The Idea of Interest Deficit Disorder

Performance in Specific Situations

Children and teens with ADHD often display remarkable abilities and can match, or even surpass, the performance of their peers in certain contexts. These situations typically share common characteristics that seem to ignite their focus and engagement. Examples include

A New Way To View ADHD

Rewriting The Narrative

When they are highly interested in the task at hand

Being presented with new or novel situations

Engaging in activities that provide frequent feedback, clear consequences, or are closely supervised

Facing situations with imminent deadlines

Working one-on-one with another individual

Interest-Based Nervous Systems

In these specific scenarios, differences in performance among individuals with ADHD can be strikingly pronounced. Dr. William Dodson has proposed that people with ADHD/ADD may possess what he terms an interest-based nervous system. Supporting this perspective, Chris Dendy, a member of the CHADD Hall of Fame and author of multiple books about children and teens with attention disorders, has suggested that ADHD could be more accurately described as an Interest Deficit Disorder. The underlying concept is that individuals with ADHD are consistently scanning their surroundings for something compelling that captures their attention. When their environment fails to provide this stimulation, they often mentally disengage.

A New Way To View ADHD

Through studies of evolutionary psychology, a new hypothesis or view of ADHD makes the case that people with ADHD  may be more like modern-day hunters. The theory holds that these traits may be inherited from ancient explorers, warriors, or hunters. Thom Hartmann introduced this concept in his book ADHD: A Hunter in a Farmer's World.

The analogy goes like this: People with ADHD make better hunters, and people without ADHD make better farmers. The farmers will likely sit around the campfire while the hunters wander around. These hunter traits still exist today, but our world is primarily geared toward farmer-friendly experiences.

To help put this into perspective, the chart below, adapted from Hartmann's book, compares ADHD traits, those traits from a "hunter" perspective, and the traits of "farmers."

There are many ways of looking at ADHD. Thinking about it as a disorder may not be the healthiest point of view. It may benefit you to view ADHD traits as those of a hunter or someone built for a life that isn't "farmer"-typical. 

Hartmann's hypothesis that people with ADHD possibly have the same genes as hunters of a different age would be notoriously difficult to prove scientifically. However, the idea makes sense.

People with ADHD process information differently; they have similar traits, but everyone is affected differently. The three main areas are hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention, but not everyone has problems in all three areas. Many have inattention only, ADHD (Inattentive Presentation), some have hyperactivity and impulsivity without inattentiveness, ADHD (Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentation), and some have ADHD, Combined Presentation. All three categories can be mild, moderate, or severe. Many people think there is another emotionally dysregulated subtype, but it is not currently diagnosed.

Don’t Be Afraid to Look at ADHD in Your Own Way 

Some parents and children find ways of looking at ADHD that make it more easily acceptable.

1.     The ability to constantly monitor what is going on around them. In boring situations, such as school, children and teens are easily distracted and have difficulty focusing on lectures or classwork.

2.     The ability to respond immediately to an emergency, such as two planes about to collide or a pilot performing an emergency landing. Those whose “braking systems” are more efficient (those without ADHD) might have difficulties doing this. (In the classroom, this often manifests in the child or teen with ADHD saying or doing something before thinking about it and finding themselves in trouble.) 

3. The ability to hyper-focus. From the explorer's or the hunter's perspective, when the hunt is on, the hyper-focused person will respond by pursuing. This is the same hyper/mission focus required for law enforcement, search and rescue, or the military. Having this ability might create problems at home and at school when people become focused on things to the point that they become angry and resentful or when they have to stop something that they are working on, or they are interested in.

Thinking of ADHD as having the “hunter” traits can give children, teens, and their parents more hope about the future. Many desirable jobs suit those traits. If people with ADHD are interested, they will excel at any modern-day “hunter” occupation. The following is a list of jobs people with ADHD are better suited for.

  1. -       Military personnel

  2. -       Emergency room personnel

  3. -       Emergency service individual

  4. -       Firefighter

  5. -       Forest Ranger

  6. -       Game Warden

  7. -       Police Officer

  8. -       Skilled Labor

  9. -       Surgeon

  10. -      Trial lawyer

ADHD Varies by Setting

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Better Here:                           Worse Here:

 

Fun…………………………………..Boring                           

Immediate…………………………..Delayed Consequences                     

Frequent…………………………….Infrequent Feedback                         

High……………………….………..Low Salience                                             

Early……………………………… Late                                                 

Supervised……………………….Unsupervised                                      

One-to-one………………………..Group Situations                                                  

Novelty…………………….…….Familiarity                                          

Fathers…………………….…….Mothers                                               

Strangers………………………….Parents                                               

Clinic Exam Room…………….Waiting Room

Having ADHD isn’t a bad thing; it just means that someone with ADHD’s needs is more specific than someone without ADHD. ADHD may work as a sort of “superpower” in situations that fit well with an ADHD person’s specialties.

For example, Own Beats Athlete tells us that people with ADHD who play sports have certain advantages sometimes.

  • ADHD athletes can simultaneously take in the whole court or field – they see everything.

  • ADHD athletes can hyper-focus amid competition chaos – that’s their reality.

  • ADHD athletes have a lot of energy—they’re the ones with legs in the second half of the race.

  • ADHD athletes are resourceful – if there’s a way, they’ll find it.

Everyone has to find a place in life where they excel. People with ADHD have to do the same, but instead of looking at ADHD as negative, it is more helpful to view it as a narrowing of options. Say someone has trouble with a skillset due to a symptom of ADHD—well, cross that activity off the list of possible things to do with their life! They should focus on what they are good at rather than what they're not.

Evolutionary theorists view ADHD traits (such as novelty-seeking, rapid task-switching, and high exploratory drive) as possible cognitive differences that were advantageous in ancestral forager-gatherer environments. In modern structured settings, these traits may become mismatched, leading to functional impairment. A recent evolutionary-mismatch hypothesis proposes that high trait curiosity associated with ADHD prepared ancestors to discover new opportunities in unpredictable environments, but in information-saturated, stable modern settings, this drive may manifest as distractibility or impulsivity.