by James Lynne

Created on: November 24, 2008   Last Updated: March 24, 2009

One need only consider the Indian tale of the seven blind men who go to "see" the elephant to grasp how affects our ability to understand the world. Because Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, ADHD, is about impaired sensory perception, it is a given that children who suffer from this syndrome "see" the world even more differently from their non-impaired counterparts. The phrase "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" quite accurately summarizes that perception directs the conclusions these children draw about the world around them.

According to Indian legend, seven blind men each went to see an elephant that wandered into their village. Because they could not sense the elephant by sight, visually, each man had to perceive it as best he could. One man touched the elephant's leg and determined it was like a pillar. Another touched the elephant's tail, determining the elephant was like a rope. Still another touched the elephant's side, determining it was like a huge wall. Each of the seven, using limited sensory perception, drew both a correct and an incorrect conclusion regarding the elephant. So it is with children whose learning is impaired by ADHD. They view the world from their unique perspective, through their impaired senses, often drawing conclusions that leave their parents and their teachers scratching their heads in confusion.

All human learning is dependent upon input from our five known senses, sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. These are the processes we use to input data into the brain like a computer keyboard or data disc does a computer. Once information has entered the brain, neural pathways transfer it to informational files within the brain for processing, storage, and eventually retrieval. However, our ability to retrieve information, requires that our neural processes do their jobs efficiently and effectively in processing and in storing it. Children with ADHD also experience neurological disruption in their ability to perceive and store information. It is like having electrical short circuits in the brain. Some of the information is stored. Some is not. Some of the files are damaged in the process because of the neurological short-circuiting. As a result, ADHD children are much like the seven blind men "seeing" the elephant. What they perceive may be partially accurate while simultaneously being incorrect, just as an elephant is very much like a wall, but not like a wall at all.

ADHD is not a "one size fits all disorder" with an exact

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