I don’t know as much about dyslexia but the brain scans of ADHD people are different. I KNOW this b/c I worked with a neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic who also said he was ADHD and he showed me the SCANS!!!!! There are different areas lit up/not lit up.
I do not believe people who use it as a cop out but it is real. I am not very fond of medication either. In fact, I do not believe in medicating our children - that, too, can affect brain development.
ADHD kids need lots of stability and consistency - regimentation and structure are important. Never has there been such a dearth of structure in the lives of families - whether due to single parent homes, or working-mom homes, the fractured families, and craziness of our modern life, all of these things are variables that matter.
How many people do you know that sit down as a family and eat dinner together 5 or more nights a week and at a similar time? Probably very, very few. However, when I was growing up, it was the norm. Families ate dinner together. My family always ate around 6:30 p.m., except on the weekends when we often had an “early” meal on Sundays. We rarely, rarely, rarely all went OUT to eat (another thing that has changed drastically since I was a kid).
A gal I know told me that her son had ADHD and the doctor said you almost HAVE to have it to survive in the modern American world. I think he was on to something.
It is going to get worse too....
Time to get down off my soapbox. ;-)