Section A·Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Monday, April 27, 1998
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Concentration is easier after difficult diagnosis
STUDENT
SENATE
Continued from page 1A
After recognizing herself in the magazine article, Mai made an appointment with Myra Strother, a physician at Watkins Memorial Health Center.
Mai's diagnosis involved answering questions regarding her study habits. Do you have problems paying attention in class? Do you have problems reading textbooks? Do you lose things?"
Yes, yes, and yes; she answered.
Mai also had to take a general psychological test and an ADD test which included questions such as:
Do you fidget a lot? Do you have problems following a conversation?
Do you lump from topic to topic?
Mai immediately recognized herself in these questions.
"I can't sit and read a textbook at all. It's like torture for me," she said. "I wouldn't pay attention in class. I would be working on my day planner or fiddling with my nails, or looking at my split ends, or talking to somebody, bugging somebody else. So it also affected my friends, who I usually sit by in class, because I just couldn't pay attention."
The diagnostic process called for a friend to fill out a survey and evaluate Mali. Andrea Sigas, liberal junior, was the friend.
"Her attention span was zilch." Sigars said. "We had a class together freshman and she'd talk and talk. She has a hard time sitting still. When we're out somewhere and when Jen wants to go, it's time to go."
The girls met on the ninth floor of Oliver Hall their freshman year. That year they also had a class together. Sigars remembers Mai talking throughout that class. She also immediately recognized personality traits of Mai's while answering the questions.
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH ADD?
Mai's parents, Don and Althea, were also asked to fill out a questionnaire and evaluate her personality.
Althea Mai, who is also a teacher at Hoisington elementary school, remembers Mai as a spirited child but did not realize she might have ADD.
1. Impulsiveness
2. Quick temper
3. Forgetfulness and unreliability
4. Restlessness and inattentiveness in routine activities
5. Disruptive, intrusive behavior
6. Poor insight capacity
7. Uncooperative, determined to do things your own way
8. Rarely able to read or complete materials
9. Extremely impatient
10. Tendency to put blame onto others
11. Failure to follow through promises
12. Unpredictable, rapid mood swings
1. Impulsiveness
Source: the office of Corydon G: Clark, physician
"I never even suspected that Jenny had it," she said. "She was always hyper, but she has a quiet brother, and we just thought she was a contrast to him. She was hyper and full of life. She had a lot of spunk."
As she talks of her hyperactivity as a child, Mai's leg continually shakes, and the pen in her hand does not pause between shifts from the right hand to the left. She lifts the cap and replaces it. Mai admits she might have been hyperactive as a child but, because she had wide open spaces to run around at her family's farm, it wasn't a problem.
In women, researchers have found that ADD often looks more like a mood disorder. Women with ADD are well behaved as children but get more and more forgetful and disorganized as they get older. Mai admits she is getting somewhat forgetful with names lately.
"She was very active and always jabbery, her mother said." Her report card always said that she talked. She did well in her subjects, but she was just an active little girl with a lot of friends."
The mood swings that accompany the disorder can be one of the most difficult things for the sufferer and their family and friends to deal with.
"I would just be grumpy," she said. "My friends wouldn't always want to be around me. That wasn't always fun. I would have no idea that I was doing it until someone would say 'Why are you so moody today?"
Coping with ADD
After a diagnosis, learning to cope with the disorder is often as easy as getting a prescription for medication. Holmes has found that the best way to treat it is biochemically.
"From my perspective there is only one approach to it, and that's medication," he said. "The data on that are quite clear. Medication is extraordinarily effective."
"I don't get lost in class anymore," she said. "I can take really descriptive notes instead of like one line. I'll have things that the professor said. I can write and list them at they're saying and be able to finish the whole thing instead of one word and then a question mark because I wasn't able to remember the rest of it."
Since Mai's diagnosis, she has been on Ritalin and has made fast improvements in her studying.
Her friends have noticed the difference in Mai as well.
"She sits down and reads," Sigars said. "She answers questions in class that she never would have before because she actually knows the answers."
Although ADD is a disorder that should be recognized as a serious problem, Mai says she does not think students with the disorder should be given special attention or extensions on assignments.
"To me it's just something that I have to overcome." Mai said. "It's not something people should be like, 'Oh that's okay, we'll give you extra time to take a test.' But I don't take advantage of it like that either."
Medication brings lives into focus
By Erin Thompson
Kansan staff writer
If you have problems sitting through class, if you always have irrelevant thoughts dancing through your mind, it could be more than the call of beautiful spring weather.
You could be one of more than one hundred students at the University of Kansas who suffers from attention deficit disorder.
There is help available through medication, dispensed at Watkins Memorial Health Center. The most common medication prescribed to students is Ritalin, Kathy Thrasher, chief pharmacist at Watkins Pharmacy said.
Students can be diagnosed at Watkins and receive a prescription there or through their family practitioner.
"If 3,200 [prescriptions] come in during one month, about 10 of those will be for ADD," Thrasher said. "That's a rough estimate. About 3 or 4 percent of the students we see are for ADD."
If medication is not enough to help a student through class, or they would like their professors to be aware of their condition additional help is available through the Carryout for students with Disabilities.
The director of the department, Lorna Zimmer said that ADD was different in each case, but the department would do what was appropriate to help in each individual case.
Zimmer said that ADD was a disability in some cases. If there were limitations the department would make accommodations appropriate for the individual case, but not all cases were the same.
Help depends on whether there is a substantial limit to the person's opportunity to get the most out of the University caused by the disability, Zimmer said.
The number of attention deficit students receiving aid through the Services for Students with Disabilities was 110 last October. They were probably only a percentage of students with the disorder. Not all students file with the department, Zimmer said.
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Offer shown is for coach class travel only and is subject to availability. Reservations are required. No multiple discounts. Fares, schedules and restrictions are subject to change without notice. Blackout dates may apply. Not valid for Autotrain, peak Metroline, or Canadian portion of ViaRail.