The Forums › Forums › Emotional Journey › My Story › ADHD and IQ? A question at the end of my ridiculously long post about symptoms. › Re: ADHD and IQ? A question at the end of my ridiculously long post about symptoms.
As someone who deals with the problems associated with high IQ on a daily basis, I’d say it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Children with high IQ often have asynchronous development which can be extreme enough to be misdiagnosed as ADHD or asperger’s among other problems. They are likely to have what Dabrowski calls ‘over excitabilities’ that can cause emotional outbursts, inability to cope with bright lights or loud noises or the endless quest for answers to the big questions.
If ADHD can be lonely in the playground, imagine the torment of an ADD kid with a 170 IQ. How do you connect with your ‘peers’ then? Who wants to be your friend? Some kids in this situation can be very compelling playmates but more often they’re isolated with no-one who can understand them. And what exactly do they do in mainstream lessons? It’s hard enough to ‘concentrate’ when you’re bored, never mind bored to that level!
Being clever is obviously a bonus in many situations, but it’s a small part of what can make someone successful and, like anything, the extremes can be damaging.
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