Attention Deficit, Diffuse Attention
The name attention deficit is inaccurate
The name attention deficit is inaccurate for the condition it is used for. From the description it is clear that the most important characteristic of people referred to as attention deficit is that they easily get distracted. This means they pay attention to things around them. Their attention is difuse which is actually very important for survival. Being more diffuse attentioned also causes that one more easily gets distracted from what someone else has determined one should consider most important, or even, the only thing to which one aught to paid attention to.
This is part of the problem. The deficit is determined by a person being distracted from what another person determines to be more important. The other person can be someone like a teacher or a boss or anyone. It can be a therapist or a scientist.
Diffuse attention
One could also interpret the paying attention to something else as a sign of diffuse attention. One should consider that having diffuse attention is actually a crucial survival mechanism. Accepting this argument a more appropriate name for people now labelled as 'attention deficit' would be 'diffuse attentioned'.
Survival value of diffuse attention
Having a certain level of diffuse attention clearly is important for survival as well in city life as when living closer to or in woods, forests or other environments less influenced by humanity. Here are some examples.
Surviving city traffic
Whether riding a bike, driving a car or being on foot, being alert to information from ones surrounding, like from the corners of the eyes or sounds from all around is extreamly important. Someone who does not have such abilities can cause serious danger to oneself and others.
Hearing the rain coming
Wen I was young, actually until being not that young, it surprised me to see cases when my mother would sit up or otherwise show increased attention, go outside take down the laundry from the line and bring it in, long before I noticed any sign of rain coming. In The Netherlands, where chances of rain starting are every day, that is a very important skill. When not that young anymore, she'd ask me to help. Later I got better at hearing the rain coming in from the distance myself.
Indians in the Amazon forest
Several documentaries I have seen about Indians in the Amazon forest, mention members of the tribe hearing and knowing that people are coming, long before the documentary team notes anything different.
A pupil of mine, sleeping?
Not paying attention or no display of paying attention. Once, a pupil of mine seemed to be sleeping with the head on the arms on the table. That was a private class, just me and her at the table. Somehow I just continued, not really sure why. Actually it seemed to me she was not really sleeping. Later, same class, I noticed she had picked up things I had been explaining during that time she showed signs of being asleep.
Some classes later, we came to talk about it and she confirmed that this is not a strange thing for her to do. Sometimes she seems to not be paying attention while she actually does, sometimes indeed to the extent of seeming to be sleeping.
I have known other people who told me that they often seem to not pay attention while they actually do.
Difficulty to concentrate
When receiving help for not being able to have acceptable results at the regular parish school, one of the first things I was told was that a part of me being unable to accompany the progress of the class was that I had difficulty to concentrate. That is and feels rather different from hearing to have lack of attention.
The gulls outside
I remember a case of, through the classroom window, seeing the gulls outside flying around, manoeuvring in strong wind, then landing on the playground, playing or fighting. That was very intriguing to me, much more interesting than what the teacher was talking about. It was very educational.
Much later I could link what I had observed to behaviour of colibris or hummingbirds. From documentaries and biology class explanations, I learned that, among the things that makes the hummingbird so special is their ability to fly in all directions, not only forward but also straight up or down and even backward. After the needed processing time, I could compare the moving images of the hummingbirds, the gulls and also pigeons, to see that the hummingbirds are not the only ones. Gulls and pigeons can do it too. They are not as virtuose at it as hummingbirds but they still do it in impressive ways.
Motivation
Another primary school example is about a teacher trying to motivate us to do our bests at school. The teacher saying things like when you want to become this or that, if you want to go to a good school, maybe a university, to be able to do this and that... And I see myself there, sitting in such a school, doing those things ... for a while ... and then, maybe because my teachers draws me away from the things he induced me to imagine, I come back to the thing connected to nothing that interests me [what adults call abstract] and lose interest. Again. not typical of dyslectics. Motivating learners, getting their interest is often recognised as a big problem of standard schooling. Motivating the learner is recognised as being of utmost importance but extremely difficult to do.
Problem, characteristic, spectrum
If staying concentrated is such a common treat for all learners, more so when younger, why then is it clearly pointed out as a part of the problem of dyslectics and of so called attention deficits, in the case of the latter, to the extent that it makes the differentiating label. In no way will I try to deny that it is more prevalent in these people, nor that it can be so to the extent that it interferes in the learning process considerably more than with, in this sense, normal children. That is why the recent tendency to see certain characteristics like autism as a range on a spectrum is such a good idea. I would like to think of multidimensional spectra composed of spectrum-dimension like: focused attention, diffuse attention, concentration, concentration control, from multidimensional thinking to linear thinking, and much more. To a certain extent this is actually already done. A lot is said about how members of the groups that are Primarily Multidimensional Thinkers, dyslexics, autists, hyperactives and diffuse attentioned tend have characteristics more typical of the other groups.
A few reasons why these viewpoints ought to be adapted for them to be more in concordance with logical explanations behind it, including it being a survival mechanism general present in all human beings or even in many living beings. Does the problem lay with the individual who has a more diffuse attention or with the individuals surrounding, whether referring to school, society or something else?
Ways of presenting the problem
It seems to me that there is quite a difference between, being told to have a characteristic that is bad or being told to have a certain characteristic that everybody has but to a level that it brings disadvantages. Hearing the first can feel very different from hearing the second. More even when the characteristic in case is one which is important for life. This is not to induce people to using politically correct language. After all, the term 'a politically correct term' is nothing else than a euphemism for a euphemism. As said, it is to do justice to the way things are.
Shifting focus from problems to causes and solutions
Another advantage of trying to find causes, improvements and solutions rather than focusing on apparent problems is that benefits may very well go beyond helping the people who are in need of this help. If Pedagogy could come to really find what can be done to raise the interest and attention of learners to the extent that it would reduce these problems for the Diffuse Attentioned and other Primarily Multidimensional Thinkers, it would certainly be very beneficial to other learners as well.