Re: ADHD, working memory, and words. A battleground.

[billd]

I found out Friday about the “working memory” and ADHD, etc.

First, I also do better at writing – email for example, than speaking. Whensomeone asks a question in a meeting, I’m at a loss for words, forget what I was going to say, etc. – but if I reply “I’ll get back to you in an email”, I can deal with it just fine, and for the reasons others here mentioned.

Now for last Friday – I was 4 hours in testing. Some of the tests involved letters, some letters and numbers, some numbers. The tech spoke a string of 4 numbers out of order, I had to repeat them back in order. Then it was 5, then 6, then 7 – when I got to 6 I started to struggle, when it hit 7, forget it (hmmmm, trouble with phone numbers????)

Then it was a mix of numbers and letters – a mix of 5, then 6 and so on (such as 3b8f1d – now speak them back to me in order, numbers first)

WOW, was fine with short strings, then struggled with longer ones, and at 7, I was lost. After a few minutes of this, I found I couldn’t even do the 5 or 6 long strings, it was as if not only longer strings caused problems, but doing it for longer times did as well. The longer I worked at it, the harder it got. It was like I was running Windows, running out of resources and working memory and needed a reboot. (and that is actually what it’s like)

The testing was amazing, and it’s impossible to cover all 4+ hours of it here, but suffice it to say, its’ why I have trouble documenting things at work, or when someone says “go call Joe, his number is 555-253-7940 – I’ll recall the 555 and probably the 253, but most likely will not even catch the 7940 part at all – at best I might get part of it.

That’s ADHD. That’s what the neuro-psychologist said anyway………

Frankly, I’ve got that genius IQ – it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be – and for words, keep it simple! I want to appeal to the masses, not the elite few with 20 years of college vocabulary. To me the eloquent words are a waste if I can say it simply and be understood by most.

It’s a waste of brain cells getting the fancy long big words – I’d more important stuff I’d rather store up there – things that will matter more to me when i’m older – things that will matter to friends and family. If they are friends simply because of your huge fancy vocabulary, well….

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