Are there really no examples of anyone diagnosed with ADHD as a juvenile obtaining a doctorate?

[Venomdrcandidate]

I have been trying to find a single publication, then case study, then blog post than simply a single self proclaimed PhD that was diagnosed with ADHD before graduating from highschool. I was diagnosed in 2nd grade in the first half of the 90’s (yeah, maybe it’s just a question of how of us are old enough to have finished PhD’s) and the only demographics studies that even mention graduate school among long term outcomes for children diagnosed with ADHD is the one here on CHADD from 2016 that used search algorithms to anonymously narrow down 150,000 names of juveniles with diagnoses in the NHS/CDC/NCBI and local databases down to 15,000 with potential contact information online… of which educational data could be obtained from 1,500. The one graduate degree was found because masters thesis are published under your name and available to the public, so relative to 1/20 US adults in the same age range, 1/1500 (or 1/150,000 depending on how you view their selection bias) held a masters degree. I’ve loved my PhD program but the dissertation has been hell on me, my family, my body, and my soul, but I’m finally defending next week. Obviously it feels pretty impossible that I could be attempting something that, statistically, everyone else in my situation has failed, and I’d love to know that this is simply a case of buried data or privacy among academia. So if you or anyone you know were diagnosed as a kid (i know there are plenty, i know dozens personally, of PhD holders with ADHD, but one by one I’ve learned they were diagnosed at the earliest in their undergraduate degrees, which ordinarily wouldn’t matter except that’s where the demographic data jumps from plenty to nonexistent). Chadd is the only ADHD information website that even posted the statistic so I’m hoping maybe it’s here that I’ll find someone with more up to date data or at least a fellow “medicated 2nd grader” that grew up with a passion for something that you can’t really do much with unless you’ve attained a doctorate. Working to develop pharmaceutical interventions while both working with and funding preservation of venomous snakes is my example… anyone else? I’d love to know I’m not alone trying to get over k2 here..

[STEM_Dad]

Well, I don't personally know of anyone who was diagnosed with ADHD as a child, and earned a PhD...but I did find this article from 2018 about a PhD candidate who has ADHD, which was diagnosed at age 8.

news.harvard.edu/gazette/st...

~~~~~

I remember being on a forum within the last 3 months (probably not this one, more likely a Facebook discussion), and there were a few people with PhDs who have ADHD. I don't recall if any of them said whether they were diagnosed as a kid. (I tried to search for that discussion, but couldn't find it.)

I do know that people with ADHD can get a PhD, but now I'm wondering also whether it's more likely that they get diagnosed as an adult, while pursuing their degrees.

Early diagnosis with ADHD is more likely to also come with diagnosis of comorbidities like learning differences/disabilities, dyslexia, dyscalculia, ASD. Some kids just have significant enough ADHD symptoms that they get just that diagnosis, but comorbidities are fairly common.

I was probably overlooked because I was identified as "gifted" in grade school, and back in the 80s it was probably extremely rare for a "gifted" student to also be diagnosed with ADHD or any sort of learning disability...the presumption was that they were mutually exclusive. Now, there's a lot more recognition that people can be twice-exceptional (2e), to be both gifted/talented and also have ADHD, ASD, or other neurodiversity.

[Venomdrcandidate in reply to STEM_Dad]

I’ve followed a couple of blogs following PhD candidates who, like me, had struggled in early grade school and been medicated until they started taking it as needed so they could avoid the misery of anorexia and insomnia that you don’t realize aren’t just normal until a lot later than you’d expect someone to be able to make the connection between a drug and the fact that you were the only kid in your middle school who had lunch removed from their schedule so they could do their homework before they left school… so they could eat and rest after.

Ok, that’s more personal but they all had similar stories, they also all dropped out when the dissertation came round if they didn’t during comps. That’s been one of the tougher things to see. My advisor sent back my dissertation with feedback and submitted the forms scheduling my defense for a week from today, and i know that at least one of my other committee members already considers me to have demonstrated what he needed to see to approve my candidacy to a doctorate, I have a complete dissertation, so I know I have his support (I taught, and adapted, the physiology class that he usually teaches during his leave when covid hit and he used a lot of my decisions for the rest of the semesters of lockdown, he was also the one who taught me the basics of cell sorting since my advisor doesn’t do much beyond colorimetric and fluorescence plate based assays when it comes to cell bio, he’s much more capable when it comes to sequencing primers and transcriptomics and evolutionary ecology of venoms while I’m equally interested in extracting and isolating the toxins from the snake but more interested in evaluating bio activities with potential utility to fund and inspire people to, if they can’t stop killing them, at least setting aside some forest to preserve the diversity of our natural biological muses.

I couldn’t stand doing field work in islands of isolated coastal rainforest where a novel subspecies or species we found one year in one 100 acre plot went from novel to nowhere when the prior landowner lost the deed for any number of reasons and that island became a plantation full of bananas and bothrops (I love bothrops… but not at the cost of a new subspecies, at least, of philodryas).

If you happen to remember, i’d love to know whether any of the people you mentioned were diagnosed in or before grad school, and if so, was it during undergrad? My experience has consistently been that those peers with ADHD during graduate school were almost always the students who had no trouble with highschool and then found themselves unable to cope with the lack of structure and the crunches of college without medication rather than any of the people who, like me, went back to school only because it was the only possible way to do what they knew they wanted to do for the rest of their lives after figuring it out during 7 years of “seeing how close to that job they could get” without a doctorate and realizing, eventually, that you aren’t starting your own venom bioprospecting lab without a doctorate. Not because of the title so much as that the only way your gonna learn how to extract venom from someone you want to learn how to extract venom from as well as how to actually do what I needed to learn how to do to actually walk in and start doing what needs to be done to discern the practical utility of a potential patent candidate, and than justify it to those that need justification. At least i know that regardless of how my defense plays out I can still try to do what I now know I can do without the title…. but it would be such a nightmare to go from getting paid to consult for other experts with a slightly different niche to being considered less knowledgeable than when I first got my bachelors, since it’s now over 10 years out of date.

[STEM_Dad in reply to Venomdrcandidate]

Well, that one person that the Harvard article is about is now listed as Dr, and her bio mentions that she has a PhD.scholar.harvard.edu/jennife...

Your PhD seems fascinating. I don't know that I could ever dedicate myself to such a specific area of expertise.

~~~~~

I did well in K-12 school, but struggled in college...a lot.

• I attended 5 different colleges for undergrad studies,

• changed majors 5 times,

• dropped out several times (for a different reason each time)

• accumulated about 8 years as an undergrad, spread out across 22 years

• repeated several classes

• I don't have a great GPA, but I was only put on academic probation once

• ... still no degree

I had way too many interests, and the most distracting one was that I was in love. I was married for 20 years, and my family became my main interest...but I still have many others.

I changed career fields several times.

I'm now working in Information Technology, as a tech support "generalist" (I'm a jack-of-all-trades for IT, mostly doing user support, but capable of many things).

...

In my mind, I feel like I should have a master's degree by now, with all the effort that I put in. When I'm reality, I'm just a graduate of the "School of Hard Knocks". The main things I've learned in life are humility, adaptability, and resilience. (Gee, thanks ADHD!)

[Venomdrcandidate in reply to STEM_Dad]

Oh! i’m glad to know… sitting in the hall now waiting on their decision

[JEQQ in reply to STEM_Dad]

Me. Diagnosed in grad school 3rd year. Now a professor. I feel like a good amount mathematicians are adhd.

[Dell12345]

I was diagnosed as a child and have a master's degree, if that helps.

[Venomdrcandidate in reply to Dell12345]

It is more than I have been able to find in any published demographics outside of the example in the study CHADD cites for their long term outcomes (0.065% from a sample size of 1500… so N=1) based on a 2016 publication… . To be fair I have been busier reading papers that were relevant to the writing of my dissertation, but I spent an evening a few months ago doing a deep dive and didn’t find a single more recent study that included masters degrees and also clarified age of diagnoses or, more surprising to me, medication… since parents and pharmaceutical companies as well as academics in education/pharmacologists/ toxicologists/ and law enforcement/drug abuse and rehab, any medical field, would love to have long term demographic data on what is hands down the most prescribed controlled medication for minors. There’s no reason that it should be a particularly under represented demographic statistic apart from being really, really uncommon. If you haven’t you might want to publish or allow someone to publish an anonymous case study on your history. I know I’d be interested to know what sort of challenges posed the most difficulty to you (ADHD has so many different potential physiological causes and two cases can have strengths and weaknesses that are more pronounced than those between either and the “average” ADHD free individual). It would also be a much nicer publication to turn up when a parent whose kid was just diagnosed searches for “how many minors with ADHD are able to pursue their academic interests at a graduate level” than the results that are limited to a 2016 study with one person saying the statistical equivalent of “anywhere below 1/1500”.

Congratulations by the way, I know you probably didn’t just defend but, it’s a hell of an accomplishment. Are you also passionate about something that you can’t make a real career in without being able to demonstrate your expertise, unless you want to settle for doing something like “extracting venom from snakes as a hobby even though it’s completely unwarranted and cruel to do for no purpose but your own interests”, or did you go for a Masters because you enjoy academic environments? Would you ever consider going for a PhD or did the thesis burn you out? I don’t think I could have done my PhD if I’d known from the start how miserable the last year would be, even though the first 5 were the best of my life in terms of “doing what I love for a job”.

[Mamamichl]

I have a masters degree in education, and was denied teacher certification, but I wasn’t diagnosed until 38. School wasn’t an issue, but socialization and “professionalism” is. After being 126kin debt and working as a teachers aid at $17 an hour, I’m afraid to go back to school. Possible employers say I need more experience in teaching adults, but no one will give me the opportunity. I’ve actually taught preschool through 65 yo but most of my experience is in k12.

[Venomdrcandidate in reply to Mamamichl]

I’m sorry man… I feel you, there’s no difference between what I knew a year ago and what I’ll know next tuesday if i’m a doctor or what i’ll know next tuesday if I’m dropped back to an out of date bachelors. But the people who pay me consultant fees of 100 dollars an hour to deliver them an evaluation about the anti cancer potential of a particular toxin they patented and planned to develop into a drug that they never tested to determine if it did what they wanted it to certainly aren’t going to seek me out without a dr. in front of my name. regardless of what I can do in a lab.

My degree is actually a combo/double of sorts since despite my dissertation being wholly focused on lab work, I had to both publish in an education journal and teach physiology as the professor of record for the last year of my TAship. I am sure that you are more qualified to teach any subject that we’ve both studied to the same extent. I might have more to offer teaching herpetology but most professors are hired part time now… unless you have your own lab and graduate students it’s probably less stable than teaching k-12. I know plenty of the professors at the community colleges near me have nothing but a masters non thesis, you can get in a year without writing anything longer than you did in undergrad.

That sounds like a really rough situation, and I definitely had jobs where they told me that I wasn’t “demonstrating my desire to work there” by coming in early and staying later than it took me to finish all the work they gave me to do. I’ve also been told that although I excelled and learned faster than expected that I needed to “look busy and to wait till the people with vet tech degrees learned how to put in IV’s and prep the surgical kits before they could let me do those in front of them, or they’d feel like they weren’t as qualified as someone whose technically an AID, not a TECH”. There’s a reason why I opted to go for a dissertation (i don’t have a masters by the way, after next week I guess I’ll either be a decade worse off than if i’d gotten a masters, or I’ll have a doctorate and be starting a lab directed towards demonstrating and funding the preservation of venom biodiversity for reasons that are relevant to everyone whether they care about venomous snakes or not.

[Jnell81]

I know multiple people with doctorates who have been diagnosed with ADHD. It only speculation but Einstein was said to probably have it. I have two masters degrees and if I wanted to could pursue a doctorates. I also have severe ADHD ( based on rating scales) given at different times by my doctors. Ot isn’t been. Many have struggles they never share. Or, they haven’t formally been asked , like say for purposes of research. I’m sure their is research out there, but need to look into journals and other literate. Maybe ask a librarian to help you.

When I get a chance I’ll search and try to post back here with links.

[Venomdrcandidate in reply to Jnell81]

how you have two masters without learning that your opinions on areas that aren’t within your area of expertise aren’t expert opinions. If your condescending and overconfident enough to tell someone whose background is essentially the definition of someone whose done more in depth research of a particular subject relative to your broader reader arch of multiple subjects, (if you want to argue that breadth vs depth is an unfair and inaccurate way to describe the likely difference between two masters and a doctorate I don’t and won’t) what are you like to other people? How can you not recognize how bad an idea it is to drop opinions saying that you’re determined to find literature to back up… even if you do it is the definition of a biased approach to research and it’s the same way that people who have decided climate change is a hoax come back with their proof.

I can get opinions from an expert in tangential subjects from myself. “Ask a librarian”? (you think i haven’t asked peers and doctors of education, special needs education, pharmacology, and toxicology when I said that I was a week from my defense for a doctorate in biotoxicology and pharmaceutical development of venom?)…, when your dealing with imposter syndrome in the moment it sucks to be in a demographic that is statistically unlikely to be found without someone accessing a database 1,500,000 individuals strong based on the 150,000 person database being necessary to find the one masters that CHADD based their .065% statistic on. But I’d love to be proven wrong, but opinions about einstein (who never failed math) are not constructive, even with assurances of the forthcoming publications to back up your… i’m not even sure what your point was…. that they’re hiding? “ask a librarian”… “I could pursue a PhD if i wanted to”, “I have severe adhd” (But you got through high school without requiring intervention as a result of it or you would have been able to offer a constructive response…or did you leave the part that could have made it relevant out so you could make a crack about a librarian?)

[Little-Face in reply to Venomdrcandidate]

Reading this reply thread hit a wall, ending, here. I believe Jnell81 was acting in good faith. I found no hidden condescension or cruel spirited intentions after reading their comment a second time. Your comment, in return, was peppered with gas lighting, ad-hominem remarks, and whataboutisms' directed at Jnell81 -- In my view, it was too much.

[STEM_Dad]

I wish you the best with your dissertation defense!

[Venomdrcandidate in reply to STEM_Dad]

Thanks! I feel a lot less like I’m going in blind since my advisor sent me feedback and then sent in the paperwork to finalize my defense date with the graduate school, it was terrifying to have not known whether he had read the last manuscript chapter, but even though I’ll have plenty of edits to make they are all minor clarifications and stylistic changes, and he wouldn’t have confirmed the defense after giving feedback unless he was pretty sure that I wasn’t about to fail. There’s just no frame of reference for a 250 page long research paper. I just want to get back to extracting venom from boomslangs and kraits and other venomous snakes so instead of feeling anxious and antsy I can just thank my brain and body for reacting appropriately to the situation by making sure I don’t think about anything else, get distracted, lose my grip, or anything else that would get myself killed. I hate anxiety when it provokes responses that are useless to the cause. Anyway, thanks.

[KentuckTD]

Many of the people that I’ve seen present at different Webinars on ADHD (e.g ADDitude, CHADD, etc.) also have ADHD themselves. And many of them have Masters, PHd, or MD degrees. My son’s psychiatrist has ADHD, too. So I know they are out there, it just might not be documented with numbers.

[khagen]

I did my masters in a year and then two profs suggested I do a PhD so I figured why not. But I quit after three years. It was decades before I knew I had ADHD! Now I know my difficulties then were due to ADHD. I might’ve finished it had I known and learned to manage it.

[FVTraina]

Good luck with your defense! Are you just curious, looking anecdotally, or maybe just for support?

Short answer, not I. Diagnosed too late. I decided not to pursue a JD after struggling immensely on LSATs. I still may try, maybe find a law school that values work experience over a standardized test. The JD for me would be for many of the same reasons you mentioned, except for responsible application of emerging tech and not about venom.

But doing ok for now with my B. Sc. in Computer Science - which I thrived at until getting promoted into executive ranks and less hands-on coding / engineering. Now it’s a grind, a skill set that takes a lot of work and tools. But I really can’t complain.

Curious to hear how things go for you, I’ll be rooting for your success!!

[JustKeepSwimming123]

My best college high school friend just earned his doctorate. He was diagnosed as a kid. Very bouncy and off the wall and but smart as hell. Attention of a squirrel unless he was interested and then you couldn't get him to shut up about the topic lol. Masters in Math, Doctorate in Middle Eastern Politics. Another friend I studied abroad with was diagnosed as a kid and is in academia, a tenured doctorate professor in Gender and Sexuality studies.

I think the real question here is why are you so fixated on finding a statistic? Is this just an intentional distraction stemming from the anxiety of defending a dissertation? Are you seeking validation it can be done? Are you looking for a soft place to land if you don't earn yours, as, well, no other ADHD kids have attained this, so don't feel too bad...

[ADHD-ette]

I was personally diagnosed as a young adult and currently hold 2 master's degrees. However, I remember attending one of my first professional workshops in the early 90's about this new discovery called ADHD. Since I had one master's degree already at that time, my thought is that no one knew about ADHD until we "older folks" were already out of college. Does that make sense?

[NYLYM]

Dr. Ned Hallowell

[Venomdrcandidate in reply to NYLYM]

he was diagnosed well into his 30’s i believe, I know him personally. The demographic that is simply i represented as far as i can tell is people diagnosed young and attaining a doctorate, which isnt actually that hard to believe since 8* more people drop out or don’t attend college with a diagnoses of adhd before finishing high school, 50% relative to 90% (so 4 times as many) of them don’t finish undergrad after starting, and by that time the rate of masters degrees had dropped from 1/20 to 1/1500 (and it took a database of 150,000 juvenile diagnoses to find contact information for 15,000 to get responses from 1500… no database that i can think of had 1,500,000 juveniles diagnosed with adhd listed and the manpower to contact 150,000 is astronomical. what surprises me isn’t that, it’s that if the ones who did get a doctorate had any idea how uncommon the statistic was, why didn’t they submit or participate in a case study…. any parent with adhd would want kids with add to know that there’s someone who beat the odds because they were passionate about the right subject. I defend tomorrow, and i don’t plan on failing (and i don’t know of anyone who was allowed to defend and wasn’t considered ready as long as i’ve been in grad school ) mostly i just want to get back to working with venomous snakes again… nothing is a better stimulant than stimulants like extracting some cobras… if anything got me through it was that that was a daily activity for me. dissertation was hell being hell and i’d never do it again under any circumstances nor would i have tried knowing what it would cost, regardless of tomorrow. Thanks though.