NASET ADHD SERIES
This issue of NASET’s ADHD series comes from the Fall, 2022 edition of JAASEP. It was written by Martha L. Wise, B.A., Barbara L.Wise, Ph.D., and Sarah Jones, Ph.D. Students with ADHD are less likely to enroll in a 4-year college than their neurotypical peers. Persons with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) are characterized not only by executive function challenges but social-emotional and coping struggles. These deficits can lower resilience and cause maladaptive traits to form that lower chances of success in school. This study aimed to examine the commonalities in the personal histories of six adults with ADHD who have attained the level of post-secondary education at a four-year university. Using Seidman’s three-part interview, six successful college attendees diagnosed with ADHD in childhood were interviewed. All participants described themselves as currently thriving. The major themes that emerged from this study were Recovery from Major Life Stumble, Offbeat Pathfinding, Positive Experiences with Authority Figures/Mentors, Thriving in Leadership Positions, Advocating for Those More Vulnerable Than Themselves, and Professional Purpose & Passion. Implications are given for how findings might help educators and other professionals foster resilience and success in students with ADHD.
Beating the Odds: How Six Post-Secondary Learners Overcame Common Challenges of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Martha L. Wise BA.
Ohio University
Barbara L. Wise Ph.D.
Indiana Wesleyan University
Sarah Jones Ph.D.
Indiana Wesleyan University
Abstract
Students with ADHD are less likely to enroll in a 4-year college than their neurotypical peers. Persons with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) are characterized not only by executive function challenges but social-emotional and coping struggles. These deficits can lower resilience and cause maladaptive traits to form that lower chances of success in school. This study aimed to examine the commonalities in the personal histories of six adults with ADHD who have attained the level of post-secondary education at a four-year university. Using Seidman’s three-part interview, six successful college attendees diagnosed with ADHD in childhood were interviewed. All participants described themselves as currently thriving. The major themes that emerged from this study were Recovery from Major Life Stumble, Offbeat Pathfinding, Positive Experiences with Authority Figures/Mentors, Thriving in Leadership Positions, Advocating for Those More Vulnerable Than Themselves, and Professional Purpose & Passion. Implications are given for how findings might help educators and other professionals foster resilience and success in students with ADHD.
Keywords: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, post-secondary learners, resilience, academic persistence, qualitative interviews, coping
Beating the Odds: How Six Post-Secondary Learners Overcame Common Challenges of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Persons with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are 11 times less likely to attend a four-year university than their neurotypical peers (Kuriyan et al., 2013). Students with ADHD are often highly intelligent (Katusic et al. 2011; Costa et al., 2014), therefore the low university attendance rate is likely attributable to other factors. The literature reviewed here focuses on non-academic strengths and strategies that promote success in those with ADHD.
Maslow and a host of other educational giants have long established that social and emotional turbulence can derail otherwise promising students and cause them to disengage with school work (Gawel, 1997). Students with ADHD struggle to regulate their emotional lives and behaviors in social settings (Kristensen et al., 2014). Poor emotional repair, skill gaps, externalizing behaviors, improper stimulation, deficits in social learning, stereotype threat, and bullying have all been found to make learning in the mass education system difficult for students with ADHD (Barkley, 2015; Unnever & Cornell 2003; Wise et al., 2019). These non-academic barriers combined with difficulties in organization, focus, and impulsivity can lead to a student with ADHD giving up on school. Repeated failures can decrease resilience. Decreases in resilience cause people to be less willing to take risks, such as entering higher learning institutions (DuPaul & Langberg, 2015; Rutherford et al., 2008).
Much of the literature surrounding ADHD focuses on the failures of those with ADHD and ignores successes and accomplishments (DeWitt, 2020). Resilience, one of the most critical factors in academic success (Modesto-Lowe et al., 2011), is more likely to be promoted by a strengths-based approach than a deficit-based approach (Climie & Mastoras, 2015; Litner & Mann-Feder, 2009). Adults with ADHD have demonstrated a willingness to pay extra for strengths-based therapy. Schrevel et al. (2016) found that persons with ADHD frequently chose to forego free and insurance–covered treatment centers in favor of costly private coaching centers. When interviewed, participants explained that they preferred the strengths-based approach of the private centers to the deficits-based approach of the clinics.
One method for examining strengths is to describe the lived experiences of adults with ADHD that have successfully graduated from the school system with enough self-confidence and resiliency to attempt the college experience. Only a handful of studies have examined the lived experiences of adult learners with ADHD. Of these, many focus primarily on the deficits experienced by those with ADHD, such as core symptomatology and well-documented struggles in social, emotional, and academic domains (Driggers, 2013; Johnston, 2013; Lux, 2016).
Several studies have interviewed young adults about their successes in higher education. McKeague et al. (2015) found that college students with ADHD overcame their internalized self-stigma by embracing being “strange” and seeking out others considered strange. Gallo et al. (2014) interviewed college students with ADHD about how the K-12 education system prepared them for college. Participants reported that authority figure support was critical. They described the importance of becoming self-advocates. They also chose classes that had high levels of social learning, group work, and hands-on learning. Shattell et al. (2008) interviewed college students with ADHD about their childhood school experiences. Participants identified that their parents were very academically supportive, which helped offset some of the academic negatives associated with ADHD. These students talked about how it was easier to manage their ADHD symptoms once they had names for the phenomenon they were observing in their lives. Key strategies they used included extended time on tests, reduced distractions, typing instead of hand–writing, rewriting notes at home, and recording lectures so they could relisten to them repeatedly. Given how few qualitative studies have focused on the strengths of students with ADHD, further examination of school-related successes may yield generalizable strategies.
This study aimed to examine the lived experiences of adults with ADHD who have participated in post-secondary education, with an emphasis on success strategies and growth experiences. Since topics relating to core symptomology of ADHD are extensively covered elsewhere (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Barkley, 2015; Emmers et al., 2017), this study did not focus on well-established common ADHD experiences, such as attentional and organizational struggles. The study is focused on the strengths, strategies, and experiences not extensively explored in previous literature.
Methods
A qualitative method was chosen for this study because it allows for those with ADHD to present their own views and experiences, assign them meaning, and produce new insights (Yin, 2011). Six participants were recruited using snowball sampling, which provided the opportunity to identify subjects with different approaches to overcoming challenges and achieving success. They were interviewed using Seidman’s three-part interview technique (Seidman, 2006). Recruitment began with individuals personally familiar to the Principle Investigator (P.I.), who has ADHD herself. Inclusion criteria were: at least 18 years of age, having had ADHD symptoms before the age of 12, having a formal ADHD diagnosis, having attended a four-year university and either in the process of completing that degree, had completed a degree, or previously attended college and now having full-time employment in a competitive field. Participants had to perceive themselves as successful and have at least one future career ambition. Interviews took place in private settings convenient to the researcher and subject; some were in-person, and some were by zoom or skype.
This process resulted in two male and four female participants, four of whom were interviewed during their undergraduate program, while two were several years into their careers. All participants came from two–parent middle-class families and were majority white. All but one had at least one college-educated parent.
Table 1
Participant characteristics
Nickname Selected by Participant |
Age Range |
Gender |
Time of ADHD Diagnosis |
ADHD Med-ication use in college |
Point in education at the time of interview |
Field of Study/Work |
Garku |
18-21 |
M |
elementary school |
yes |
Final Semester in College |
Education |
Zoat |
22-30 |
M |
high school |
partial |
Early Career |
Pastor |
Lillyandrea |
18-21 |
F |
elementary school |
yes |
Freshman |
Undeclared |
Dibby |
18-21 |
F |
middle school |
yes |
Senior |
Education/ ESL |
Inya |
22-30 |
F |
elementary school |
partial |
Early Career |
Computer Science |
Falcanna |
>30 |
F |
college |
yes, once diagnosed |
Post Doctorate, Middle Career |
Nursing |
The study was approved by the university IRB. After obtaining signed consent, the lead investigator interviewed each participant on video for three 90-minute sessions separated by at least a week, following Seidman’s interview method. These interviews were transcribed and coded for themes between interviews using Five Phase Inductive Coding (Seidman, 2006). A final 30-minute session served as a member check and debriefing session with each of the participants. To protect confidentiality, identifying information was removed from the results, and participants were allowed to choose a fictitious name used to discuss their themes.
Iterative inductive analysis was used to identify themes and categories. Only those themes that were common across the narratives of at least three participants are reported.
Initial interview prompts were:
- How did you become a college student?
- What particular difficulties and successes did you encounter after you entered college?
- Do you still struggle with any of the challenges you mentioned?
- Are there any you feel you have conquered?
- What is/was your social-emotional life like during college?
- Can you describe to me some of the strategies you (would) use to help yourself through a difficult time?
- What strategies do you feel you lean(ed) on the most?
- What does it mean to you to have attended college?
- Given what you have said about your experiences, how do you feel about your time in school?
Results
Table 2:
Summary of major themes and Implications
Theme |
Examples |
Implications for Educators |
Recovery from Major Life Stumble: participants with this theme all overcame a trial that threatened their ability to function optimally. |
Falcanna discovered she was under-prepared at her dream job; she found creative ways to catch up and succeed. |
Focusing on developing strengths during difficulties may help those with ADHD find a way forward after life stumbles. |
Offbeat pathfinding: those with ADHD often have to find unusual paths to success. |
Garku found that if he sped up the speed of audiobooks, he could concentrate better and learn the material. |
Those with ADHD may benefit from looking for an unusual way to complete requirements. Adding challenges or creativity to a task might place it in the zone of optimal stimulation for a learner. |
Mental Breaks: participants sometimes had their minds go blank intentional and unintentional during times of acute stress. |
Lillyandra explained, “I shut down the thinking portions of my brain and just…take a mental nap…My brain never stops moving. My body never stops moving. So those times when I just don’t move…when I get those precious moments of nothing, I actually get rejuvenated.” |
Students with ADHD may benefit from finding ways to constructively take mental breaks instead of having mental breaks inflicted upon them. Zoning out may have meditative effects if appropriately utilized. |
Reframing: participants often found ways of recontextualizing their work so that it better sustained their interest. |
Zoat only began enjoying basketball once he began to think of blocking as a psychological game. |
Students with ADHD might be able to find ways of reframing their school work so that it is more engaging to them |
Influential Authority Figures: Fathers and mentors saw beyond the participant’s limitations and helped them grow in their strengths. |
Falnanna’s talent for teaching only blossomed into a career because a mentor persistently pestered her about it for years. |
Educators working with youth ADHD might find success focusing on encouraging the youth’s using their strengths, particularly as a way for them to overcome their weaknesses.
|
Thriving in Leadership Roles: Some participants came to leadership by appointment, some became leaders because others followed them as they worked to improve themselves, but all participants that were leaders thrived in that role. |
Zoat was the speaking captain for his high school basketball team, a manager at a restaurant, and then a pastor. Dibby became a flag captain despite her weak flag skills because she helped the other weak flag team members improve. |
Leadership can be a place for those with ADHD to thrive if allowed to come into it naturally. Sometimes leadership roles can help people with ADHD find their ‘calling.’ Those with ADHD who work to improve themselves might naturally attract peers looking to better themselves in those same areas. |
Advocating for Those More Vulnerable Than Themselves: participants found themselves standing up for and trying to promote the interests of the vulnerable. |
Garku stopped his friends from bullying a special needs peer. Falcanna became a regional advocate for toddlers with obesity. |
Advocating for others may be beneficial to the personal growth of those with ADHD, particularly when it comes to finding a career path. Students with ADHD might benefit from having service opportunities in the school or classroom. |
Professional Purpose & Passion: participants chose professions that let them pursue both their passions and their ideals. |
Zoat left his job as a restaurant manager because he realized he valued people more than he valued making a bigger profit.
|
When selecting their future profession, students with ADHD may find the most reward in pursuing a path that overlaps with at least one of their interests and deeply held ideals. |
Out of 233 themes identified, 14 met the minimum standard of applying to 3 out of the 6 participants. These 14 were sorted into major and minor themes. Five minor themes were then eliminated for having no pertinence to a major theme or the personal growth of the participants. This left five major themes (Recovery from Major Life Crisis, Offbeat Pathfinding, Influential Authority Figures, Thriving in A Leadership Position, Advocating for Those More Vulnerable Than Themselves, and Professional Purpose & Passion) and four minor or subthemes, Mental Breaks, Reframing Tasks, Positive Paternal Experiences, and Memorable Mentor Experiences).
Recovery from Life Stumbles
In addition to the typical ADHD struggles with inattention and impulsivity, five out of six participants described significant stumbles in their lives—times when it looked like they were going to be permanently off the pathway to self-defined success, but instead they found their footing and kept moving forward toward their goals. These stumbles were severe enough to threaten their ability to persist in school. Triggering experiences ranged from traumatizing cross country moves in childhood to college suicide attempts.
Zoat’s initial stumble began with experiencing culture shock when his family moved from the west coast to a small town in Middle America when he was in sixth grade. His post-move challenges were primarily social. Before the move, Zoat recalled that he was not much different from his typical peers before the move, but after the move, “I found myself in a culture of bullying. I thought, ‘if I’m going to assimilate into this culture, I have to speak their language and they speak basketball; I don’t yet’.” Initially, he was bullied after joining the school basketball team. “I was willing to put up with just enough ridicule to survive.” He found that basketball provided social acceptance and an outlet for his frustrations throughout middle and high school.
Despite erratic grades, Zoat was admitted into university due to high SAT scores. Zoat was not diagnosed with ADHD until his senior year in high school; he started on medications the summer before college. In college, Zoat struggled. He changed majors several times. He became very involved in extracurricular activities, writing skits, performing stand-up comedy, creating comic books, and working part-time. “On medications, my grades were SO much better, but I didn’t feel like myself, and I couldn’t just let my mind wander and write a story. I was terrible at creative writing on the meds.” He stopped the medications sophomore year: “I loved feeling creatively complete again.” His grades subsequently fell below the level to participate in his extracurriculars. He left college because he found it so miserable to do homework off the medications but could not live with how he felt on them.
Despite not finishing his degree, Zoat has twice achieved the level of success hoped for by many college graduates: decently paid jobs in their field of choice. Zoat became manager at a top store within his favorite restaurant chain. He left that position to acquire his dream job as the young adult pastor for a large church, a church serving a university with a robust seminary. In this position, he frequently mentors ministry students pursuing a degree to work in a position such as his, despite not having completed a degree himself. Zoat feels he is currently leading his dream life; he loves his work, loves his wife and little boy, and loves that he can provide for them while serving his God full time.
Dibby also had a traumatizing move from the west coast to middle America. “[Moving] was actually a major upheaval for me….once we moved, I started really struggling with classwork,” with increasing manifestations of ADHD and dyslexia symptoms. Dibby also reported significant social difficulties post-move. “I felt like everybody else had the [social] rulebook and they forgot to give me mine.” Dibby expressed dissatisfaction with most of the friends she made after the move, describing many of them as talking down to her or influencing her to begin self-harming.
She was diagnosed with ADHD in middle school, and her academics improved after starting on medications, but her social and emotional struggles continued to worsen throughout middle and high school. She self-harmed (cutting) as a way of asserting a form of control in her life.
“I believe that almost anything/everything we do links back to a need for control. I didn’t really feel like there was any way I could change my situation. I couldn’t make myself better.”
Both ADHD and anxiety contributed to this feeling of being out of control.
In college, feelings of social isolation and lack of control culminated in a depression that led to a suicide attempt during finals week of her freshman year. At the last moment, she phoned the hospital, who pumped her stomach. She took a leave of absence from college for a year and began psychiatric treatment and counseling. After a year of therapy, medications, self-improvement, and working with her mother at a preschool for children from vulnerable populations, she felt comfortable re-entering college and successfully obtained her degree.
Garku, a self-described “narcissist with self-esteem issues,” experienced a crisis of self-confidence that almost caused him to drop out of college. He had struggled with writing as a child with dyslexia but learned to love storytelling and then fiction writing as a means of fulfilling his creative leanings. However, his history with ADHD and dyslexia made him fear he would not be able to compete academically in college. He compensated for these deficits until his junior year of college, when he received subpar grades in his major classes. “I had been trying to compete against readers and writers without being able to effectively read anything.” Instead of dropping out, he switched majors for a term, going from pursuing an English teaching degree to pursuing a Spanish teaching degree. His self-declared talent for foreign languages fell short when more formal readings were assigned, leading to further subpar grades. The workarounds he developed for his “Teaching Shakespeare” class rekindled his self-confidence as well as his passion for teaching and literature. This passion motivated him to finish his original degree and graduate with honors.
Inya‘s personal crisis caused both her worldview and her ambitions to change. She was first runner-up in the selection process for West Point, a goal she had been working toward since 7th grade. After failing to be admitted to West Point, and a series of family losses, she became disillusioned with the military, lost her faith in God, and became a computer science major at a local university instead of reapplying to West Point. She described this time in her life as the point when she chose to dedicate herself to the pursuit of logic.
Falcanna’s major life stumble came after she obtained an Associate’s Degree and began her dream job. From the age of six, she had wanted to work in one exact place in one exact department. When she got the job, she discovered she was severely undertrained and that there was a culture of bullying that stigmatized asking for help. Underperforming and feeling unable to ask for help, Falcanna was on the verge of quitting her dream job. The turning point came when she decided, “You can bowl right over me 99% of the time, but this job was important to me. And once I set my mind on something, that’s it. I can’t be moved.” Falcanna was able to find atypical methods for catching up and eventually excelled at her job.Since sheunderstood from experience which areas could confuse newcomers, new employees thrived under her tutelage when she conducted orientations. She was soon placed in charge of orienting all new staff, including interning college students. She so excelled at this role that a supervising professor encouraged her to obtain further education and join the faculty. Falcanna eventually went on to obtain bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees.
Four out of the six participants found atypical ways of circumnavigating a barrier in their life. After being incredibly bored by the bi-weekly assemblies at his school, Zoat asked a school administrator if he and his friends could incorporate skits to liven them up. Dibby turned an essay about her personal history into a rhyming poem that still met the word count requirements. Faced with failing grades in geometry, Zoat took a geometry correspondence course and earned an ‘A.’ Lilly independently located supplemental computer software to help her improve her geometry grade.
When Garku struggled with reading, he began using audiobooks for assigned reading. When the narratives would start to bore him, he would speed up the tempo of the audio playback. He found that his hyperactive mind would adjust to the increased speed and begin hearing the words as if they were spoken at a typical pace. This made the text more engaging to him.
When Falcanna tried to overcome her inadequate training at her dream job, she adopted some unusual improvement strategies. She purchased and studied doctoral-level textbooks on job-related topics. She surreptitiously followed around new employee orientations to get the information about workplace-specific procedures she had not been told or absorbed during her own orientation.
Mental Breaks
Three participants reported that they utilized a technique we refer to as ‘mental breaks’ to recover during or after periods of high stress. Lillyandeara describes this state as “mental naps”, which are primarily voluntary for her: “I shut down the thinking portions of my brain and just…take a mental nap.”When explaining the purpose of mental breaks, Lillyandeara said, “My brain never stops moving. My body never stops moving. So those times when I just don’t move….when I get those precious moments of nothing, I actually get rejuvenated.” After a taxing day with people, the introverted Falcanna will sometimes “just sit and look at the walls for an hour at least, before I can even read a book.” So for Falcanna, the breaks are rejuvenating but not always voluntary.
Garku described a complex relationship with mental breaks. Initially, he described them as voluntary, a time “to de-stress and get away from all the expectations that people have for you.” Later, however, he stated, “It’s not downtime: it’s forced downtime—its meltdown. It’s like I cannot continue any further.”
When asked what he did during these mental breaks, he replied, “self-reflection,” quickly followed by “nothing, absolutely nothing”. The duration of the breaks varied significantly. In one sentence, he stated that he was just “taking a moment” but later described that the breaks could “go on for days and days”. He talked about taking all day on Saturdays “to do nothing, absolutely nothing”.
The effect of mental breaks on Garku’s self-esteem varied as well. At the end of his interview, he explained, “If I am ever really happy with myself, it’s because I am taking Saturdays off.” Nevertheless, he described his mental breaks as, “My brain, my body, my will, my spirit, all of what I am will not let me continue–I just crash.” He reports that at the tail end of his breaks, “I feel like a failure, how can I not after I have just crashed and burned?”
He described the mental breaks as having contrasting effects on his efficiency. On the one hand, they help him feel refreshed. On the other hand, the high opportunity cost of giving up doing creative things in order to do nothing on days off was not sustainable for him in the long term.
“While I might be getting done the stuff that other people want me to do because I am taking a day every week to de-stress, [which then makes me] ready on Monday to do what people want me to do again, I am not doing the stuff that I want to do [writing stories, drawing, recording videos], so that eventually burns [me] out too.”
Despite him identifying taking a mental break as one of his primary strategies for coping with depressive moods, extended mental breaks frequently incited negative self-attribution, which lead to more depressive moods–a problem he struggled with chronically.
“Having all that pressure put on me to do stuff that other people want me to do, combined with not getting done that stuff that I want to get done, usually just makes me shut down. I’ll just… take [some time] and just collapse and get sad about life for a day or two, and put off all the stuff that other people want me to do. After a while I’ll be ready to do it again, and then the cycle will repeat.”
He explained that he typically extracted himself from this cycle by procrastinating until deadlines forced him into action.
Reframing
Three of the six participants had a habit in their lives of reframing tasks to make them more interesting by adding elements of creativity or finding a new way of looking at the assignment. Dibby frequently reframed her assignments as exciting and creative by injecting additional elements of creativity or excellence in her assignments. “Usually, if I had approached something creatively, I was proud of it,” she explained. When she was proud of her work, she would be less self-conscious and more tenacious. Lillyandeara reframed difficult-to-remember Spanish conjugations as humorous visuals or puns to aid her recall, making the learning process, if not actually fun, “at least not terrible”. Zoat thrived when he was able to find a unique angle on an activity. When he first joined the basketball team, he was a weak sportsman who had lots of trouble getting his head around the game’s minutiae. Basketball finally clicked for him once he began seeing the psychological side of basketball. “I can trick people [when blocking a shot, feinting, etc.]… I realized that I can be in people’s heads! And there is a crowd here [for me to perform for]. Ooooooh!” This reframing helped him be a better ball-player and enjoy the game more. “It [was] my sincerest delight when someone wanted to take their shot, for me to disagree with them enough to send them packing [mimics blocking a basketball going into the hoop].” Despite being “terrible at scoring, I had more blocked shots than probably anybody in my school history.”
Influential Authority Figures
Positive Paternal Experiences
The same three participants who had strong experiences reframing tasks, Zoat, Lillyandeara, and Dibby, specified that their fathers contributed significantly to their academic success. For two of those participants, Lillyandeara and Dibby, their fathers played a role in helping them to reframe those tasks. Lillyandeara’s father is the one who introduced her to using puns as a fun memory aid. Dibby’s father was her role model and partner in spicing up her assignments.
Zoat cites his father as one of the most notable reasons he did so well in the geometry correspondence course. He helped his son use billiards to understand geometry. He also understood his son’s learning rhythms.
“My dad knows how to communicate with me better than anyone. [He’d] go ‘hey bud, this is what we have to do now’ and dial me in. He knew when I needed breaks. He knew when I needed to, you know, really go at it. He knew when I needed to go decompress.”
Zoat’s father identified effective decompression strategies for him to utilize, such as beating up an inflatable punching bag. “It was my way of having an outlet where I could essentially subdue the environment around me.”
Memorable Mentor Experiences
Three out of six participants had mentors in their lives who took the time to see their potential and draw out the best in them. For Lillyandeara, it was a teacher who figured out that her deteriorating attitude and performance were related to grieving for her grandfather, who had recently died. He gave her space to talk about him and process her grief, which helped her refocus.
Zoat’s high school basketball coach was an important mentor who helped Zoat come into his own while playing basketball. “He was someone that always sincerely wanted to figure out how to get the best out of you.” During a game where Zoat was committing more fouls than usual, his coach asked what was going on. Zoat responded, “I just want to be creative. I don’t know how to do that [on the basketball court]. I’m just letting off steam right now.” The coach responded by encouraging him to “go make something up,” i.e., be creative on the court. Zoat promptly came up with a new move to fake out his opponent. The coach “called out ‘that was creative!’; he literally he used my word!” Zoat’s coach also recognized his ability to speak for the team to the referees and made him a team captain, despite being the lowest scorer for his team.
Falcanna had a professor notice her budding talent for teaching students and encouraged her to go back to school so she could utilize this talent to become a college instructor.
“I think it took her probably two or three years to push me into it. [After a while], I thought, ‘maybe I am good at something’. That was an aha moment for me: having other people see strengths in me was major for me.”
Thanks to this encouragement, Falcanna went back to college to earn the required degrees to teach. Eventually, she became the first master’s prepared professional in her specialty in her home state. All three participants had their mentor help them transition out of a bad time in their life: Zoat from his post-move social slump, Falcanna from her job bullying, and Lillyandeara from her grandfather’s passing.
Leadership
Another theme that emerged was participants thriving in leadership positions inside and outside of work environments.
Outside of Work Environments
All but two of the participants reported taking on leadership positions outside of work situations. Inya earned a leadership position in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) in her high school through hard work and enthusiastic adherence to the exacting requirements of the organization. Post-college, she became the head organizer for a community of 90 hobby enthusiasts. Although he never held an official leadership position, Garku had a penchant for organizing his friends into group activities, such as producing videos together and trying to influence their behavior positively. Dibby became a leader in her high school flag team when her own lackluster skills motivated her to stay behind after practices to do extra exercises. Other mediocre performers saw her dedication and began following Dibby’s routines. Zoat was named speaking captain of his basketball team. He attributes his success in leadership to honing his natural ability to read people—a skill that served him well when he became a manager, and later, a pastor.
Inside Work Environments
All but two of the six participants chose to pursue professions centered on leading others or became a leader in their profession. Zoat spent time as both a manager directing employees and as a young adult pastor leading college students. As teachers, Garku and Dibby will be in charge of directing the actions of students and classroom aids. Falcanna’s first leadership position came about in her first job when she was placed in charge of orienting new staff. Her second leadership position was as a manager of a small clinic. As a university faculty member, she has routinely held further leadership positions inside and outside her department. One of her most significant leadership roles was as a trailblazing advocate for treatment centers for toddlers with obesity.
Advocacy
Four out of the six participants reported that they had a formative experience advocating for the well-being of others. All four identified that their role as an advocate contributed to their career selection. Garku advocated for a special needs child bullied by his friends and later volunteered with peers with special needs, both of which contributed to his pursuit of a career in education. Falcanna identified and then advocated for treatment for obese toddlers who developed diabetes. Whenever Zoat saw that one of his employees was struggling, he would advocate for them with the owner. When Zoat realized there were needs that he could not meet as a restaurant manager, he became an ordained minister instead.
Dibby describes how she advocated for teachers to be more culturally and linguistically inclusive when communicating with Spanish-speaking preschool children and their families while volunteering/working at an inner-city preschool that served lower-income families. “I made it my mission to put in that extra step between like English immersion and Spanish bilingualism”. In high school, she gave up her study hall, a rare opportunity to be in the same classroom as her circle of friends, to volunteer in the special needs classroom. That experience was instrumental in her choosing to major in education. “I guess it’s probably a pattern. It’s just like..seeing people who needed help [and helping them]”.
Professional Purpose & Passion
Four of the six participants spoke about their professions with passion and described their chosen profession as having a higher-order significance. These participants drew a connection between their profession and their pursuit of the force they feel rightly governs the universe.
Passionate Interest
While all participants (except for Lillandrea, who had not decided on a major) spoke passionately about their chosen professional path, three participants directly demonstrated their passion by performing tasks associated with that profession without training or prompting. Garku, for example, made entertaining, educational videos in his free time, even before he decided to be a teacher. Zoat pastored his employees before he was a professional pastor. While Dibby was at home recovering from crippling anxiety and depression, she began to notice that English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students in the preschool where she volunteered were not receiving culturally-linguistically appropriate teaching practices. She took it upon herself to act as a makeshift ESL teacher by learning Spanish, bringing in culturally appropriate texts, and increasing the number of diverse representations in classroom media and objects. Upon returning to college, she switched to an ESL-early childhood education double major.
Connection to Causal Forces
Four participants described a connection between their professional pursuits and the higher power they feel governs the universe. They also described how that connection influenced their personal code of conduct. Inya, for example, believes that the world runs on logic. Inya stated, “I am obsessed with finding the unbiased truth behind things, whatever that truth may be.” She seeks the truth through scientific logic and strives to be logical in all avenues of her life. She stated she found her job in Information Technology fulfilling because coding is intimately connected with pure logic. Inya also claimed that one of the biggest reasons she did not join the military is that she learned about military practices that she could not logically justify.
Zoat claimed that obedience to his God and biblical ideals drives much of his decision-making, including which profession he pursued. Initially, Zoat loved his work as a restaurant manager. He had a passion for food and even rose to a leadership position. He found ways to serve his God while working there, such as nurturing new employees and pursuing ethical business practices. However, these opportunities for “ministry”, as Zoat called them, proved inadequate in the long run to fulfill his desire to care for troubled individuals. This gap was driven home for him when the business’s priorities conflicted with the Christian God’s mandate to help struggling people. Zoat was advocating for Danny, a struggling employee who was an impoverished single father.
“The owner of the restaurant called me in one day and he goes ‘Hey, you’re going to need to let Danny go’. I said ‘Hey listen, I know that he’s exceeded his warnings, I get that. But this is my ministry to Danny! He’s going to be okay: he’s coming to church, we’re working on getting some counseling for him…and he’s in a [tough place], and we need to be conscientious of that spot. And the owner goes, ‘I know, but right now he’s just not functioning well— he’s not. He’s late. He’s been late more than enough. We’re setting a bad example for the others’. And I just kept insisting, ‘I get it, but I know what Danny needs– and right now, for me, this is about Danny! And the owner says, ‘well–sometimes it just has to be about the chicken’.”
The insight that, unlike himself, private enterprise cared more about products than people–led him to leave that job. Shortly after that, he became a full-time young adult pastor. He reported that this made him much happier and more satisfied in his work.
Dibby felt called by her God to serve marginalized children. Garku also believed in the Christian deity and reported that being an educator will be an act of service to his God.
Discussion
Recovery from Major Life Stumble
All of our participants demonstrated an admirable resiliency in the face of hardship. They all overcame some significant setback that might have completely derailed other individuals into long-term unemployment, drug use, or unwanted pregnancy (Clayborne, 2019; Mahon & Yarcheski, 2001). They did not all arrive at success without detours or stumbles, but they all reported feeling personally successful.
Each participant reported themselves as happier with the person they are now than the person they were before they experienced their various life crises. Inya, for example, claims, “I find it hard to even get in the head of the person I was back then…I like the way I am now”. They each perceived themselves as successful at the time of the interview. Self-reporting success despite setbacks is an important indicator of self-efficacy and persistence associated with enhanced success (Barling & Beattie, 1983; Sadri & Robertson, 1993).
In college students with ADHD, overconfidence (positive illusory bias) has sometimes been reported (Prevatt et al., 2012). Since this study’s data collection is based entirely on self-reporting, there is a possibility that participants’ success is merely an example of positive illusory bias rather than genuine self-actualization. However, in the case of our particular participants, their self-defined success appears grounded in tangible career success and/or academic success.
Offbeat Pathfinding
An effective set of coping techniques is one of the keys to college success among those with ADHD (Sedgwick, 2018). However, students with ADHD often lack coping flexibility (Babb et al., 2010). Since five of our six college attendees employed creative coping strategies, this may indicate that one of the hallmarks of a successful person with ADHD is the ability to find creative workarounds. Other studies have also described their participants with ADHD finding unusual ways to turn their weaknesses into strengths. For example, one study found that students with ADHD used the ‘stress of procrastination’– typically a negative influence –as a motivator (Kaminski et al., 2006; Cerino, 2014; Rice et al., 2012).
The theory of optimal stimulation suggests that boredom results from disengagement due to a stimulus either not being stimulating enough or being too stimulating to properly process (Leuba, 1955). Those with ADHD are particularly prone to seek additional stimulation when activities are not stimulating enough (Zentall, 1975). Garku, Dibby, and Zoat all found ways to keep themselves engaged with mandatory activities by increasing the amount of stimulation they were getting from that activity. Dibby added complexity, Zoat added creativity, and Garku sped up his audiobooks. Speeding up the audiobooks to match his cognitive tempo is consistent with research about optimal stimulation (Antrop et al., 2000).
Falcanna’s solution to lacking training was similarly innovative. Not only did following the interns allow her to gain much-needed information, but it also allowed her to bypass the stigma associated with help-seeking behavior. Navigating stigma is a significant obstacle for students with ADHD and not always one they are well equipped for (Hoza, 2007).
Mental Breaks
At first glance, the mental breaks described by participants appear to be akin to meditative emptiness, a strategy sometimes recommended for those with ADHD (Mitchell et al., 2017; Zylowska et al., 2008). It is also possible that these mental breaks are the acute stress response “Freeze”. Freeze is the highest level of the automatic systems’ fight-flight-freeze trio, triggered by stress (Aidman & Kollaras-Mitsinikos, 2006; Schmidt et al., 2008). Given that those with ADHD are more likely than their typical peers to experience flight-fight-freeze, it would be unsurprising if participants experienced bouts of freeze (Beauchaine et al., 2013; Morris et al., 2020; Musser et al., 2011; Pang & Beauchaine, 2013). A third related possibility is that the mental breaks are an overcorrection that occurs when downregulating the mental/physiologic stress response. Instead of being frozen with fear, they are stuck in neutral. Since students with ADHD struggle with self-regulation, it may be more difficult for them to leave this neutral state than their typical peers (Barkley, 2011). Maladaptive mental breaks could be overcorrections, where the person gets stuck in neutral gear, accidentally undermining effortful control (Martel & Nigg, 2006). However, these hypotheses are less likely because participants have identified instances where they deliberately invoke this tool. A few even describe it as a natural reaction to stress.
A key question then becomes: Are the mental breaks beneficial coping strategies or non-productive time-suckers undermining success? Both may be true. Maladaptive breaks seemed to be longer for some participants, lasting for hours/days instead of short bursts. Excessive negative intrusive thoughts during these breaks caused self-efficacy to diminish. Choosing to take a break seems to have been a more positive experience than waiting until they had no choice but to take a break.
Creative Reframing
Reframing has been well established as a beneficial method of coping (Lambert et al., 2009; Moore et al., 2010; Scheier et al., 2001). Studies have demonstrated that Adults with ADHD are better than their typical peers at divergent creative thinking, a type of thinking known to promote finding multiple solutions to a problem (Acar & Runco, 2019; White & Shah, 2006). Participants described achieving success and a sense of pride when they developed a new paradigm through reframing. They often went on to excel in the area they reframed. Research suggests this may be because of the increased sense of investment and ownership that customizing something often bestows (Lengnick-Hall & Sanders, 1997; Williams & Williams, 2011). Students with ADHD often struggle to maintain engagement, and one way to effectively increase engagement is to increase the student’s sense of ownership over schoolwork (Junod et al., 2006; Lengnick-Hall and Sanders, 1997; Williams, & Williams, 2011). An increased sense of ownership overactivity has been shown to yield better results (Stefanou et al., 2004).
Influential Authority Figures
Four of our participants described authority figures, such as teachers and coaches, not only bonding with them on a personal level but also taking the time to see beyond their limitations. These authority figures encouraged participants to embrace and enhance what made them unique and strong. Past research has found that students with ADHD often experience conflict with authority figures, such as teachers (Kos et al., 2006). However, Gallo et al. (2014) and Shattell et al. (2008) found that authority figure support was critical to academic success among their participants.
A large body of research has demonstrated that parental influence is a significant predictor of achievement (Gordon, 2016; Latimer et al., 2003; Primack et al., 2012; Rogers et al., 2009; Shelleby& Ogg, 2020). Three participants talked about specifically their fathers supporting them academically. These findings differ from Rogers et al. (2009), who found that fathers of children with ADHD are less likely to be involved with their child’s academics than the fathers of neurotypical children, and from Chang et al. (2013)–who found that students with ADHD were more likely to have harsh experiences with their fathers. All but one of our participants discussed their fathers positively.
Our results are in keeping with research findings on the benefits of mentors for students with ADHD (Anastopoulos & King, 2015; Glomb et al., 2016). Lillyandeara’s positive experience with her teacher helping her talk about her grief reflects educational best practice by looking at students’ behaviors holistically (Armstrong, 1999). Zoat’s coach and Falcanna’s mentor saw strengths beyond their weaknesses. Falcanna‘s mentor saw beyond her associates’ degree and spotted someone who had excellent teaching abilities. Zoat’s coach took the time to learn that beyond his poor shooting skillswas a creative basketball player, skilled at the mental part of the game. These are revelations the participants might never have had on their own. The benefit of a strengths-based approach in working with those with ADHD is a common theme among ADHD advocates (Climie & Mastoras, 2015).
There are very few academic articles on the subject of ADHD and leadership. Five of the six participants in this study described times in their lives when they thrived in a leadership role. These findings are counter to three previous studies that reported that secondary characteristicsof ADHD, such as hands-off management styles, erratic organization, and struggles resolving peer conflict, obstructed effective leadership (Calleja-Pérez, & Muñoz-Jareño, 2011; Carleton & Barling, 2018; Realmuto, 2004).
There is no previous literature about trends involving persons with ADHD advocating for vulnerable populations to the researchers’ knowledge. The presence of prosocial goals, such as advocating for others, among these participants with ADHD is in keeping with research about prosocial goals contributing to greater life happiness (Aknin et al., 2013; Weiss et al., 1971). The participants with this theme showed a heightened sensitivity to vulnerable populations and their needs. By contrast, other research has suggested that those with ADHD are less likely to be socially observant than their typical peers (Gardner & Gerdes, 2015; Uekermann et al., 2010).
Three of the four participants with this theme linked an instance of advocacy directly to an epiphany about their Professional Purpose & Passion.
Professional Purpose & Passion
Participants expressing this theme reported frequently finding satisfaction in their work. It is widely accepted that a sense of purpose increases work satisfaction (Hill et al., 2018). Four of six participants described that their career was, at least in part, an expression of their commitment to following a life- purpose-related goal.
Another variable often reported to increase work satisfaction is having a passion for the job or field. Jachimowicz et al. (2018), in their meta-analysis of 29 studies, found that grit (resilience) without passion did not improve performance. Since those with ADHD typically have lower resilience than neurotypical peers (Dvorsky & Langberg, 2016), passion may be even more critical for them than for their typical peers. Our participant’s passion for their field coupled with their success agrees with these findings. If you follow your passions, you are more likely to find a satisfying career’ is standard advice given to young people (Lajom et al., 2018).
Five of the six participants reported that their passion for serving their causal force enhanced their passion related to their field, possibly by giving their work an additional sense of purpose. An enhanced sense of purpose may have made work more rewarding, a valuable boon for those with ADHD since ADHD brains often have a malfunctioning internal reward system (Volkow, 2011; Weston et al., 2020). These findings align with theories about work satisfaction and longevity increasing with workplace passions and rewards (Savickas, 2008).
Intersection between Advocacy, Leadership, and Profession
For three of the four participants, the themes of Advocacy, Leadership and/or Professional Purpose & Passion were inextricably intertwined. For example, in Dibby’s case, she was awakened to her Professional Purpose & Passion because of her experience advocating for Spanish-speaking families in the preschool, but it had nothing to do with her leadership time as a flag squad captain. Her themes of Advocacy and Professional Purpose & Passion are connected, but not her Leadership theme. Garku’s themes of Leadership and Advocacy overlapped when he took leadership over his friend group to stop them from picking on a student with disabilities. Falcanna’s Leadership and Advocacy have a circular relationship during significant portions of her professional career. If she had not been the supervisor at a clinic, she would not have been in a position to notice the toddler obesity problem, for which she eventually became a leading advocate. Her leadership gave her opportunities to advocate, and while advocating she became a leader of advocates. Zoat has a similar connection between Leadership, Advocacy, and Professional Purpose & Passion. His first instance of advocacy was speaking to officials on behalf of his team during basketball disputes when he was the speaking captain in high school. He was appointed a leader because he showed he would make a good advocate. Later on, as a workplace manager, he had opportunities to advocate for disenfranchised employees like Danny. These experiences caused him to realize that his true Professional Purpose & Passion was as a pastor, i.e., a professional leader and advocate.
The interconnection of Advocacy and Professional Purpose & Passion is in keeping with previous research that discusses that prosocial life goals contribute to higher life satisfaction (Bronk & Finch, 2010; Mariano & Vaillant, 2012). Bradley-Levine (2018) reviewed the connection between advocacy and leadership; she theorized that, pedagogically speaking, advocacy is a practice of leadership. No research was found that connected the intersection of these three elements with ADHD and academic success.
Limitations
The small number of participants and limited economic and cultural diversity of the participants limit the generalizability of the study. As a qualitative study, causality cannot be demonstrated, only hypothesized.
Implications for Future Research and Practice
Since this study investigated only those persons with ADHD who self-reported academic and/or career success, future research could compare the lived experiences of those students with ADHD who did not experience success. A longitudinal follow-up of adults with ADHD who are successful would also be beneficial.
One implication for practice is that focusing on the strengths rather than the deficits of those with ADHD may help them persevere. There was a pattern of “turning weaknesses into strengths” in this study. Specific participant experiences suggest specific ways to do that. Falcanna learned the skills she would need to be a good teacher while overcoming her initial knowledge gaps; one way to apply this in the classroom could be to offer students previously weak in an area opportunities to tutor younger students in that area. Dibby inspired diligence in others by her own persistence; students with ADHD might benefit from having their slowness on an assignment publicly recontextualized as triumphant persistence. Zoat consciously chose to focus on his skill in blocking rather than his weakness in making baskets; educators can coach students with ADHD to find nodes of talent within a network of struggles. Garku’s love of storytelling inspired him to become a language arts teacher, despite his vocabulary and spelling weaknesses. Educators may be able to inspire similar persistence in their students by habitually engaging their student’s creativity. Engaging the student’s creativity in an assignment may also increase how stimulating the activity is–pushing the student toward their zone of optimal stimulation. Many participants creatively increased their engagement with learning in problem areas; educators may find it beneficial to foster creative problem-solving skills in their students with ADHD. Research is needed on effective strategies to encourage students with ADHD to generate and use those creative solutions. Research is also needed to verify if specific strategies used by participants to increase their stimulation, such as Garku speeding up the audiobooks, can be generalized for use by other students with ADHD.
The theme of mental breaks can have implications for educators as well. Zoat’s father utilized Zoat’s mental breaks to prevent burnout during difficult instruction. Since none of the participants were taught how to use mental breaks, they may have a cultivable natural talent for it. Garku’s experience hints that freedom from expectations may be a key to effective mental breaks. If so, mental breaks may be difficult to teach using traditional methods, since teaching a skill generally involves placing expectations upon learners. A more effective strategy might be to identify and then cultivate the pre-existing mental break habits of students with ADHD. An important question for further research would include, ‘how can teachers and parents promote productive instead of maladaptive mental breaks?’
Several participants illustrated the power of an authority figure identifying a strength and then helping a student generalize it. Parents, teachers, and other mentors can be encouraged to note when their ADHD students are excelling and learn to read their children’s need for a mental break. Several of the participants had fathers who helped them reframe weaknesses and find unique paths to learning. Future research could investigate whether a correlation between successful students with ADHD and strong paternal influence holds true in a wider sample.
A meaningful theme among most participants was a connection between Advocacy, Leadership, and Professional Purpose & Passion. It would be worthwhile to study whether this connection holds true among a larger sample size. If so, how can advocacy, leadership, and Professional Purpose & Passion be effectively promoted among students with ADHD?
Conclusion
Much work is still needed to establish best practices for helping the ADHD population at all ages. Helping students with ADHD foster resilience by aiding them in the process of turning their strengths into weaknesses through creative problem solving may help those with ADHD gain the confidence and independence they need to enter college and be successful.
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About the Authors
Martha Wise: Martha Wise graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University is now pursuing a masters in special education at Ohio University. She plans to continue on to her PhD where she hopes to research the social, emotional, and behavioral barriers to learning for students with ADHD.
Dr. Barbara Wise: Barbara Wise is an Associate Professor in the College of Nursing at Indiana Wesleyan University. She treats children and adults with ADHD in her practice as a Nurse Practitioner, and has presented and published on the topic of social development in ADHD. She works to connect families in underserved populations with resources that will help them achieve independence.
Dr. Sarah Jones: Dr. Jones is the program director for the Indiana Wesleyan University special education program. She has research interests in all types of neurodiversity, particularly in topics relating to individuals on the autism spectrum. She has nearly 20 years of experience advocating for the rights of students with special needs.