The Leviathan Grook.
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If you've read the links in the main body of each page, I think you can already see the complex web that is being spun by the connections between ADD and depression, ADD and creativity, depression and creativity. There's still more to come. There is also a pretty high correlation between intelligence, creativity, and ADD. The plot thickens...  "...The other problem was, what exactly was Anna ? A child certainly, a very intelligent and a very gifted child, but what was she ? Everybody who came into contact with Anna recognized in her some strangeness, something that marked her as different from other children. 'She's fey', said Millie. 'She's got the "eye"', said Mum. 'She's a bloody genius', said Danny. The Rev Castle said, 'She's a very precocious little girl.' This certain strangeness in Anna gave some people an uneasy feeling, but her innocence and sweetness acted like a balm, soothing away suspicions and fears. Had Anna been a mathematical genius all would have been well; she could have been written off as a freak. Had she been a musical prodigy we could all have cooed with delight, but she was neither of these things. Anna's strangeness lay in the fact that her statements were so often right, and as time went by they became more and more often right. One of our neighbours was quite convinced that Anna could see into the future, but then Mrs W was like that. Mrs W lived in a world of tarot cards, tea-leaves and premonitions. The fact however remained that Anna was so often right in her predictions that she appeared to be some sort of diminutive prophet, or East End oracle. Certainly Anna had a gift, but it turned out to be nothing spooky, nothing out of this world. In a very deep sense it was at once mysterious as it was simple. She had an immediate grasp of pattern, of structure, of the way that bits and pieces were organized into a whole. Unexplainable as this gift might be, it was always well and truly earthed in the nature of things. As simple and as mysterious as a spider's web, as ordinary as a spiral seashell. Anna could see pattern where others saw just muddles, and this was Anna's gift. " -- From ' Mister God, this is Anna ' by Fynn. We know of the gifted in the conventional fashion, in the intellectual sense. The Stanford-Binet Test measures logical-mathematical ability, linguistics ability, and spatial ability. They use the test results to assess the potential for success in life. However those are only a few types of intelligences, albeit the ones that society emphasizes the most in the educational system. The other types include as espoused by * Howard Gardner : * For full descriptions of these, please see sidebar links to Multiple Intelligences. Recently added to the stable of intelligences is Emotional Intelligence ( E.Q ), by Daniel Goleman, and Successful Intelligence, by Robert J. Sternberg. Mister Sternberg's theory is especially interesting to me. DETERMINE SUCCESS IN LIFE "Successfully intelligent people realise that no one is good at everything. Einstein wasn't. Lincoln wasn't. Da Vinci wasn't. Galileo wasn't. The idea that there is a general factor of intelligence that can be measured by IQ and similar tests is a myth that is supported only because the range of abilities they measure is narrow. Once you expand the range of abilities that are measured, the general IQ factor disappears. "Successful intelligence is the kind of intelligence used to achieve important goals. People who succeed, whether by their own standards or by other people's, are those who have managed to acquire, develop and apply a full range of intellectual skills, rather than relying on the 'inert' intelligences that schools so value. These individuals may or may not succeed on conventional tests, but they have something in common that is much more important than high test scores. They know their strengths, they know their weaknesses. They capitalise on their strengths, they compensate for or correct their weaknesses. That's it." -- SUCCESSFUL INTELLIGENCE, Robert J. Sternberg, published by SIMON & SCHUSTER ( blurb on back cover ) What does all this mean ? Gee, that may sound like a rhetorical question, but its not. It means a lot of things. Important things. For a start, it means that intuition may finally start receiving its own Q. The problem will be they can't possibly call it I.Q, so I imagine they'll have a good time deciding on a name. There is an over propensity for society to test children on every quality deemed desirable, and then put labels onto children according to how they score. 'Dumb, slow, special ' if they don't do well, 'gifted, smart, intelligent ' if they do. Read The Story of D. If we're going to measure intelligence, we should at least be fair, and not be biased towards certain types of intelligences. Children like Anna will finally get the recognition they deserve. Now take a look at this list of characteristics. ADD vs. Giftedness. Behavior Associated With ADHD (Barkley, 1990) 1. Poorly sustained attention in almost all situations 2. Diminished persistence on tasks not having immediate consequences 3. Impulsivity, poor delay of gratification 4. Impaired adherence to commands to regulate or inhibit behavior in social contexts 5. More active, restless than normal children 6. Difficulty adhering to rules and regulations Behaviors Associated With Giftedness (Webb 1993) 1. Poor attention, boredom, daydreaming in specific situations 2. Low tolerance for persistence on tasks that seem irrelevant 3. Judgment lags behind development of intellect 4. Intensity may lead to power struggles with authorities 5. High activity level; may need less sleep 6. Questions rules, customs and traditions from ADD, ADHD, and Giftedness. Quite a close fit huh ? But one list is written from the viewpoint of the symptoms as a disorder, while the other is written from the viewpoint of the gifted. If we ignore the I.Q. scores of the gifted, how shall we look upon these behaviours ? What if ADD is simply just another type of giftedness ? Given its high correlation with creativity, I'd say it may well be very high intuitive intelligence. Intuitivity is not even recognised as a type of intelligence, let alone measured in the tests designed to identify giftedness. Go forth now, and cogitate. And while you are at it, check out The Intuitive Brain and ADD. The intuitive mode takes place below the threshold of consciousness. Traditional logical thinking takes place in the realm of consciousness, where it can be measured and tested, though currently this is being disputed and increasingly controversial. It is my view that creativity and intuitiveness are pretty closely related, and may be two sides of the same coin. And to tie in ADD, creativity, intuitivity and depressions with giftedness, here is the following from an interview of Marie Friedel ... " Psychologists can't really make a determination of a disorder versus what are characteristics of giftedness. You need an M.D. to do that kind of diagnosis, to make a definition of pathology. There is a neurological test, I think, that can determine if there is ADD. But I just don't believe in ADD. I absolutely do not accept it. I think bipolar disorder can be discovered by a psychiatrist, but I've found many gifted kids develop that. You see, gifted children haven't been taken care of, and the creatively gifted have been neglected even more. And they may not exhibit a high IQ. The Torrance Tests are the ones you have to use, because those discover the child's learning preference. There definitely are disorders like depression, but it takes a doctor with an M.D. to determine that. The labeling of disorder like ADD in children is almost always from psychologists, and they don't have a medical degree. Dr. Stanley Krippner told me this all the time, because he was alarmed when he found children being labeled. I used to work with adults, too, though I don't any more. When they would bring the children here, the mother or father would realize they went through a lot of this themselves. Many parents wake up when they read our information packet, and realize they too were underachievers or been troubled for the same reasons. Giftedness is often a genetic thing. One of my patients is a brilliant woman and she's been on Prozac now for twelve years. She can't function without it. She was hurt very deeply as a child. The gifted don't know how to learn the way the schools want them to learn; they're different. But the Torrance Tests are terrific. They're the most popular tests used for creativity. You can have high creativity, and not have a high IQ, and these creatively gifted children are often lost, and labeled negatively. But they may have very high measures of flexibility, originality, intuitiveness, elaboration, and fluency that those tests can measure. Dr. Krippner taught me about all the intuitiveness in these children. I could see it, but I didn't realize how much until he worked with me a great deal. And I found so many children called bipolar, because they were so intense. I am not denying they become ill, but it's brought on by being miseducated and misunderstood. I've worked with many children, and took them all off medication. I think out of all the many we've worked with, there was one little boy we couldn't do much with, but Dr. Krippner thought it was because his father was beating him so much. But with most of these children, I was told that they were 'little animals', couldn't sit still, were disruptive, couldn't do anything; under my guidance, I found them to be beautiful; they would die for you. Sometimes one of them would say, 'Miss Friedel, I think there's a better way to do what you're doing' -- and usually the child was right. So I began to tell my people who were working with these children that the learning has to be an exchange of ideas; the children have something to give." ... Marie Friedel Founder and Executive Director, The National Foundation for Gifted and Creative Children |
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The Razor's Edge A Possible ADDer Speaks ~!
 " Grooking... "
Giftedness/Intelligence Websites
Multiple Intelligences Links From Main Body From Side Bar Very little recognition has been given to the fact that extremely high intelligence is as far from normal as is mental deficiency and that it creates problems of its own that may be as acute, though not as depressing as the problems of inferior intelligence. In psychological theory, the range of normal intelligence runs from the dull, border-line mentality at 70 I.Q. to the very superior level of 130 I.Q. or thirty points of divergence from 100 I.Q. which represents the average performance of children at given age levels. The eight-year- old child with an I.Q. of 130 may be normal in size appearance, but he has the mentality of ten and one-half years which throws his adjustment to his group also out of balance. He learns his lessons too quickly, is bored with the activities of grade III, and might work off his excess energy in unprofitable mischief. He attracts attention to his clever remarks and develops a desire for the center of the stage. He bosses children his own age but is rejected by older and larger children whose interests fascinate him and challenge his ability to compete with them. Disturbance of personality is deep-rooted . Early environment experiences leave their mark in conditioned reactions which, by repetition, become permanent traits. HAZARDS OF THE HIGH I.Q. by Douglas A. Thom & Nancy Newell, Mental Hygiene, Vol 29, No.l, January 1945 *** Gifted children, especially young ones, often have difficulty in making friends. The average child starts to make friends (psychologists say gets into the peer state) at about the age of seven. At this time there is a marked withdrawal from the family and the child finds someone just like himself, same age, same sex, same clothes, same breakfast food, same TV shows, with whom to identify. Parents often think the child has fallen under the evil influence of the neighbor's child and the neighbor thinks the same thing. Despite parental anguish the child is learning a most important lesson--how to identify with others. It is terribly important to be able to get along with and be liked by other members of your own sex, and this is the time when boys learn to be "regular fellers" and girls learn the same lesson. But if he is a gifted child, one in a hundred, he has to know 100 other boys to find one like himself, and half the time the hundredth child is a girl, and he's sunk. It does no good to tell the child at this stage that the world is made up of all kinds of people, and he must like them all. He starts in by identifying with someone like himself. Many gifted children develop imaginary playmates to fill the void left by not having any true peers. A gifted child with a chronological age of 8 and a mental age of 11 can't be expected to play with average children of either age--he won't get along with his age peers and average children aged 11 won't admit him to their games. He needs to find another child who is 8 but thinks like 11. This may take some parental doing, but it's much better than letting the child develop lonely, antisocial habits because no one else seems to be like him. So when a child becomes so absorbed in his own activities that he doesn't have friends, it's because he hasn't had a chance to make the right kind. EDUCATING THE ABLEST--A BOOK OF READINGS ON EDUCATION OF GIFTED CHILDREN, Edited by John Curtis Gowan and E. Paul Torrance, F.E, Peacock, Itasca, IL, 1971 *** Giftedness is a different way of being, and these differences affect one throughout the lifespan. Am I gifted ? Well, I've never aced any official I.Q. tests. I've done 142 on The BrainTainment Center free I.Q. test though. That's gifted. But it only applies for linguistics intelligence. What's the correlation between linguistics intelligence and creativity ? I don't know. I say maybe high ? Gee, I hope so. I'm lousy at math. :) Well actually, I'm just reluctant to commit myself to practising math, it just takes an insane amount of time, time I prefer to spend reading or just plain grooking. Okay, the possibility that I'm gifted is there. On account of all this information, I now have enough excuses to stop that problem with my self-esteem already. Well, I told you I was working on it , didn't I? :p |
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