Modern parents of intelligent children who underperform at school can easily relate to this story. The problems Thomas Edi-son experienced, such as a difficulty (1) for periods of time on one topic, are common in many intelligent children. Their problems in school may be (2)... a number of different causes, ranging from sheer boredom to dyslexia or some other learning disorder.
Many sources attribute Thomas Edison's troubles in school to attention deficit hy-peractivity disorder (ADHD). Edison did seem (3)... many common characteristics of children with ADHD, such as fidgeting or squirming fre-quently; drifting off into daydreams more than other children; ha-ving difficulty following in-structions or finishing activities, such as home-work; in-terrupting a speaker, such as a teacher; (4) ...; and being impulsive.
Although ADHD is considered to be (5)... that can adversely affect a child's learning, a number of persons in the field of child behavior now feel that this is a misnomer. Rather than thinking of ADHD as an impa-irment, this school of thoughts prefers (6) normal children and ADHD children are primarily different only in (7)..., not in their ability to learn. An ADHD child, for exam-ple, might learn well in (8)... or hands-on experiment, whereas a normal child might learn well by listening to a teacher give a lecture or completing a worksheet. One analogy is to think of ADHD children as (9)... left handed children; they are cer-tainly different than most other kids, (10)... that is not to say that they are wrong.
Modified from Scott Teel, 2007. "Defending and Parenting Children Who Learn Differently: Lesson from Edison's Mother" Connecticut: Praeger.