You may have heard of the terms ADD ADHD when it comes to discussing psychological disorders rampantly found in children. It is not common for a lot of people to confuse ADD with ADHD. This is because the names of these disorders are pretty much similar, save for the additional letter “H”.
ADD stands for attention deficit disorder, while ADHD stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Basically, the main difference between these disorders is the existence of hyperactivity in the equation. Hyperactivity refers to the state of being excessively active. In this case, hyperactivity would be manifested physically by the child in question.
For instance, a child is observed to be running around all over the classroom. You see the child just about everywhere, and you clearly observe that he cannot sit still for a few minutes at all. You give the child some crayons and paper, and instruct him to draw some images. The child starts drawing, but then resumes running around after just a few minutes. The child is obviously hyperactive. Thus, the child would be diagnosed to be suffering from ADHD, rather than ADD. However, if the child in the hypothetical scenario were just sitting still, then he could just be suffering from ADD. For ADD to be diagnosed in this scenario, the child would have to be switching from one task to another, without completing the prior ones. Or he could be drawing some images for a few minutes, and then he starts making a boat from the paper that was given to him. Attention deficit here would be the inability to focus on a single task to be completed.
Another thing to consider here is the notion of interest. It’s one thing to lose focus on a task that does not really capture your interest at all. If you are doing something that typically bores you, chances are, your focus in that activity will dwindle in just a few minutes. But if you are doing something that catches your fancy, say, playing a video game, then you can focus your attention on that activity for a longer period of time. You can even say that you have the ability to hyperfocus on the video game already. So, when you are trying to weigh out which of both ADD ADHD a child does have, then you have to weed out the concept of interest as well. This way, you can reach a more objective decision in the end.