Research Recap with Skye: Intersection of Creativity and ADHD During Adolescence

Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I’m your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD.
On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain.

Today I’m joined by Skye Waterson for our Research Recap series, and we’re talking about a paper called Creative Thinking in Adolescence with Attention Hyperactivity Disorder.

In this series, we take a look at a single research paper, dive into what it says, how it’s conducted, and try to find any practical takeaways for you.

As this is a new series, if you have thoughts or feedback, let me know — you can head to hackingyouradhd.com/contact and send me a message. New episodes of Research Recap come out every other Friday.

Alright, let’s get on with the show.

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William Curb:
Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD.
I’m your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD.
On this podcast, I dig into tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain.

Today I’m joined by Skye Waterson for our Research Recap series.
We’re talking about a paper called Creative Thinking in Adolescence with Attention Hyperactivity Disorder.

In this series, we take a look at a single research paper, dive into what it says, how it’s conducted, and find any practical takeaways for you.

If you have feedback, head to hackingyouradhd.com/contact and send me a message.
New episodes of Research Recap come out every other Friday.
Alright, let’s get on with the show.

Skye Waterson:
Awesome, I’m excited about this one.
This paper’s from 2006, which is older than what we usually do,
but it’s one of the first papers I read about the benefits and strengths of ADHD.

It came up again recently when I was talking with a professor who also has ADHD.
They mentioned this paper as one of the good ones looking at strengths,
so I thought it was worth bringing up again.

William Curb:
Yeah, because it’s really interesting—especially today,
with all these ideas about ADHD “superpowers.”
I don’t love that model,
but it’s wild that only twenty years ago we started seeing papers framing ADHD as a strength instead of just a deficit.

Skye Waterson:
Yeah, totally.
I tend to call them strong strengths and strong weaknesses—we’ve got both.

This paper looked at three groups of people:
those with ADHD, those with conduct disorder, and a control group.

William Curb:
Right—it was a smaller study than we usually like,
but with three groups it makes sense.
They had eleven kids with ADHD, twelve with conduct disorder, and twenty-one controls.

Skye Waterson:
Yeah, they called it a “preliminary exploratory study,”
which basically means “we barely made it across the line.”
They ran a few different tasks—an animal task, another creative task—
but the one I wanted to focus on today was the “recently activated knowledge” task.

That’s a fancy way of saying:
come up with a creative new idea for something after seeing a few examples.
In this case, a new toy.

William Curb:
Right—so they were looking at whether showing examples influenced what people came up with.

Skye Waterson:
Exactly.
And what they found was that people with ADHD were less likely to copy what they saw.
They were more likely to say, “Cool, thanks for the example—now I’m gonna do something completely different.”

It reminded me of those “how many uses for a piece of string” creativity tests.

William Curb:
Yeah, one of the other tasks was the alternate use test—
seeing how many different uses you can come up with for an object.

Skye Waterson:
Exactly.
And this paper was the first time I realized you can take a study that isn’t directly about ADHD
and still learn how our brains work.

They argued that ADHD brains might not hold onto recent examples as tightly.
They called it “short-term active contextual effects.”
Basically, we think more broadly and flexibly—which can make us more creative.

William Curb:
Yeah, that reminds me of how people with ADHD jump between topics in conversation.
There’s logic in our heads,
but to others it can sound like a stretch.

Skye Waterson:
Exactly!
That ties into “conceptual expansion.”
We’re not as locked into what’s right in front of us—
we think more big-picture.

William Curb:
Yeah, that’s how I work on creative projects.
I’ll see something and think, “Oh, I can connect that to this other idea,” even if it’s not directly related.

Skye Waterson:
Exactly—and even though it feels like borrowing,
we’re usually five steps removed.
And honestly, a lot of ADHD folks have a strong drive to be completely original.

William Curb:
Yeah.
Another task looked at making usable objects from geometric shapes.
The ADHD group made more novel ideas—but they weren’t very functional.

Skye Waterson:
Yeah, that made me laugh.
The paper said “hasty or erratic responses and lack of goal-directed planning” led to less practical results.

William Curb:
That totally tracks.
We’re big thinkers, full of ideas—but the practicality sometimes gets lost.

Skye Waterson:
Exactly.
We’ve got strong creative strengths but also strong weaknesses in planning and execution.

In teams, ADHDers often shine as the idea people—
the ones who think outside the box and navigate uncertainty.

That’s why you’ll see a lot of us running our own businesses
or getting brought in to help solve tricky problems.

William Curb:
Yeah, and ideally we’re paired with someone more grounded and detail-oriented.
You don’t have to be good at everything—
just know where you add value.

Skye Waterson:
Exactly.
The people who complement us often have the strengths we lack, and vice versa.

William Curb:
Yeah, and every time I collaborate with someone—like on this podcast—
it’s way better than if either of us did it solo.

Skye Waterson:
Same here.
I’ve seen that with clients too.
I had one academic client who only ever finished papers when working with co-authors.
Their solo projects just never got done.

It wasn’t about ability—
it was that collaboration worked better for their brain.

William Curb:
Yeah, totally.
This isn’t about “superpowers.”
It’s about understanding what you’re good at and where you need support.

Skye Waterson:
Exactly.
You don’t have to be super—just super cool.

William Curb:
Ha! Exactly.

Now, about this study—it was small,
but they found solid results.
I’d love to see follow-ups.

Almost all the ADHD participants were medicated,
which is interesting because some people say medication kills creativity.
I don’t agree, but it’s a common belief.

Skye Waterson:
Yeah, I noticed that too.
I’m not medicated myself, but not because of creativity.
According to this paper, creativity showed up regardless of medication.

William Curb:
Yeah, for me, medication helps apply my creativity.
When I’m focused, I can take an idea and build on it.
When I’m not, it’s more like, “Oh, that’s a cool thought,” and then nothing happens.

Skye Waterson:
Exactly—and honestly,
some people in the study didn’t even write anything down, which tracks!

William Curb:
Yeah, I’d love to see more studies on different types of creativity—especially in adults.

Skye Waterson:
Yes!
We need more adult ADHD research.
It’s easy to study kids, but adult ADHD looks different.

And if anyone listening knows of newer studies,
send them to me on Instagram at Unconventional Organization.
I love hearing about this stuff.

William Curb:
Yeah, there’s so much research out there—
some great, some not so great, and a lot in between.

Skye Waterson:
Exactly.
Even with a researcher on my team whose job is literally to read papers,
we still miss things—there’s just so much coming out.

William Curb:
Yeah, and that’s why it’s great to look back at early studies like this—
they set the foundation for strength-based research.

Skye Waterson:
Absolutely.
Looking at strengths doesn’t mean ignoring challenges.
It’s about understanding the full picture so you can figure out where you fit.