Who Are You? Forgetfulness and ADHD

If I could only remember...what is it I was trying to remember? ADDers have trouble with memory. That's a given. Bob Seay says it's like "having the mind of a Pentium and the memory of a 286". I can really relate to that statement. Sometimes I can't remember how to complete a sentence. I start it, and then I have no idea how to end it. My friends are used to this, but it can be really embarrassing if you've just met someone or you're in a job interview or some other important social occasion.

The University of Iowa did a study awhile back concerning memory and ADHD in children. It seems some memory problems can be attributed to learning disorders, but that children with ADHD who did not have learning disorders also had memory problems. Further studies will need to be done to determine the effects of medication and other treatments for memory.

Memory can be a problem in a number of ways for those with ADHD. First, you have to receive the information, then you have to store it and later retrieve it. If we aren't listening or paying attention to the task at hand, then we never receive the information in the first place. Of course, if we never receive it, we can't remember it. If we do receive the information, then we may or may not store it in our short term memory. I think I tend to have a problem here differentiating what I should move from short term to long term memory. I remember useless facts, but I can't seem to remember the really important things. For instance, I can't remember appointments very well, but I know that "Leave It to Beaver" was the first television show that depicted a toilet. And then there's the retrieval aspect. If you can't pull it out of your brain, you certainly can't use it later.

There are a few ways to help us remember things better. Those of us with ADHD tend to be visual learners, so if there's something you really need to remember, try to put a picture with it in your mind. The funnier and more absurd the picture the better. You can also use rhyme, numbers, the alphabet, and mnemonics to help you remember facts, names and other important information. I'll try to cover these methods in more detail in a future article. Until then...

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