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Research Updates    
Do children with ADHD show greater signs of creativity than those without ADHD?
A February 2005 study by Dione Healey and Julia J. Rucklidge, reported in The Journal of Attention Disorders, investigated whether ADHD is associated with high creative ability. Some of the literature has suggested that children with ADHD have unusually high creative abilities, however, most of the literature in this area is theoretical and focuses on descriptions of creative persons, offering reasons why ADHD and creativeity may overlap.

Only a few empirical studies have been done. Shaw and Brown (1991) tested 16 ADHD and 16 control children matched on age, sex, and intelligence and folund that ADHD children used more imagery in problem solving than did controls and attained much higher scores on the figural creativity test. Cramond (1994) tested a group of 34 ADHD children for creativity using the figural form of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) and found that although the group performed at about the mean on the TTCT, 32% of the children scored higher than the 90th %ile and half above the 70th %ile. Another research group (San, Yu, Zhang, and Yu (2002)) tested a group of 8-year-old children diagnosed with ADHD and a control group using the Creative Ability Test. They found no differences between the groups. Healey and Rucklidge point out that serious methodological flaws existed in all these studes.

Healey and Rucklidge contend that taking the current theories about ADHD and creativity into account, one would expect that ADHD children would be unlikely to be unusually creative. They suggest that creativity is involves the use of executive functions that may be deficient in children with ADHD. In their study, 67 children, ages 10 to 12 (33 ADHD and 34 controls) completed the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), Maier's Two-String Problem, and the Block Design and Vocbulary subtests of the WISC-III. The results show that there is no significant difference between the ADHD group's and control group's performance on either the TTCT, Maier's Two-String Problem, or WISC-III, suggesting that chidlren diagnosed with ADHD are no more creative than children without the diagnosis.

Healey, D., & Rucklidge, J. (2005) An exploration into the creative abilities of children with ADHD. J. Att. Dis., 8(3), 88-95.

October's Featured myADHD.com's Tools
Parents of children and adolescents with ADHD can benefit from using this month's treatment tools. These tools focus on social skills for children. Worksheets are provided to help children use cognitive-behavioral strateges to manage anger.