Attention deficits and hyperactivity

The precise nature of the relationship among attention deficit, hyperkinesis, and specific learning disabilities remains a mystery. They are encountered in one another's company with far greater than chance frequency. It is clear, on the one hand, that attention deficit and learning disability aggravate one another; that is, that what is difficult to learn is difficult to attend to, and vice versa. Furthermore, in children at least, attending ability and activity level have a reciprocal relationship; that is, improvement of attention tends to reduce activity level, and vice versa. On the other hand, each of these disorders is seen in isolation with sufficient frequency to assure us that none of the three is simply a by-product of one or both of the other two. It is unlikely that a single etiology will be identified to account for a significant number of cases of hyperactivity or attention deficit, and thus unlikely that a "cure" or even a mode of prevention will be found. A change in the attitude of the culture toward formal education would reduce the morbidity of the syndrome, but this is also unlikely in the foreseeable future. What further research does promise to yield are medications that improve attention span with fewer side effects, and perhaps more important, more workable technologies for changing behaviour and engineering environments to encourage academic productivity in the face of this important aptitude deficit.