Rethinking ADHD: It’s Not Forgetfulness, It’s a Different Kind of Seeing
Why the Hunter brain processes the world through sound, not sight—and how to work with it, Not against it
One popular theory to explain Hunters suggests that people with ADHD are very independent, and tend to dislike being told what to do. They prefer to think for themselves, and may therefore place less importance on others’ directions.
But another explanation for this, according to some authorities in the field, is that some people with ADHD easily process auditory or verbal information but have more of a challenge with visual inputs (this is the “auditory subset” of Hunters). Perhaps it’s the result of being so sensitive to so many inputs simultaneously (“distractability”). Or the preference for auditory processing. Or maybe it’s just not having learned memory strategies as kids.
When you say to a “normal” person, “Go to the store and pick up a bottle of milk, a loaf of bread, and some orange juice, then stop at the gas station and fill up the car on the way home,” the “normal” person will create a mental picture of each of those things as they hear them described. They picture the store, the milk, the bread, the juice, and the gas station. This congruence of verbal and visual images makes for high-quality memory.
But a highly auditory ADHD person may only hear the words, without creating the mental pictures so vital to memory. They drive off to the store, repeating to themselves, “Milk, bread, juice, gas; milk, bread, juice, gas ...” until something distracts them and they lose the entire memory.
This problem with auditory processing is fairly well documented among many children with ADHD. However, the percentage of its prevalence among the general, non-ADHD population is unknown. It may be that ADHD people are only slightly more likely to have this problem, or it may be a cardinal symptom/problem.
One ADHD adult described it this way:
“I find my comprehension of long chains of words is improved, vastly, by a picture. That way my brain can directly absorb the pattern. If you un-pattern it and translate it into a linear string of words, then I’m forced to absorb the string and reconstruct the pattern.”
This may also account for the so-very-common reports from parents of ADHD children that their kids are television addicts and hate to read. Reading requires the processing of auditory information (words sounded out within the brain into internal pictures), whereas television is purely external visualization. At the residential treatment facility Louise and I ran in New Hampshire, we found it useful to remove the televisions altogether from the residences of ADHD children. After a few months, the kids began reading, and the habit persisted after the reintroduction of television.
There’s also a debate about the cause of the ADHD/auditory processing problem. One camp says that it’s the result of a hard-wiring problem in the brain, the same mis-wiring problem that’s presumed to cause other ADHD symptoms.
The other camp theorizes that converting auditory information to visual information is a learned behavior, acquired by most people about the time they become proficient with language, between ages two and five. Because ADHD people “weren’t paying attention,” they may be more likely to have simply missed out on learning this vital skill.
Since the skill of converting words to pictures can be taught to ADHD people with relative ease, the latter theory appears probable.
The visual cortex, taking up much of the back of our heads, is vastly larger than the brain regions that process words, which is probably why making pictures produces a more enduring and vivid memory than trying to memorize lists of words.
Just say to an ADHD child, “Will you please visualize that?” and watch for the characteristic movement of their eyes toward the ceiling, which usually means they’re creating an internal mental image.
If this is done each time instructions are given to an ADD child, eventually (often in a matter of weeks) the child will learn this basic skill of auditory processing and it becomes second nature.
For ADHD adults, Harry Lorayne’s Memory Book is wonderful, with its heavy emphasis on several methods to teach this skill, along with what Lorayne calls “original awareness,” which is merely a painless method of teaching yourself to pay attention.
Probably the easiest is to imaging absurd or exaggerated pictures when trying to memorize a list. A store so full of bottles of milk that they’re breaking and spilling out of the front door, with the store workers trying to soak the milk with loaves of bread, while the workers are fortifying themselves for the job by drinking giant glasses of orange juice they’re getting from the orange juice fountain that’s been added to the gas pump in front of the store.
The wild nature of the pictures makes them memorable, and if you tie each item to the one before and after it, you can quickly memorize entire lists from front to back and vice-versa.
There are lots of great memory tricks out there (again, Lorayne’s book is a gold mine) that can help both Hunter kids and adults to improve their ability to optimally function in this Farmer’s world!
Just an anecdote: I had an intention, throughout a day with several errands, to go to certain post office to mail my election ballot in advance of other this and that. Here to start with. Drat! On my way to next place, forgot the ballot mailing. Next place, going wrong direction, now I'm steaming, got to go back to Post Office. On my way to third place, I literally yelled at myself out loud! (auditory?) I did finally make it to mail my ballot, at least before final destination. Incidentally (or not) all my dreams are what I call "rat race" dreams: trying to meet someone, go somewhere, find something, can't get there.....
It's very interesting what you described about helping ADHD individuals remember information, with the thinking of pictures, particularly in unusual visual situations with those objects.
Kristine Barnett wrote an amazing book called The Spark, in which she talks about raising her autistic son, who was also a genius. Genius or not, he was still autistic having those things that limit those individuals in certain ways, such as being around others, and unable to focus a lot on linear language and numbers, unless they're dealing with them outside-the-box like in poetry or some gestalt understanding of math, which often happens.
Kristine found that many she worked with while she was supporting her son (who loved astronomy and was a genius at knowing about astronomy), she knew that he and other autistic kids needed to practice how to sit in a circle for kindergarten-type activity, and other ways of learning how to socialize.
Kristine dealt with many individuals also who came to her, with their moms, they not speaking. With her son she found that he loved ABC cards, absolutely loved them, these proving that underneath that reluctance to talk, given the right situation, he in a planetarium with college students, at three years old, knew the answer to the complex question that was asked about why a certain planet had elliptical moons instead of round. Her son, Jake, speaking very little before, said there wasn't enough gravitational pull in order to pull them into round moons. So his passion, and freedom to use his ABC cards any day, and dragging an astronomy huge book around their home, got him to speak; proved he could speak but needing that teasing to bring his speaking forth.
In the case of others who came to his mom for help, who were not speaking, they also loved ABC cards, or some particular thing. When one boy came who was 11 and was not speaking, Kristine laid out ABC cards everywhere on the floor around him. This kind of obtuse experience, visual over-simulation experience/imagining, as talked about with the ADHD individuals that you shared, she said please find a letter to begin a word ending in at. He found C for cat, H hat, and kept going, he knowing how to spell within. Very soon she asked him to watch her lips and say with her or after her, "I love you mom," and he did. So, speaking is in there, it just needs the right stimulus as did with the ADHA, the right picture to remember what to buy at the store.
Another girl loved cupcakes, so Kristine and the girl baked 300 cupcakes and frosted them and this prompted that girl, who was 12 or 13 to be able to speak. So there's something about the overstimulation or exaggeration in thought or direct experience, that helps to kick the left brain verbal abilities into activity. Thus the right brain of connection, even an inner quiet knowing, can be invited out into speaking or remembering with an over abundance of visual or imagined stimulation. kicking in the shaping ability of letters and numbers of the left brain, to bring forth and/or remember words.
Another quick example, slightly different. In the movie Patch Adams with Robin Williams, who wore a big red clown nose to lighten up the experience of patients, knew an older lady who could continue living well, but had given up on life. She loved pasta. So he had a doughboy pool filled with pasta noodles, and he and the staff got in and she was invited to join. She did, she loved it and renewed her desire to lead a vibrant life.
The mystery of life appears to be wedding exhilarating experience with the stimulated ability to remember and use words, or the with the will to live, and also because others have gone a long distance to include and recognize the abilities and passions in these individuals.
❤️