Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

by Edward M. Hallowell

telling someone with ADD to try harder is no more helpful than telling someone who is nearsighted to squint harder. It missed the biological point.

The 1990s was the decade of the brain. Science uncovered more and more evidence, from imaging studies to genetic studies to family studies, proving that ADD was a true biological entity.

Twenty-five percent of the prison population has undiagnosed ADD.

Most of the kids in the juvenile justice system have untreated ADD. Traffic accidents are eight times more common than in the general population. If you have ADD, you are 40 percent more likely to get divorced than if you don’t, and 30 percent more likely to be unemployed. Estimates run as high as 40 percent of the addicted population having ADD, and a significant proportion of the eating-disordered population.