|
Post by Kathymel on Nov 5, 2013 13:35:47 GMT
I found this clip whilst looking for facts to throw at my son's uninformed CAMHS team. It's a very short clip from a Barkley lecture on hyperfocus. He says: Hyperfocusing is actually perseveration. You are unable to interrupt what you are doing when you should have shifted to doing something else. It is like the child who continues to play the video game long after they should have been getting dressed for school and out to the bus. You want to call that hyperfocusing, that’s fine, but that is a classic sign of a frontal lobe injury and it is perseverative responding. You should have stopped what you’re doing and you didn’t. There were other more important goals to have been accomplished and you ignored them. This […] is in fact a symptom of this disorder. Hyperfocusing goes with Autism, perseveration goes with ADHD.This makes a lot of sense to me. Both from the point of view of my son and myself. My son has both ASD and ADHD (I believe). 1. He can become so involved with an interest that he is unaware of anything else, which Barkley says is hyperfocus. 2. When made aware of the need to stop or the importance of doing something else, he still cannot stop what he is doing, which Barkley says is perseveration. I hadn't separated these two aspects before. Now I think of it, I am often aware of the need to do other things (though not always), but I cannot make myself stop what I'm doing. Having said that, I have had a fairly completely obsessional interest in ADHD since I found out about it to the point that friends, neighbours and even other ADHDers have started crossing the street to avoid me. I talk of nothing else and often even bore myself to death. Is this hyperfocus long-term stylee? Or is this some other trait and hyperfocus only applies to one's in-the-moment state of mind? If hyperfocus applies only to the latter, what is the trait which causes us to have intense, serial, short-lasting obsessions?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2013 17:06:01 GMT
For me personally, my obsessions are usually emotionally based, and like an addiction. If I obsess about something, it's feeding me in some way. Sometimes it's just a quest for the truth or to solve a problem - but if it's bugging me, I'll obsess over it until it's resolved or find a way to break the addiction. Until there's an outcome, I too can bore myself and everyone around me with my obsession
|
|
|
Post by Kathymel on Nov 5, 2013 17:57:07 GMT
My obsessions can encompass anything. I have: Learnt every bird/tree/wildflower/mushroom and toadstool (and eaten as many as possible) as was possible in each of their seasons (lost interest by the next). Forgot them all. Mountain climbed every weekend for a year or so. Opened a craft shop and lost interest after a year. Boogie boarded at every opportunity for one summer. Made hundreds of Fimo dragons one winter. Not sure if there's any one thing that these are feeding or describe. I suppose they might seem like addictions at the time but, overall I've always thought that I don't have an addictive personality, i.e. I can smoke once a week and it doesn't bother me, though I used to smoke a lot more. Not really sure where I'm going with this ... I suppose I'm still saying I don't know how it fits in. Blah.
|
|
|
Post by JJ not signed in on Nov 5, 2013 18:47:34 GMT
I saw this - perseveration is an actual clinical term - never knew that before ! anyway, thought it or the references below might help in case you've not seen Wiki perseveration
I really need to get on with my work I really need to get off here I am exhibiting perseveration Stupid adhd
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2013 19:33:03 GMT
Oh ok, Kathymel, I see what you meant now. What you describe sounds to me like the ADHD easily bored, novelty-seeking behaviour we all know and love/hate. (Sorry if I'm stating the obvious). I dunno if that's addiction or something else. It's the centre of our world until we're bored of it.... I actually laughed when I read that you don't have an addictive personality, purely because I used to say the same thing about myself!! It's the lack of control over the urge to do something, or lacking the will to say no, or stop, that defines an addiction for me. Especially if I know it's bad for me and crave it anyway! Edit: couldn't open JJ's link, so I hope this isn't repetition
|
|
|
Post by Kathymel on Nov 5, 2013 20:10:09 GMT
Oh ok, Kathymel, I see what you meant now. What you describe sounds to me like the ADHD easily bored, novelty-seeking behaviour we all know and love/hate. (Sorry if I'm stating the obvious). I dunno if that's addiction or something else. It's the centre of our world until we're bored of it.... Ah. Yes. I was over-complicating things and lost sight of the obvious. The novelty of the dragons maybe lasted as long as it did cos I was making money. The novelty of the shop wore off pretty quick cos I wasn't. I actually laughed when I read that you don't have an addictive personality, purely because I used to say the same thing about myself!! It's the lack of control over the urge to do something, or lacking the will to say no, or stop, that defines an addiction for me. Especially if I know it's bad for me and crave it anyway! I'm sure to an outsider, my interests looked fairly obsessional, but I'm not sure I couldn't have stopped any of them. I guess they weren't harmful so it never got tested. These days, I am most definitely addicted to the internet and this is to the point where it is interfering with other things. And this is where I came in, because it is the perseveration that prevents me from being able to stop, even when I want to.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2013 1:23:09 GMT
The cynic in me thinks that 'perseverance' was dreamed up to simply differentiate ADHD hyperfocus from Autistic hyperfocus. From the hyperfocus wiki page I found the following snippet: Right, so here the dichotomy starts. However, I question who hyperfocuses without a neurological condition? How many hyperfocussing NT friends do you have? It then goes on to qualify it's definition of perseverance. Turn the volume up kids! Anyone else seeing the problem here? Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperfocusAlso, JJs broken link fixed for our mobile users: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseveration
|
|
|
Post by petra on Nov 6, 2013 1:59:29 GMT
Yes.
|
|
|
Post by Kathymel on Nov 6, 2013 8:33:08 GMT
Right, so here the dichotomy starts. However, I question who hyperfocuses without a neurological condition? How many hyperfocussing NT friends do you have? It then goes on to qualify it's definition of perseverance. Turn the volume up kids! This doesn't necessarily disagree with Barkley's two definitions, though. That hyperfocus is not neurotypical is not in question. It's whether the person is aware that they are hyperfocusing or not. I usually am aware that I need to stop, but can't do anything about it. That's a huge difference from not having an awareness at all and I think it's right to differentiate between the two states.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2013 8:59:33 GMT
I don't disagree with you but the current definition of perseverance is bollocks.
|
|
|
Post by Kathymel on Nov 6, 2013 9:55:34 GMT
I don't disagree with you but the current definition of perseverance is bollocks. Right, I think I see what you mean. I went and had a proper read and the definition is quite broad, isn't it. The repetition of words and gestures despite the absence of any need for a continued response, although it ticks the 'unable to set-switch' box, seems to my mind be a different kind of perseveration to my inability to leave my laptop.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2013 15:07:00 GMT
I heard the term perseveration used in psychology, but couldn't remember what it meant or how it related to this thread. Knowing I'd obsess over it until I remembered , I skimmed through a couple of books this morning. Perseveration refers to the inability to change how you're doing something, based on a failure to understand a flaw in the way you're currently doing it. Piaget talked about this in relation to child development - we have to reach a certain stage to stop making perseverative errors. This was based on experiments in which children search for a toy several times - perseveration refers to going back and searching the 1st place it was hidden repeatedly, even though it was in different places on subsequent searches. I am incredibly biased against Barkley. He may be a leading expert in ADHD, but he likes to casually gloss over anything that doesn't confirm his views. Perseveration has been tested in adults with ADHD, using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task. In this task, a pattern exists for solving it. After a while, the pattern changes. Perseveration errors mean continuing to use the original pattern to solve the task even when it's no longer yielding the correct answer. Barkley states in his own book on adult ADHD, that we do not make perseveration errors in this task. I know that when I search for my lost keys, I don't repeatedly go back to the section in my handbag where I usually keep them. We've all said, in slightly different ways, that we are fully aware of our hyperfocus being unhelpful at times, even while doing it. If this were perseveration, not hyperfocus, we wouldn't notice. Perhaps I've overanalised this, or got it wrong, but isn't that the opposite to Barkley's distinction between the two?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2013 15:50:34 GMT
Quite! Maybe what we call 'hyperfocus', NTs call 'concentrating'
|
|
|
Post by computermandan on Nov 8, 2013 11:40:03 GMT
I guess from my perspective its "concentrating" uncontrollably in terms of the "when" and "how long for" side of thing?
kind of concentrating when you're aware you shouldn't be, or for periods of time that are detrimental (Dan on YouTube at 4am when has to leave for work at 7am for example lol)
|
|
|
Post by Kathymel on Nov 8, 2013 16:28:54 GMT
Hey, nice 'tach, Dan.
|
|
|
Post by computermandan on Nov 12, 2013 11:21:39 GMT
Excuse the OT tangent... lol yes... subjected myself to the movember thing I look a bit odd right now haha not quite like the avatar would suggest though!
|
|