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	Hardcover List: $24.95 * Our Price: $17.47 * You Save: $7.48 (30%) * Availability: This title usually ships within 2-3 days. Hardcover Published by Underwood Books Publication date: September 1996 Dimensions (in inches): 0.93 x 8.76 x 5.74 ISBN: 188742413X	Description Synopsis from Publisher Author Excerpt Table of Contents Paperback Interview with Author Other Books By Thom Hartmann
Go to Amazon.com to order Beyond ADD in Paperback	(paperback) List: $12.95 Our Price: $10.36 You Save: $2.59 (20%)   Availability: This title usually ships within 2-3 days.   Paperback Published by Underwood Books Publication date: September 1996 Dimensions (in inches): 0.69 x 8.40 x 5.45 ISBN: 1887424121	Description Synopsis from Publisher Author Excerpt Table of Contents Hardcover Interview with Author Other Books By Thom Hartmann

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Book Description :

Learn how ADD-related traits have served to further human evolution. Author Thom Hartmann spotlights how modern life contributes to ADD, including a toxic environment, nutritional deficiencies, our quick-fix consumer culture, and the effects of television and overpopulation. Hartmann also documents the difficulties gifted children encounter in our educational system, and the hardships visual learners encounter in an auditory environment. As he discusses brain chemistry and physiology, he examines the pros and cons of the controversial drug Ritalin.

Synopsis:

One of the pioneers of ADD research shows how individuals with ADD are not just "hyperactive" or "easily distracted, " but actually possess highly adaptive, entrepreneurial skills--traits which served ancient hunters but meet with resistance in modern agrarian societies. This book shows how people with the same diagnosis can exhibit different behaviors and possible genetic origins and ADD-related traits are explored and discussed. Online promo. --This text refers to the paperback edition of this title.

From the Publisher :

Thom Hartmann is a pioneer in ADD research. His previous books have shown how individuals with ADD are not just "hyperactive" or "easily distracted," but actually possess highly adaptive, entrepreneurial skills - traits which served ancient hunters but meet with resistance in modern agrarian societies. His theory was profiled in Time magazine.

From the Inside Flap :

Beyond ADD deepens the discussion (of ADD) by showing how different people with the same diagnosis can exhibit different behaviors, ranging from hyperactivity to being withdrawn, from forgetfulness to being obsessively hyperfocused.

The author, Thom Hartmann (thom@cis.compuserve.com) , 08/17/96:
Explores a far-reaching variety of possible ADD causes.

Beyond ADD delves deeply into the possible causes for both the explosion of ADD diagnoses and the core causes of what ADD may be (and not be). Probably everybody will be able to find at least one chapter with which they disagree <g>, and one that they think is right-on. Be sure to check out the chapter titled "What Maslow Overlooked"...

The author, Thom Hartmann (thom@cis.compuserve.com) , 08/17/96:
Explores a far-reaching variety of possible ADD causes.

Beyond ADD delves deeply into the possible causes for both the explosion of ADD diagnoses and the core causes of what ADD may be (and not be). Probably everybody will be able to find at least one chapter they violently disagree with <g>, and one that they think is right-on. I'd be interested to hear your feedback at thom@cis.compuserve.com after you've read the book! --This text refers to the paperback edition of this title.

About the Author :

Thom Hartmann is the author of six books on ADD and former executive director of a residential treatment facility for abused and emotionally disturbed children. He authored more than 200 published articles and has spoken at conferences around the world.

 

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Excerpted from Beyond ADD by Thom Hartmann. Copyright(c) 1996. Reprinted by permission, all rights reserved :

We Now See More ADD Because of Standardized Curriculum

"Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art, it is the part the schools cannot recognize." (Pauline Kael)

This chapter posits that the reason why we're seeing so much ADD diagnosed in our public schools (and, as adults, in the workplace) is because of a standardized school curriculum and similarly structured workplaces.

A few years ago I heard a fellow who was ridiculing the idea that there may be such a thing as ADD point out that "there is no ADD in front of a video game." He went on to conclude that "if ADD goes away in one environment, like the video arcade, but appears in another environment, like the school, then where is the real problem? Is it in the person or the environment?"

While this argument was meant to imply that there's no such thing as ADD, it suffers from a basic flaw in logic. Virtually all children can be transfixed by a video game, yet only a minority (albeit a substantial and growing one) are unable to succeed in school because of attentional problems. This implies some sort of fragility in their attentional structure or ability to learn that simply doesn't show up in front of a video game, but becomes apparent in the classroom; it doesn't indicate that there's no such thing as ADD.

A fascinating but largely overlooked study was published in 1983 that measured how far a child with ADD could be pushed with and without medication to do unfamiliar schoolwork. They found that if the amount of unfamiliar material a child was asked to learn or read exceeded the 15% to 30% range, then ADD children experienced a breakdown in their ability to complete tasks, to stay on-task, and to comprehend the material. When they were given stimulant medication, their ability to stay on-task dramatically improved and there was a slight improvement in their task comprehension, but their ability to complete tasks actually dropped.

The startling part, however, came when they changed the difficulty of the schoolwork. Shifting the percentage of new material to the 3% to 7% range, suddenly all the ADD children's ADD school problems vanished both when they were medicated and when they were not.

Non-ADD children were equally able to handle the 30% new material and the 7% new material, but ADD kids needed medication to make the transition into the more difficult classroom. On the other hand, when the ADD children were allowed to move ahead at their own pace, keeping a daily 3% to 7% new material learned rate, they did as well as, and in some cases better than, their "normal" peers.

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Table of Contents :

Introduction: Why We Have ADD

Chapter 1. ADD is Profitable for Business

--ADD is Profitable
--Pop Psychology and the Media Encourage Victimness and Illness
--ADD is Viewed as "Bad" Because Only "Bad" People Have Been Studied

Chapter 2. Education and Our Children

--"Good German Schools" Come to America
--American Schools Focus on Content Instead of Technique
--Our Gifted Kids are Bored Silly
--Education is More Important Today than in Years Past
--Visual Learners in Auditory Schools
--We Now See More ADD Because of Standardized Curriculum
--Our Children are Losing Empathy Abilities

Chapter 3. Genetics and Psychology

--ADD Characteristics-Leftover Hunter Genes
--What Maslow Overlooked: The Need to Feel Alive
--ADD As Hypervigilance Run Amok

Chapter 4. Social Adaptations

--ADD Prevents Human Society from Ossifying
--Morphic Resonance: The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon
--"Normal" People Are Really "Abnormal"
--Our Culture is Increasingly Intolerant of "Different" People
--The Perception of Time

Chapter 5. The Stress and Toxicity of Modern Life

--Our Toxic Environment Neurologically Damages Fetuses
--Nutritional Deficiencies
--Ritalin is Such a Cool Drug
--Life in America (and the Rest of the Industrialized World) is Getting Crazy
--We're Living in the Last Days and the World's About to End
--There Are Too Many People

Chapter 6. Brain Chemistry and Physiology

--Brain Irritations
--Sugar and Sugary Foods Alter Brain Chemistry
--Dysfunctional or Underdeveloped Frontal Brain Lobes
--ADD as a Variation of Normal Male Behavior
--ADD is Not Just One Thing
--Some "ADD" May Really Be Undiagnosed Thyroid Disorders

Chapter 7. Contemporary Lifestyles and Habits

--Advertising "Causes" ADD by Training Us to Have a Short Attention Span
--A Variation on Approach/Withdrawal: Why ADD Often Appears Different in Women than in Men
--We Lack Self-Discipline-Inducing Experiences in Childhood
--Sunlight Starvation
--We Lack Exercise
--ADD is Useful in Our Workforce
--Our Lost Rituals
--ADD as a Challenge to Authoritarian Society

Summary: What Is This Thing Called ADD Anyway?
Chapter Notes
About the Author
Index

You can read an interview with Thom Hartmann.

Other Attention Deficit Disorder books by Thom Hartmann

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