Nick Moore, management junior, was not diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder until he was 18 years old. The structure of high school, where all of his classes were back to back and his heavy involvement in extracurricular activities made it difficult for his mind to wander.

But the changes that come with starting college made Moore’s ADD become more prevalent in his daily life.

“Not having classes back to back really was hard for me. Having the school days like that in high school forced me to focus, inadvertently.” Moore said. “It just overwhelmed my mind, having it spaced out and other things popping up between classes. I had to think about where I could plug in study times as opposed to eight hours of school, two hours of study, go to bed, do it again.”

Because of the change in environment and his ADD, Moore’s grades started to suffer and his anxieties about school increased. Because of this, he came to the decision to seek professional help and inquire about having ADD.

“I knew something was off because of my mood and anxiety and class room performance,” he said.

According to the National Institute for Mental Health, with ADD the brain matures normally at delayed rate, most significantly the portions of the brain that control thinking, paying attention and planning. This can cause a person with the disorder to have difficulties with paying attention, staying on task, memory and being at rest. These are difficulties that Moore deals with every day.

“I want to avoid this stereotype that I am juvenile or that I have an inability to pay attention to things or how I just need to get used to quote-unquote how school is and how the real world is,” Moore said. “I’m fine in the real world, but I’m very, very distractible because I can focus on a lot at once. To a fault.”

ADD affects 8.1 percent of the adult population in the United States according to a recent survey by the Archives of General Psychology. But because of ADD’s common association with young children, many adults with the disorder spend their lives undiagnosed and without the tools needed to cope with the disorder.

Matthew Springer, director of student disability services at IU Southeast, said that often the disease is misdiagnosed frequently in children.

“So often it’s misdiagnosed in the K through 12 system, so when we talk about adults with ADD, and college students are adults, people treat it with some skepticism which is unfortunate,” Springer said.

The misdiagnoses of children with ADD have lead to the spread of misinformation and stigmas about the disorder, causing many people to link it to child-like behavior.

“I think it stems from the grade school experience,” Springer said. “That’s where people hear of it and they associate it with taking Ritalin and behavioral issues. So those myths and those stigmas surround the grade school experience. And when we try to talk about adults with ADD there’s all that baggage that comes with it.”

That baggage can cause a student with ADD to be apprehensive in seeking help for their disorder. Springer noted that most students with ADD who visit the disability services face this apprehension.

“It could be the stigma or they have been in the special education system since kindergarten and they didn’t want to deal with it anymore or don’t want to admit to themselves that they have an issue,” Springer said.

Students that take advantage of the Disability Service Office can find the accommodations they need to have a more successful school life. One accommodation offered is a distraction reduced testing environment for students with a disabling case of ADD.

A disabling case of ADD is when a person has a difficult time overcoming the distractions found in a classroom. he mind of someone with ADD tends to focus on multiple things at once, this could mean that test taking can be a stressful and arduous task.

The distraction reduced testing places the student in an environment that can facilitate their mastery of the content by removing distractions, like a tapping pen or shuffling papers, which will aid the student in showing their mastery of the content.

“Not everyone with ADD has a disabling condition,” Springer said. “One can have a diagnosis of ADD but not to the point where it substantially limits the individual. Of course a student like that can talk to me or to Dr. Day for some strategies on how to cope with it.”

For those with less severe cases of ADD just a simple meeting where they can help the student come up the strategies to stay focused on their school work.

For Moore, the reduced testing environment and counseling services have been helpful in overcoming his ADD and becoming a successful student. He is also prescribed a medication for his ADD to help with impulse control and focus. But he does not suggest that the medication is for everyone with ADD.

“I think that with any drug that affects your brain, it’s totally different for everyone,” Moore said. “Because everyone’s body chemistry will absolutely react differently. So no, it is not for everybody.”

While Moore has taken advantage of the disability services on campus, he still feels that there is more that IU Southeast can do to accommodate its students with disabilities. He feels that giving students with disabilities priority registration could help facilitate a better learning environment.

“Many other universities, even within the state, offer this with any type of learning or physical disability,” Moore said.

As it currently stands, the order for registration priority at IU Southeast is graduate and honors, seniors, juniors, sophomores and then open registration for freshman or transferring students.

He feels that ADD is often over looked in the education system because of the stigmas attached to the disorder.

“It is not a personality characteristic or flaw,” he said. “It’s verified by MRI and PET scans. So it is something genetic that has manifested in the individuals that have it. So it is absolutely not a matter of just willing and focusing to just do it.”

Even considering the challenges of the disorder, Moore said he loves ADD could not imagine life without it.

“It’s just fun,” he said. “Maybe it leads to shortcomings in other areas. It’s a rich life to live.”