Scattered

Scattered How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It
by Gabor Maté, M.D.
Published by Plume part of the Penguin Group in 1999

Nine months is how long it took me to read this book—in amongst other books simultaneously—probably because I still have a tendency toward ADD myself. As a trained educator of elementary aged children, I wish this book would have been a required read for one of my college classes. As a parent, I wish I would have had access to this book before I became one. As a citizen of this world, now at at much older age, I’m thankful to have read this book—at least now. Author, Gabor Maté, M.D., explores the internal world and subconscious motivations behind the external behaviors of what is seen in humans with ADD. He discusses concepts, explains behaviors, suggests solutions, and provides research based evidence to help anyone—adult with ADD, parent of a child with ADD, doctors, teachers, policy makers, and other helping professionals better understand the science and environmental factors of AD(H)D.

Every chapter is short enough to read in bite-sized portions of time. The book contains an extensive bibliography, strong index, and a substantial notes section that accompanies the footnotes. When this book was first published in Canada, it was titled Scattered Minds. However, when marketing it to the US, it was retitled Scattered because, supposedly, Americans didn’t know what to make of the word “minds”. Even though this book was written for the medicine/health care profession, as a “lay person”, I found it very readable—heavy, but sensible. Compassion and developing compassion in all of us is at the heart of this book.

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Wolf Hollow