Abstract: ADHD: Inhibition, Emergent Nets, & Maternal Investment

ADHD: Inhibition, Emergent Networks, and Maternal Investment
James Brody, Ph.D.
April 11, 2004

This chapter is not a survey of new findings but a very different way to view old ones. It extends Barkley?s 1997 theory that ADHD is a neurological disorder of impaired executive functions and (1) suggests that ADHD produces many difficulties in small-world social networks, networks where so much is done not only through a friend but also through friends of that friend, and (2) reviews (a) the challenges of a male fetus to his depressed or otherwise less than robust mother and (b) the screening, whether in ADHD assessments of sons or when sizing up prospective husbands, by females of males for the social dependability that is so critical in networks.

Language has been proposed as a vital underpinning for executive functions and ADHD individuals often have difficulty with language but obvious parallels exist between human executive functions and even the behavior of plants: thus, we can reinterpret the theoretical importance of language and look for ADHD individuals to have intact executive functions in specific linguistic and non linguistic areas. That is, ADHD may not always be domain general. We can also look less for difficulties with word retrieval in plans and essays but more for problems in adjusting the relative importance of different ideas and appreciating the mutual influences between them.

The chapter explores a few ramifications for how we assess and treat ADHD. That is, we are not handicapped equally in our adaptive strategies, partnerships level irregularities, and we can expect to find intact abilities in some domains of an ADHD mind that compensate families and mates for their extra work. Behavior genetics reminds us that specific talents appear within families for several generations and that every living creature arranges its environment: free will becomes our personal will, sometimes producing peace and satisfaction even for ADHD individuals.

Copyright, James Brody,2004, all rights reserved

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