A 45-year Hiatus in ADHD: from Screening to Adult Diagnosis

When I was in 5th grade, I took a screening test for ADHD. The screening consisted in listening to a tape of a story with tones or beats in the background. The instruction was to keep track of how many beats were heard. Instead of counting beats, I listened to the story and was disappointed that after the screening part, the tape read out the story without the beats. If I recall correctly, the story was a pointless story about a monkey and maybe a tree. I was told that I had ADHD because I couldn’t focus on what I was told to. My belief was that I could focus because I listened to what was interesting to me, and not for the tones. My pediatrician put me on Ritalin, but there was no mention of ADHD in my middle school IEPs. There was also no attempt to help me understand ADHD and no coaching in how to get things done in school. With no understanding of ADHD, I quit the Ritalin after two weeks.

Last week I was evaluated for ADHD as an adult. I’ve had 55 years of experience in creating strategies and workarounds, but I’m still learning about ADHD in general, and about my particular flavor of neurodiversity.

What I was told as a child was that I had a deficiency in attention, but in reality my attention follows my interest.

As a person with untreated ADHD, I accomplished many things. I completed college and graduate school. I’ve been employed continuously for many years. My record is 6 1/2 years, but to be fair, the business I was hired for became a startup during that time. I’ve learned technologies, become certified in them, started clubs and user groups, figured out how to write 10-page research papers for grad school, among other things. I generally haven’t felt guilt about my ADHD way of doing things, although I did give my straight A grade card from community college to my parents for Christmas one year. If anything, I’m a poster child for living ADHD and doing it my way.

So why did I revisit ADHD after all these years? My daughter mentioned that people on YouTube were talking about a dual diagnosis of ASD and ADHD. This was the first video I watched: 5 signs you have ADHD and autism - YouTube. There’s a good chunk of autism in my family and I identified with the traits, so this opened me up to a reconsideration. After my ADHD diagnosis, I don’t even know if I also have ASD but if I do, I feel like it’s the secondary theme. There’s a significant overlap between the two, which is a good reason to speak in terms of neurodivergence.

I also felt it would be useful to have medication in my toolbelt, along with my various strategies.

Had there been an understanding of ADHD among my educators, they could have seen a pattern in the comments over the years, and helped me understand my brain better instead of telling me to try harder and listen more attentively. I’ll conclude with a sampling of these comments.

Some receipts from grade school report cards and evaluations:

• K: “does his best in work and play and is very pleasant in his relations with others.”

• K: “follows classroom routine very well and is proud of his accomplishments.”

• K: “become quite interested in reading readiness activities and is a very attentive listener”

• 1st Grade Religion: “seems to be very interested and shares his thoughts on Christian concepts being taught”

• 1st Grade Writing: “It is difficult to evaluate him, as some days he is fine and other days it is as if he had no concept of lines and spaces on paper”

• 1st Grade Phonics: “I feel Fred could pay more attention than he does”

• 1st Grade Overall: “does not apply himself in any of his works. He is not doing the work he is capable of doing”

• 2nd Grade Reading: “He is inattentive in class.”

• 2nd Grade Comment: “not using his time well and therefore does not complete his work.”

• 5th Grade IEP: He does however seem to have a problem with motor coordination skills and consequently he prefers to do as little (motorically) as possible.”

• 5th Grade Psycho-Educational: “Pencil and paper tasks of writing, drawing and copying were difficult and tedious; his work was fragmented and labored.”

• 5th Grade comment on problem solving: “attempts to solve problems: attempts, rarely finishes.”

• 5th Grade comment on preparedness: “never has paper, pencil, pen.” 

• 5th Grade counselor letter: “still displays poor task persistence.”