In your article (ADHD: does medication work?, 3 June) I was struck by the line about adults having more choice over lifestyles and occupations that “play to their cognitive strengths”. My own experience of school was riddled with detentions for chatting in class or being unable to control my impulsive behaviours when I couldn’t grasp or didn’t enjoy the content.
I couldn’t sit down to memorise verb endings or mathematical formulas – there wasn’t enough stimulation for my liking. But when I opened a book (or what I eventually learned to call a novel) I suddenly felt myself immersed in worlds full of life and emotions and events that could keep me engaged. I could sit still reading for longer than anything else. One of my English teachers helped me to see how the words on a page opened up a world of possible interpretations, and with it a lifetime of excitement. None of my other teachers expected much of me at school.
I pushed through and left to study English at the University of Birmingham. Coming up to a decade since leaving school, I am about to finish my PhD in English literature at the University of Oxford. I was diagnosed with ADHD a year ago and medication has opened up a whole new world to me. My “cognitive strength” has been clear to me for some time, and I’m lucky for that. But it took a lot longer to stop getting detentions and start getting praise for it. My point – let’s help children (and adults) to find their cognitive strengths and then help them to flourish.
Luke Young
Oxford
I enjoyed Gaby Hinsliff’s article on neurodivergent workers which suggested that “A few key adjustments can be transformative” (‘I was terrified of the tea round’: the small changes that can help neurodivergent people thrive at work, 4 June). However, as a mature adult (61) with a formal, NHS diagnosis of autism, and a working lifetime of lost jobs, I would like to challenge this viewpoint. I lost my first job in the 80s (chiropodist), and failed to keep my last in 2019 (hydrometry and telemetry officer). Between these points I have failed to keep a further 46 jobs, ranging from emptying dog waste bins to gritter/snow plough driver, and I feel that I am finally in a position, with the voice of experience and very poor masking skills, to state there are two changes required of the workplace – tolerance and acceptance. Tolerate me, and accept me as I am. All of the low lighting and noise-cancelling headphones in the world are not going to provide protection from antagonistic colleagues.
Susan Chipping
Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire