Attention Deficit Disorder
Attention Deficit Disorder with or without hyperactivity is often recognized by the following symptoms:
- Impaired concentration, distractibility, impulsiveness
- Overactivity/hyperactivity/underactivity and variations
- Procrastination, disorganization, boredom
In an attempt to capture the basic essence of ADD in children, Dr. Paul H. Wender (1987), an outstanding clinical researcher, lists and describes the following additional characteristics:
- Attention-demanding behavior of an insatiable quality
- School difficulties related to dyslexia, Learning Disabilities (LD), or the recently named Specific Development Disorder (SDD)
- Impairment in balance and coordination, including fine and gross motor incoordination, often resulting in handwriting and eye tracking difficulties
- Resistant and domineering social behavior, which has three distinct characteristics:
- a resistance to obey social demands: “do’s,” “don’ts,” “should’s” and “shouldn'ts”.
- increased independence, i.e., those with ADD often tolerate separation anxiety exceptionally well when very young
- domineering behavior with other children.
- Emotional difficulties of physical origin affecting mood, reactivity to pain, overreacting to excitement — including excessive irritability, frustration and anger, “unsatisfiability,” low self-esteem.
- Immaturity — the emotions and behavior of children with ADD are often normal, but applicable to children several years younger.
Although ADD and impaired balance/coordination and rhythm were recognized by many experts to be present in patients with Dyslexia or Learning Disabilities, Dr. Levinson was the first to discover that Dyslexia or LD and ADD all stem from one and the same inner-ear (cerebellar-vestibular) dysfunction.
Clearly, Dr Levinson showed that ADD symptoms occur in 90% of dyslexics characterized by only inner-ear neurological signs diagnostic of an inner-ear dysfunction. And that ADD and Dyslexia respond favorably to medications and therapies which improve inner-ear functioning resulting in signal clarity and compensatory processing. Accordingly, it was reasoned that both dyslexia and ADD are mere reflections of a common inner-ear impairment. They’re just two sides of the same “coin.”
