Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder

Zuendy Ochaita

University of California, Santa Barbara

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder is considered a mental health disorder that causes

people to have higher levels of hyperactivity and struggle to stay focused for extended periods of

time. To many, any rowdy kid could potentially have ADHD, but it takes someone, usually an

adult, for something to be looked into or taken as a serious matter.

Throughout my life, I have met friends in school who were seen as bad kids and

struggled to earn good grades, and they later ended up being diagnosed with this disorder,

therefore the research question that I was looking to answer was: What does ADHD look like in

children. I chose this topic because not only did I not realize how many people have the disorder,

I didn’t know exactly what it looked like or what symptoms can be a part of it. And when I

realized that, it occurred to me that most teachers probably don't know too much about the topic

either, except of course, the stereotypes that are associated with the disorder. The genre that I

want to turn the research into is that of an informational poster, but I want the audience to be the

teachers who may be struggling to support students with ADHD in their classroom, instead of the

children themselves. I want them to know what ADHD is and how it can manifest in both male

and female kids as well as how to help those kids manage it. Keeping in mind Lisa Bickmore’s

“GENRE IN THE WILD: UNDERSTANDING GENRE WITHIN RHETORICAL

(ECO)SYSTEMS”, I wanted to make sure that my new genre made sense in the setting in which

it would appear, but also make sure that I stayed true to the genre I chose.

I chose an informational poster for several reasons, I believe it’s something that teachers

use often, to establish class rules or to simply outline some basic principles that a student should

know, and it’s something that anyone can learn from. I wanted something that would be
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appropriate in a classroom but designed with the intention of reminding teachers that some

students need a little bit of extra help in order to succeed. I originally planned my translation to

be for the kids with ADHD, but quickly realized that, realistically, it would be a pointless poster

to have in a classroom as the students would likely not be able to focus on reading it, and instead

redirected my efforts into establishing a sort of guideline for teachers to keep in mind when they

have a child who they might deem “difficult”. The informational poster genre is a fairly

straightforward one, nearly all of the examples that I studied before creating mine, as suggested

by Kerry Dirk in “Navigating Genres”, had two to three sentences per section, and were attention

grabbing with their colors and icons. Informational posters can range from any topic such as the

parts of a skeleton, to something like constellations and how to distinguish them. The range

within this genre enabled me to make creative choices that still fell within the category of my

translation. However, having this creative liberty also made it difficult for me to chose a design

and layout, particularly the background and color scheme. I really wanted to make an accurate

poster and one that would reach its target audience, and after going back to rework it a few times,

I was able to condense the most important bits of research information into a poster.

The original genre was almost the opposite of an informational poster, it was an

extensive research paper that was several pages long and it’s main audience were fellow

psychologists, or researchers. Rather than having small bits of information regarding a general

topic, this research paper was focused solely on the heritability of ADHD, and the procedure that

the researchers followed in order to determine which children had the disorder. It was clear from

the design of the paper that previous knowledge on psychology is required to truly grasp

everything, as many pieces of information were shortened to abbreviations or only vaguely

mentioned and not elaborated on. While reading the paper, I noticed that the researchers
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repeatedly mentioned that the method with which these children were diagnosed were not ideal,

and the results could be slightly skewed.The process went as follows: a series of interviewers

were tasked to determine which children had any disorders, ranging from major depressive to

bipolar and major anxiety, those who were determined to only have ADHD were then rated on a

scale of attentiveness. These children were then later re-observed by teachers and parents, who

rated them based on a DSM III scale, which I later learned is a version of “Diagnostic and

Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”, a sort of psychological encyclopedia of disorders. This

research experiment follows the guidelines that Dana Lynn Driscoll discusses in “Introduction to

Primary Research: Observations, Surveys, and Interviews”, with the research being based on

ethical interviews directed towards the children.

The first thing I had to do when making my translation was determine my choice of

word, as mentioned in McCloud’s “Writing with Pictures”, I had to determine which pieces of

the research paper actually answered my question and restructure it to fit in my new genre. I

really stripped the research paper down into manageable chunks, I got rid of almost all academic

language and kept the basics, which is what most people nowadays understand. I tried formatting

the written information into almost bullet points, or small comprehensible chunks of knowledge,

as it is an informational poster that should read quickly. I had to keep in mind that, although it is

not designed for children, the poster itself still has to be classroom friendly. I honestly really

struggled with designing the poster itself, I wanted to make sure I followed the sort of guidelines

that seem common in the posters I’ve seen (big words, a variety of color, etc.). I don't consider

myself an artistic person so it took me quite a while to even figure out the layout of the page, and

after that I struggled to pick a color scheme that didn’t feel off, which resulted in a plain

background and then led to me struggling to decide where and how I wanted the words to be
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presented. After going back and recreating my poster, I was able to find a color scheme and

overall layout that I felt made sense and would also appeal to the target audience. Since the

poster is meant for teachers, I didn’t make it as bright and fun as the examples I first came

across, as most were meant for children.

While finalizing my translation, I struggled to maintain unbiased when rewriting the

information I found in the research paper. There is a negative connotation regarding the

diagnoses of ADHD, teachers and advisors tend to create a prejudiced opinion that can result in

an unsupported environment. As a result of that, I felt inclined to put my two cents in when

creating the poster, I wanted to include that although it is classified as a disorder, there is nothing

wrong with those who live with this “disorder”. This would not have followed the neutral tone

that is common within these types of posters (informational rather than to advertise/promote a

belief), so I felt the need to instead include it here. Although this “disorder” does not have a cure

and is seen in a negative light (though certainly not by all), a classroom should be a welcoming

and accepting setting.

Works Cited

Bickmore, Lisa. “GENRE in the WILD: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems.”

Dirk, Kerry. Navigating Genres - Writing Spaces. 2010,

McCloud. “Writing with Pictures: Writing, Persuasion, and Intensity.” Chapter 1