LeHah said:
ADD is largely disproven since those same kids will sit for hours in front of their Playstation
Actually, gaming has been presented as a potential treatment for ADD. I don't have the link on me at this moment, but I found an article at one point about a helmet-like device that would be worn (it had connections similar to lie-detector devices, I believe) and would monitor attention to gaming. not entirely sure how the device itself worked, but if I recall correctly it would alter both the picture on the screen and the response time of the controller when the player's attention took a vacation. I think the price was somewhere in the upper 500-700 range...
I read about it in a newspaper article I found on the news host my college subscribes to. I still don't know how much stock I'd put into the device, but it raises some interesting points about ADD and other developemental/functional disorders that manifest in similar ways.
For instance, many children with Autism develop seemingly inhuman gaming skills (and some do argueably more useful things like accurately copying a rembrandt painting they haven't seen in a week, but for the sake of this post, we'll focus on the gaming sort). Asperger's Disorder is a much much, milder variant of Autism that is becoming more and more popular as a diagnosis. Unfortunately, AS is a harder call to make than ADD because as far as I know, it lacks any sort of a test-proof whereas ADD has its "Paradoxical Effect."
What I do know about AS is that those who suffer from it tend to have what may be described as a cripple on their understanding of social interactions. "What not to say when" is a big issue for me. My dad's always catching me talking about, for instance black comedies while eating in a restaurant where my white ass is the minority. Things like that where in another location, such comments would be completely harmless. AS sufferers often find themselves in trouble with friends and family due to something they said that, to them, seemed entirely harmless.
My understanding of the workings of ADD (which I admit is very limited) is that in persons suffering from ADD, the brain is understimulated by things that should be able to fully or even partially stimulate it. The degree of the effects varies by individual. As a result, the typical medications prescribed tend to fall under the catagory of hardcore stimulants. This is where a lot of the controversy comes from.
As Death pointed out, ADD is often a chance for parents to throw the blame elsewhere. This does not however make ADD any less real. It becomes tricky when you give kids "power pills" to calm them down when in reality, they are in a sort of over-calmed boredom that manifests in the form of attention lack. ADD results in something called the "paradoxical effect" where caffeine and other similar mild stimulants seem to calm or tire children with ADD. When given equal doses of these stimulants, non-ADD children find themselves energized or even hyper. I myself cannot even drink caffeinated sodas unless I can afford to take a nap nearly immediately afterwards. Now we take it a step further where the same hardcore stimulants that work so well for ADD sufferers are prescribed on a regular basis to children who don't need them. See the problem now?
The connection of ADD to gaming is simple (in theory anyhow): Gaming engages as many of the senses as it possibly can. We see the graphics moving around frantically, we hear everything happening around us, we get to control what's going on in our little world and most recently, we've gained the ability to feel to some extent the games. All of this is contained within a single focal entity: the video game. However, within this focal point, we are rewarded for our ability to notice anything changing or happening. Our unique aptitude towards situational awareness allows us to notice patterns and trends with great speed. In the real world, we find ourselves in classes where the teacher stands or sits at a desk and talks. Here, our tendacy to notice any outside factors becomes a weakness rather than a strength. If learning World History involved Mark Hamill saving the earth from a cat-like menace on a computer screen where you got to do the shooting yourself, you can bet you'd hear a lot less complaints of "my son is failing because he has ADD".
Another interesting thing about children with ADD is that as long as they aren't overly distracted by outside factors, they tend to do better in math (and to some extent, science) courses than in humanities, english and history courses. The reason: math and science are rooted in patterns and formulas where the other subjects rely on emotion, comprehension and opinion among other things.
In any case, I suffer from both ADD and AS and do indeed spend hours in front of my playstation and/or computer and even create anime music videos (which apparently range from average to excellent, if I'm to believe the feedback I get).
(Hopefully this makes at least some sense... haven't slept a lot lately and my writing coherence seems to have suffered greatly for it.)
-DP
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