ADD as a naturally occurring trait? -or- The Hunter Gene

The topic of Attention Deficit Disorder came up in conversation last night while Will, Justin, Jussy's friend Donna Lee and I were consuming Chinese food after the Slocoaster show. So I thought I'd post some of the articles I've found here just to continue the conversation.

As long as I've heard of ADD it has always been known as a disease or a disorder, like schizophrenia or Autism, as something that is 'wrong' with a child. The author Thom Hartmann is the originator of the idea that maybe there's more to it than that.

He has a son with ADD, and as his sun was being pushed through the school system he was continually being told that he was 'damaged' and that his brain didn't work right. Mr. Hartmann wanted to come up with a way to re-frame what his son had, if for nothing more than out of the need to rescue some part of his self-esteem.

He had the idea that the characteristics exhibited by ADDers might be ideal for someone in a hunter / gatherer society. Always scanning one's environment, very quick to react to any external stimuli or changes in the environment, heightened sense of awareness. If a tiger steps on a twig behind you, you want to be able to react instantly.

But as we as a society moved towards farming and later industrial work we became sedentary and all the traits that made good hunters suddenly made for really bad farmers. The ability to perform a repetitive task like pulling weeds all day long, every day or to sit in an office and stay focused on a single task for hours on end is absolutely foreign to the hunter's world. One would imagine his whole spirit withering and dying in such an environment, or as we see with ADD kids, lashing out and being disruptive until we sedate them with drugs.

Now, even though this idea only started out as a way to make his son feel a little less awful about himself, it occurred to Mr. Hartmann that ADD seems to be much too common an occurrence for something that is supposed to be a genetic disorder (i.e., some random mutation of DNA that causes a certain negative effect). And now some geneticists and cultural anthropologists have picked up on the idea and there is growing evidence that what we know as Attention Deficit Disorder may indeed actually be a naturally-occurring trait in us humans that was once extremely useful and necessary for our survival. Not bad for something tat started out as a comfort story.

But the thing is, there are many jobs in our society that a hunter-oriented mind would excel at. It's known that ADDers make excellent pilots, for example, because of the need to constantly be aware of every instrument on the panel, and any subtle change in the way the plane 'feels' while flying. The goal now is to avoid damaging our kids who display these traits when we tell them that they are broken and their brains don't work right by actually understanding how it is they learn and tuning our education system to actually support these kids and bring them up to their full potential.

Links:

Thom Hartmann's ADD Articles Page

The Thom Hartmann Radio Program (listen online, highly recommended)

Listen to Mr. Hartmann's ADDA keynote address

Article: Damaged Hunters

Article: Genetic Research on AD/HD Finds Evolutionary Link
Technorati Tags: ADHD, Psychology, Education