Multiple Intelligences
Many ADD "Explorers" are very
intelligent. As in the absent-minded professor, or as in "how can someone so smart be
so stupid." People can't figure them out. "If you only applied yourself!"
is another frequently heard comment. They have moments of brilliance but are miserable
failures at other times. I've added this section simply because so many ADDers seem to
have an odd type of intelligence.
In the classic book "Frames of
Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences", Harvard
psychologist Howard Gardner outlines his theory of "multiple intelligences" in
which we are said to have seven different types of intelligences. IQ tests only evaluate
people for logical-linguistic intelligence. People are frequently more intelligent in some
categories that others, sometimes dramatically so. Gardner's intelligence types are:
- Musical Intelligence
- Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
- Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
- Linguistic Intelligence
- Spatial Intelligence
- Interpersonal Intelligence
- Intrapersonal Intelligence
Naturalistic Intelligence
In his book, "Creating
Minds:An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through
the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi " Gardner describes innovators from various fields and assesses the
relative strengths of their different types of intelligences. Einstein had brilliant
logical-spatial abilities, but extremely poor personal intelligence. Gandhi had great
personal and linguistic skills, but poor artistic abilities. Picasso was extremely
spatial, but had great difficulties handling logical issues and did very poorly in school.
Freud had outstanding linguistic and personal intelligence, but was lacking in spatial and
musical abilities.
In the book "Right-Brained
Children in a Left-Brained World", author Jeffrey Freed argues that ADDers are
very often powerful visual/spatial thinkers. This is often described as
being "right-brained" because the right hemisphere of the brain has been
associated with visual thinking as well as other traits often associated with visual
thinkers. I took the little self test in the book and came out "somewhat
right-brained" as I think most ADDers would, and the learning style described by the
author certainly fits the way my son learns. Extreme visual thinkers may be dyslexic
and have general learning difficulties when taught using traditional methods. Some
of our most famous scientists were very visual thinkers who had relative verbal
difficulties or verbal memory problems. Einstein, Faraday, Edison and DaVinci are
examples. DaVinci even wrote his notes in "mirror" writing which no one else
could read unless they held the notes up to a mirror, 
something which dyslexics are known for. The learning and
thinking styles of eleven famous visual thinkers are described in the book "In the Mind's
Eye : Visual Thinkers, Gifted People With Dyslexia and Other Learning Difficulties,
Computer Images and the Ironies of Creativity by Thomas G. West.
Instead of thinking of weak areas as something that went
wrong, consider the opposite. Maybe something went right, you're just looking in the
wrong direction! Learn to exploit what you're good at naturally.
