask myself what I actually have, and why I don't see Tourette's syndrome anywhere in the my diagnoses or DNA tests. Not even my former psychiatrists pay attention to this. She just used to give me pills for depression and that's it.
I have reading dyslexia and ADHD. I basically have to read everything twice to comprehend it . But written instructions work far better than verbal instructions for me.
This is really interesting and thank you. Have ADHD studies found any lowered risk correlations compared to a non-ADHD population? Maybe it is possible but not studied or identified yet?
It’s funny. I expected different sets of connections. (Except working memory-that one is clear). First, the mind’s eye. I have a very hard time picturing letters in my mind (anything abstract, really). If someone spells something (even something simple) verbally I won’t remember the letters long enough to know the word. Even if they are pretty simple words. I basically can force myself to imagine about 1 letter at a time and not really more-but it takes effort to do even that. Second, controlled focus-when I read I jump around a lot. I have a hard time focusing on the sentence sequentially. I can easily have an issue bringing in words from above or below the target line I am reading. If you ask me to read something verbatim I will probably miss or change or add small words. This comes and goes somewhat for me. I sometimes find it easier to read sideways or upside down (or slowly spinning the book) because it takes slightly more effort and it slows down my tendency to jump around… but try to explain that to the teacher. 3. Impatience/carelessness. I don’t really usually read words, I kinda recognize the shape of them and some letters in them for the most part. I can easily misread a word (and then I will keep misreading it in the same way). Often they are similar looking (like streak and stake) sometimes very different. It’s like once my mind maps the word to a meaning, I have a very hard time remapping it to the actual meaning. Likewise, I don’t usually actually read character names in a novel. I kinda have a general shape of the name like Ab---m (probably more foggy than this really) and I just skim it. If the author used several characters with similar looking names I will need to get the audio book as I won’t be able to follow the story. I find that it is physically painful actually read all the letters of a word I don’t know. Likewise copying words or random characters is difficult and physically painful. I was diagnosed with a reading/writing disorder as a child (they didn’t call it dyslexia at the time). But i was only diagnosed with adhd as an adult. The funny thing is that I always still liked reading and read a lot. I was slow and couldn’t spell to save my life, but I read constantly in my childhood.
I have ADHD and dyslexia school sucked for me I didn't learn to read till I was 16 when I was sent to private school. In public school I was pretty much ignored by my teachers
Sorry for hijacking this video Russell, but just very briefly, I wonder if you believe in the concept of "free will" at all for everybody at large? Not just neurodivergent people? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the concept.
Dr Berkeley. Would you take amsome time out 5 min per day to watch my 100 episodes of ADHD SUPERPOWERS series. Let me know what you think I really respect you
I don't have classic dyslexia but I have always been a slow reader. They put me in a reading comprehension class in the 80s where they told me that my whole problem was that a "normal" reader doesn't read aloud in their head. They scan and comprend the words without sounding them out, even in their head. They just immediately know what the words say. They made me try using a ruler and forcing myself to scan-read like they thought was the right way. I endured the class until the end and then went back to my own way of reading. But I was always a voracious reader. Even tho I was slow. I was banned from the school library once for reading my books during class and even a test one time lol. So after that I e reading comprehension class they never really noticed that I had problems reading, because I was always reading. I just read my way. I may work a little harder than others but I still get there in the end. And if the book is boring then I may have to work about 100x as hard.
Neurotypical people sometimes accuse ADHDers of being lazy, but I don't think they know the meaning of hard work if they haven't had to work as hard as an ADHDer to do something they find easy.
In the end, despite my reading difficulty, I think books saved me. I barely got through school. I learned everything I know from reading. And all those people who did all their work and got straight A's in school didn't learn as much as I did in the end.
I can see myself in you. I also struggle to comprehend but I love to read - which actually provides us with a slight edge over neurotypical people, who prefer to read as required.
Additionally, In my weird case, if I keep reading, the comprehension does improve but then my mind becomes worse in auditory language processing. As though my brain is only designed to handle only one at a time.
The kinda Santa that brings you adderall.
And Dad jokes every Saturday.
@@russellbarkleyphd2023 truly 🤣😂 Thank you Dr. Barkley!
Interesting! Thanks you Dr Barkley! Three people in my family have ADHD and Dyslexia… a nurse, an architect, and an engineer! We all triple-check and re-read when it is important, and manage it well enough!
In grade three a tutor I had been sent to picked up on my dyslexia, I typically get the first syllable of multi syllable words but would pick my way through the word then repeat that word when presented with a word starting with the same syllable. Solution for me was read read read anything and everything to increase my vocabulary so that by subject I could reasonably guess the appropriate word - if a sentence didn't make sense then reread the sentence picking through the words. Another thing was to keep my school reading to grade level as some teachers felt threatened by students reading beyond teachers biases.
I was diagnosed dyslexic 20 years ago as an adult. The practitioner that diagnosed me with ADHD (this year) said these days if children are diagnosed with dyslexia they are usually also screened for ADHD as well.
Smart!!!
Our kids all have adhd, and one of my twins has dyslexia. It's often a very difficult thing to work around. I didn't know that there is a connection with adhd & reading. Thank you!
I hear a lot of people vent about not being able to read books, as in we read over the words but don't process them. same problem here, I recently did a dyslexia test and jup.
edit: watched the video before commenting ofcourse, good arguments for keeping the diagnosis separate ^^
This is exactly me. I can read the words and not have any comprehension
I always wonder why I have dyslexia and ADHD.... now I understand... Thanks, Dr. Russell Barkley
Happy holidays doc! Thank you so much for everything you do and stay healthy!
To you as well. And thanks for watching and spreading ADHD awareness. .
My Child has add...and yet shel loves reading...especially comics and manga....shes no problem focussing on those as she finds the content most entertaining....so everyone is unique.
I have ADHD. Whenever I try to read I get super sleepy within a page or two, and then I fall asleep. This is most annoying as I not only like to read but have a stack of books waiting to be read. Audio books don't work because although I don't get sleepy, I'm distracted and not listening within paragraph or two.
Sometimes I think ADHD should be Attention Deficit Heavy Despair.
Check out Irlen Syndrome
I was diagnosed with dyscalculia about a year after ADHD.
Thanks for the video Dr Barkley. Regarding reading comprehension and expressive language I would like to know how I could improve it myself.
I’m 20 years old and ~3 years into college at this point. Got diagnosed ADHD-I this past year, but no dyslexia. I’m trilingual through schooling and can read in multiple different scripts. Yet I struggle with comprehending texts regardless of length. I understand the abstract of the text but can’t precisely recall information. Different writing styles also affect my comprehension, for example academic style is so stiff and dry it takes days to understand a textbook chapter. In addition I very much struggle with essays. I struggle organizing my thoughts and often forget what I’m arguing for, and can’t find the right vocabulary when writing. I have heard that being multilingual and ADHD affects the ability to inhibit or suppress other languages from coming to mind when expressing language. In my case I couldn’t remember the word “train” but the German word “Zug” kept coming to mind.
If can share any advice on this I would be very grateful!
What a surprising Chrimas gift! Merry Chrismas, Doc!
I had reading disorder as a kid and I‘m diagnosed with ADHD. I still hate reading out loud, but I improved alot. Don‘t give up hope!
I know dyslexia is comorbid, but I learned reading really quickly because the phonetic alphabet was posted around the room and I would read it when I was supposed to be doing other things. Subsequently, there were interesting things to read more so than classwork. That said, I also hit various walls, and my reading went way south after various times, including perhaps the TBI. In any case, I wonder if different methods of teaching would help - but I suppose thats true of all learning disorders. Lawyers have a high rate of ADHD according to at least one flawed study, but also, one of our very best in modern times, David Boies, is a dyslexic. The worst thing in my opinion for a lawyer with ADHD is the billable hour - thats just not the way my mind is typically capable of working.
I also happen to read about the same speed backwards and forwards. Thanks Encyclopedia Brown.
Diagnosed with ADHd 2 years ago at 52. Before she died, my mother said I'd "had some dyslexia" and she took me to a specialist who taught me a "different way to read." I have no memory of any of this and I wish I did because I learned I do read differently, and it might help othersI read *really* fast and have good retention.
If it's academic work, I slow myself down by taking notes, but novels? 60-90 paperback pages an hour.
Math, on the other hand? Gah! I can learn it, if I have to, but as soon as I stop using it, it's gone and I have to go back to long division (4th grade in the 70s in the US) and start over.
Even more strange (according to my very sweet psychiatrist) is I've used reading as almost medication all of my life. It's the only thing that slows down my thoughts enough to function at times.
I dtill transpose bs and ps when writing and flip numbers too, but I'm super grateful for whatever they did, because reading has been the one constant joy in my life, even, at times, my only joy.
Hugs to all Happy Holidays! 🤗 ❤
was this like the Evelyn Wood method of rapid reading? Sounds interesting. glad it worked for you.
@@russellbarkleyphd2023 That name does sound familiar, so maybe. It really, really did and thanks for giving me a clue what to look up. Merry Christmas - you are the gift Santa brought everyone with ADHD.
Thank you so much, please can you talk more about Dylexia in your videos. Happy holidays!
Complex math ( algebra , etc) is my demon, have you done that yet? I'll go check your vids
Me too! I considered dyscalculia, but I think that is even more severe than what I have. But I think part of it is just lack of short term memory. When reading everything is just there in front of me, but something about memory and attention and formulas - I hate anything beyond basic algebra, but it sucks because I'm also interested in a lot of topics that they were needed for (economics and similar soft sciences).
@publius9350 I was abused as an infant on through childhood, moved too much then abandoned, so it is certainly based partly in trauma but Mom has ADHD so genetics is likely too. It's painful partly cause I learned to read and multiply in kindergarten....it was all down hill from there.
@@zak-a-roo264 - I have trauma too, and I'm not sure if I'm lucky or not regarding how much I suppressed, but I think Barkley admits trauma can have a role in ADHD in extreme cases, such as Romanian orphans. Malnutrition and high cortisol levels can definitely affect development. But generally, try and think about where to go from today, don't focus on the causality of it all. I believe in you, at least. If you are at the bottom of the hill, it's all moving upwards from here.
Let ChatGPT explain it to you (use o1-mini) it is very good at it and can help you with memorization and logical reasoning
What an unexpected Christmas gift! Thank you Dr. Barkley.
Thank you, and happy holidays ❤
I have both ADHD and dyslexia. Interesting! Thank you. Happy Holidays to you too.
Happy Christmas to you and yours, Doc
Same to you!
Yes, informative. Thank You.
Thank you Russell
My dyslexia switches letters and words as well as numbers. I can read (turns out I read slower but I didn’t know that).
I was always good at reading and am very articulate, so was never picked up for adhd despite showing all of the other signs. Im female, 50. Still waiting after 3 years for a diagnostic appointment (UK) :(
If I had tics (although undiagnosed) from early childhood (I guess around 5 y old) could it be tourette syndrome ? Since I was little, I blinked my eyes excessively, twitched my muscles in various ways, made repeated movements in certain sweats (even numbers) and for certain periods I made such squeaky noises. Throughout my life I learned to hide it but it continues to this day (42 years old) and I have always associated it with anxiety. That is, dealing with anxieties (due to domestic violence). Fun fact is I have been diagnosed with ADHD just two years ago and I also have very high polygenic score for ADHD.
It's probably a combination of everything, but if some problems persist for so long to this day, I guess it's genetics. Especially the tics, they are really, really persistant. I ask myself what I actually have, and why I don't see Tourette's syndrome anywhere in the my diagnoses or DNA tests. Not even my former psychiatrists pay attention to this. She just used to give me pills for depression and that's it.
All your tics sound exactly like one of my friends from high school who had diagnosed Tourette’s
Happy holidays!
Feliz Navidad Dr desde Mexico bendiciones❤
Muchas gracias!
Oooh I’d be interested to know about the overlap between Irlen Syndrome too Dr Barkley! Happy Holidays to you too 🎅🏼🎄❄️
What's your take on the brain glasses that can help with neuroplasticity?
Unconvinced. Certainly there is no research I know that has examined it for ADHD in any rigorous way. Happy New Year!
This is huge.
I have reading dyslexia and ADHD. I basically have to read everything twice to comprehend it . But written instructions work far better than verbal instructions for me.
Merry Christmas 🎄 Dr 🫡
Same to you, and a great New Year, too.
@ Will do my best Dr!
Can you put out a video that explains the brain MRI, fMRI and SPEC brain scans? Thank you
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Dr. B! 💙🎄✝❄Question: does Working Memory improve with ADHD medication? Thank you.
Yes, usually, but it may not be normalized for some. Be well.
This is really interesting and thank you. Have ADHD studies found any lowered risk correlations compared to a non-ADHD population? Maybe it is possible but not studied or identified yet?
Good question. other than anorexia or restricted eating disorder, and the personality trait of introversion, no, not that I know of.
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone.
It’s funny. I expected different sets of connections. (Except working memory-that one is clear).
First, the mind’s eye. I have a very hard time picturing letters in my mind (anything abstract, really). If someone spells something (even something simple) verbally I won’t remember the letters long enough to know the word. Even if they are pretty simple words. I basically can force myself to imagine about 1 letter at a time and not really more-but it takes effort to do even that.
Second, controlled focus-when I read I jump around a lot. I have a hard time focusing on the sentence sequentially. I can easily have an issue bringing in words from above or below the target line I am reading. If you ask me to read something verbatim I will probably miss or change or add small words. This comes and goes somewhat for me. I sometimes find it easier to read sideways or upside down (or slowly spinning the book) because it takes slightly more effort and it slows down my tendency to jump around… but try to explain that to the teacher.
3. Impatience/carelessness. I don’t really usually read words, I kinda recognize the shape of them and some letters in them for the most part. I can easily misread a word (and then I will keep misreading it in the same way). Often they are similar looking (like streak and stake) sometimes very different. It’s like once my mind maps the word to a meaning, I have a very hard time remapping it to the actual meaning.
Likewise, I don’t usually actually read character names in a novel. I kinda have a general shape of the name like Ab---m (probably more foggy than this really) and I just skim it. If the author used several characters with similar looking names I will need to get the audio book as I won’t be able to follow the story. I find that it is physically painful actually read all the letters of a word I don’t know. Likewise copying words or random characters is difficult and physically painful.
I was diagnosed with a reading/writing disorder as a child (they didn’t call it dyslexia at the time). But i was only diagnosed with adhd as an adult.
The funny thing is that I always still liked reading and read a lot. I was slow and couldn’t spell to save my life, but I read constantly in my childhood.
Thanks ! Are there Data on keto diet vs ADHD ? Metobolic disorder vs adhd ?
I love you ❤
Does dyscalcula register the same as dyslexia?
Mary Christmas 🎄 everyone 🎉
To you as well. Cheers!
I love the Santa hat ❤
I’m a gift individually reasonly diagnosed. But the doctor told me ADHD. And dislexia tendencies. I don’t get it. How is that possible
I have ADHD and dyslexia school sucked for me I didn't learn to read till I was 16 when I was sent to private school. In public school I was pretty much ignored by my teachers
Does keto diet reduce symptoms of adhd ?
Sorry for hijacking this video Russell, but just very briefly, I wonder if you believe in the concept of "free will" at all for everybody at large? Not just neurodivergent people? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the concept.
Dr Berkeley. Would you take amsome time out 5 min per day to watch my 100 episodes of ADHD SUPERPOWERS series. Let me know what you think I really respect you
It's MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
Watch my 100 episodes of ADHD SUPERPOWERS
Hi prof ,
Plz make an episode about magic muchrooms to treat adhd and other mood disorder . ❤❤
Thank you very much
You are very handsome ❤
Thanks! must be the hat. lol. dry kind of you n
@russellbarkleyphd2023 Maybe one percent because of that ❤❤❤
Maybe one percent because of that ❤❤❤
Nah. Methylphenidate is better than Adderall.