Boy, my 12 year old great-nephew just made me feel totally inadequate.
Apparently he listens to podcasts while simultaneously reading technical books on totally different topics. His father (my nephew) has given him tests and his comprehension of both cast and text are excellent.
As a drawback, he does suffer from severe ADHD. His mental world is like he is surrounded by falling scraps of book pages, and he has to read each one before they hit the ground.
@nyrath Wow. Meanwhile I can't write or code or play chess (or anything else that needs lots of concentration) while listening to music with lyrics. Much less something I'm REQUIRED to pay attention to, like a podcast! At least music isn't useless if I mentally block out the lyrics.
@nyrath it's often said that AD(H)D people have superpowers, that must be his. I think mine is the ability to be able to identify the weak spots in a system very quickly (and fix them, if possible). The downside is that before I was diagnosed I couldn't really concentrate on tasks unless I was really interested (and then I'd hyperfocus on those for days).
I started taking Concerta a few months ago after I was finally diagnosed in September and that has helped a lot (I can only handle the minimum dose of that though). I can now stick to tasks and work all day without getting bored and needing to get up every half hour. I actually have more trouble now in forcing myself to stop working or thinking about what I'm doing (I guess I haven't had much practise with having to do that). But I think it has also made me a lot less patient with other 'normal brained' people and I think it's made it harder for me to understand why they do things (I'm getting frustrated with people a lot more now, especially at work).
It's a struggle, but knowing I have ADD (and probably some associated 'tisms on the side) has helped a lot when it comes to understanding my own thought processes. The Concerta can't fix anything, it can only make some aspects less troublesome, but at least I feel like I'm operating at the level I'm supposed to be at now.
@nyrath As someone who also has ADHD and is possibly (most certainly) on the spectrum, this is relatable. That requirement to have to absorb as much information on a given topic before you can move on is troublesome. A single search out of curiosity will end with 15 new tabs and 2 hours suddenly gone.
When I have a question about rocketry or space exploration, I go on a deep dive with DuckDuckGo or something. Soon I have dozens of tabs open as questions raise sub-questions.
@nyrath this is how I discovered your website in the first place. I was digging through material on torch drives and one of the many tabs was Atomic Rockets.
@nyrath
I really struggle to comprehend how one can do that. I’m totally unable to have two language streams in my sensoria at the same time—to the extent that if there’s a TV on in the room, I can’t follow a conversation, or if someone’s talking on the phone next to me I can’t read.
@nyrath
I’ll sometimes listen to podcasts or audiobooks while doing nonlinguistic work (which can include working on images or doing math or coding), but if I have to write any text I have to stop the audio to be able to concentrate on it. I can’t even listen to music with comprehensible lyrics while writing.
@tkinias@nyrath Same here, one language-based thing (reading, writing, podcasts, music with lyrics, programming) is my limit. Even if the lyrics are in a language I don't understand.
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