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Abstract
This exploratory study identified patterns of characteristics in subjects that had attention deficit disorder (ADHD) that led them to be highly successful at their vocation. One male and one female with ADHD were interviewed in-depth by the use of an open-ended questionnaire that was used in a similar study done with adults with learning disabilities.
The findings of this study indicated that both subjects exhibited similar patterns to those found in the study done with learning disabled adults who responded to the same questionnaire. The characteristics identified were desire, goal orientation, and reframing, which were categorized under internal characteristics, and persistence, goodness of fit, learned creativity, and social ecology, which were categorized under external characteristics. The implications of this study are that further studies are needed to explore if these internal and external patterns of characteristics are present in a larger sample of successful people with ADHD.