ADHD and Self Regulation

[Ivriniel]

Hello,

I am a teacher in Ontario and am currently taking an additional qualification course for Kindergarten. One of the assigned readings for my course seems extremely relevant for helping people with ADHD understand what it is so I thought I would share it.

The article is called Calm, Alert and Happy by Dr. Stuart Shankar.

In it, he talks about the arousal continuum, and how self regulation is the ability to move appropriately though different states of arousal to match the one appropriate to the situation. The states of arousal are:
Asleep
Drowsy
Hypoalert
Calmly focused and alert
Hyperalert
Flooded

So basically, ADHD affects our ability to move through arousal states and match the level that we should be at. This explains both our difficulty with focus and the fact that we can hyperfocus. It’s harder for us to move down to calmly focused and alert, but once we get there it is also harder for us to move away from it.

I had read before that ADHD is considered an arousal disorder, but never really understood what that meant before.

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[Patte Rosebank]

Interesting!  Your observation makes sense.

Self-regulation is one of the brain’s Executive Functions, and ADHD is a deficit of Executive Functioning.  I think, if it were called EFD (Executive Function Deficit), it would get more respect.

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[Scattybird]

That is an interesting article – thanks for posting the link.

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[crystalsphinx]

Thanks for the input! Really interesting and I’ll read this article. Self regulation is something that I constantly have to observe in myself during the day.. that and emotional regulation.

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[Author]

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