About this site

Why this site exists

Most of us grew up hearing the same words: can’t focus, has a deficit, too hyperactive, disordered. Those words describe real things. They also leave out the other half: the ideas, the humor, the noticing, the fight for fairness, the sprint at the deadline. We built this site to show that half properly, with sources instead of slogans. It is written by people with ADHD and people who love them, for kids, teens, adults and parents who are tired of hearing only the bad list.

Some experts dislike the word “superpower”

We know the word is a risk, and we will not pretend otherwise. Russell Barkley warns that selling ADHD as a gift can cost credibility with families and even cost services for kids who need them.^{Source 1} Edward Hallowell, one of the best-known voices on ADHD strengths, says plainly that ADHD itself is not a gift.^{Source 1} And the researchers behind a review of 125 studies on ADHD strengths warn that superpower talk can hide struggle and make it harder to ask for help.^{Source 2}

What we mean when we use it

We use “superpower” for a strength that shows up in people with ADHD, one at a time, with its evidence and its cost. Every power page carries an evidence label and a flip side, because the same trait that builds something can wreck something else. In a study of 400 adults, those with ADHD rated 10 of 25 strengths higher than adults without ADHD, and in both groups people who knew and used their strengths felt better about their lives.^{Source 3} That is a correlation, not a promise, and the effects were small. Never instead of help, and never a claim that every person has every power.

What we do not say

Some sentences are off limits here, even when they feel encouraging.

• That ADHD is easy, or that the hard parts are only a mindset problem.
• That ADHD should be left untreated.
• That everyone with ADHD has every power on this site.
• That a strength cancels out a struggle.

A page that names a strength also names what it costs. If one ever gets that wrong, the missing half is a mistake, not the house style.

How we check facts

Every claim about research or a real person has a source, listed on the Sources page. Each power also gets an evidence label: studied, early evidence or lived experience, with its main limit stated in a sentence. Where we argue instead of report, as in one section of the home page, we say so. Living people appear only when they have said it themselves in public, in their own words. For people from history we describe what the record shows and don’t diagnose anyone. When the research runs against a popular claim, the page says so. Group studies do not find extra empathy in ADHD, and the Big Heart page says that out loud.^{Source 3Source 4}

What stays in your browser

Your quiz picks and collected powers never leave your device. They are saved in your own browser, with no account. Clear your browser data and they are gone.

This isn’t medical advice

This site is not medical advice. We do not diagnose anyone, and we do not recommend or discourage any treatment. Many people with ADHD use medicine, therapy or coaching and do well. Those choices belong to them and to their clinicians. If something here helps you start a conversation with a doctor, a teacher or a parent, that is the best use of it.