What Causes ADD/ADHD Behavior
ADD/ADHD is considered a mental health disorder, without a medical cure, but which can be managed by a combination of medication and therapy. This is based on the belief that the brains of people with ADD/ADHD work differently from the brains of ‘normal’ people, and that this difference is due a large part to genetics - you are born with ADD/ADHD, you cannot help it.
But even proponents of the genetic-cause theory will admit there are at least some other things which, as they say, cause ADD-ADHD-like behavior. Anyone who truly wants to help people struggling with attention problems and hyperactivity needs to be aware of these non-genetic factors. I’ve listed out a few of them below:
1. Conditions of pregnancy, birth and infancy
If the mother smokes or drinks alcohol during her pregnancy, her child will have severe problems - and we are not taking about heavy drinking alone. Even women who drank as little as one drink a week have children who, at ages 6-14 years, have problems with attention, impulse control, and hyperactivity - classic symptoms of ADD/ADHD. If a child is born premature, again, it is more likely that he will have a range of problems including hyperactivity and poor attention skills.
Children who are malnourished during babyhood are also likelier to have shorter attention spans than children who were well-nourished, even if they are later fed well. Some people theorize that when small children ingest lead - through swallowing flakes of paint from walls or toys - they may suffer from learning disorders and attention and hyperactivity problems as they get older.
2. Sensory and other physical problems
This is a well-known but often overlooked cause of inattention. When a child is not able to hear intermittently, say because he has a chronic ear infection, he will often appear to ignore what his parents and teachers tell him, and this may be interpreted as one symptom of attention deficit. Some other children may have hearing or sight which are too sensitive - they feel overwhelmed by what is to most people just background noise or color, and so are not able to focus.
Children with problems in the ‘deep senses’ - the sense of relative position of parts of the body, balance, and coordination of motor impulses - seem clumsy and have problems with fine motor work like writing, which is again one characteristic of ADD/ADHD.
And children having petit-mal seizures - abnormal electrical activity in the brain which causes a sudden and short lapse of conscious activity - seem to stare off into space and have attention problems in the class.
3. Nutrition problems
While most doctors will say that diet has no effect on ADD/ADHD symptoms, in a small but significant percentage of children hyperactivity and attention problems are caused by food allergies to common substances, for example, milk. Besides, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence about the effects of sugar-rich foods on the behavior of children.
Not eating an adequate breakfast makes it difficult for children to concentrate at school. Teachers of schools in poor areas are familiar with this - give the children a nutritious snack before starting class, and they study much better.
Last year the Food Standards Agency of the UK advised parents of hyperactive children to avoid foods with a range of additives (sunset yellow E110, quinoline yellow E104, carmoisine E122, allura red E129, tartrazine E102, ponceau 4R E124, sodium benzonate E211), while noting that this is just one in a many factors which may lead to ADD/ADHD.
4. Problems in the family and social environment
Children going through family trauma, like death or divorce, or children who are abused often show classic ADD/ADHD symptoms: hyperactivity, poor impulse control, and problems in social adjustment. If a parent is abusing drugs or alcohol, the child may be physically unsafe a large part of the time, and this situation is bound to lead to lack of focus.
Too much TV does not help either. Though some people continue to say that this is an effect and not a cause of attention deficit, studies constantly show a link between hours of television watched and ADD-type problems.
At the classroom, children will not pay attention if their work is too easy or too hard, or if they cannot understand the teacher
5. It’s just a phase
Finally, it might be just a phase. Many toddlers go through a time when they cannot be still and don’t seem to listen to anything others say. Teenagers also do this. And some of them do outgrow it.
If the cause is not genetic, and not in the brain, the conventional solutions - drugs which act upon the brain - will be a bad mistake. Remember that whatever the cause of the lack of focus and hyperactivity, things like structure, a positive attitude, focusing on strengths, and learning social rules help all children, but specifically children we label ADD/ADHD. These children do make greater demands upon parents and teachers, and while drugs may help, they should not be the treatment of first choice.
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