ADHD in Children
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Creativity and Working Memory in Gifted Students With and Without Characteristics of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder: Lifting the Mask
ADHD and creativity in gifted students
C. Matthew Fugate, Sydney S. Zentall, and Marcia Gentry
Summarized by:
April 23, 2023
study source
Gifted Child Quarterly
Aug 2013
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What they studied
Researchers wanted to see whether gifted children with ADHD had higher levels of creativity.
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What they found
As expected, gifted children with ADHD had many of the same struggles as other children with ADHD. However, they also had unusually high levels of creativity.
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What this means
These results show that extraordinary creativity may be common among gifted children with ADHD. This strength can be cultivated to help gifted children with ADHD reach their full potential.
Creativity and Working Memory in Gifted Students With and Without Characteristics of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder: Lifting the Mask
Objectives
ADHD can cause challenges at work and school. However, some experts have suggested that ADHD may also increase creativity. This study wanted to test this theory to see if there’s evidence of greater creativity in children with ADHD.
Study Quote
There have been some behavioral indicators and some types of task performance that suggest greater creativity in students with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD). This evidence would appear counterintuitive given that lower working memory (i.e., holding information in mind for...
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Methods
Researchers recruited 17 gifted students with ADHD and 20 similar students without ADHD as a control group.
Both groups had similar levels of intelligence.
Study Quote
Thus, the purpose of this study was to assess working memory and creativity in two groups of gifted students (i.e., with characteristics of ADHD, n = 17, and without ADHD characteristics, n = 20), who were equivalent in fluid intelligence.
Results
Like previous studies, researchers found that those with ADHD had more difficulty with working memory. This is a known deficit in children and adults with ADHD and provides evidence for the study's validity.
However, they also found that students with ADHD had evidence of greater creativity compared to similarly gifted students without ADHD.
One small study showed that gifted students with ADHD, may be more likely to have greater creativity, than similar students without ADHD.
In fact, nearly half of the students with ADHD were in the 90th percentile of creativity among their peers.
The researchers did not find evidence of a link between creativity and intelligence along gifted students. Creativity was elevated across the spectrum.
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In this study, we did not find overall support for the threshold theory that the association between creativity and intelligence decreases at higher levels of intelligence. That is, creativity appears to be enhanced in gifted populations of students with ADHD characteristics.
Study Quote
Significant differences were found indicating that gifted students with ADHD characteristics had not only poorer working memory but also significantly greater creativity than those gifted students without these characteristics.
Conclusions
These results suggest that extraordinary creativity is unusually common among gifted children with ADHD, even though gifted children with ADHD do struggle with many of the same challenges as other children with ADHD.
It’s unclear why gifted children have greater levels of creativity, but the results were statistically significant. We will need more research to understand this link better.
Based on this research, the authors suggest reconsidering how we identify and teach gifted students with ADHD. By viewing creativity as a key strength, academic programs can be better tailored for gifted students with ADHD.
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Specifically, divergent thinking and assessments of creativity could be used in the identification of giftedness within the ADHD population. If divergent thinking and creativity were compensatory strengths, these abilities could be used to improve educational programming for these students.
Study Quote
These results were discussed in terms of creative potential, which could serve as an identifier and as a pathway to instruction.