✨ ADHD, Insight & Creativity: Why “Boom!”Could be a Strength for People who score high on ADHD Traits

Today’s Thought: Rethinking ADHD and Creativity

Today I found myself deep in a fascinating research dissertation by Hannah Rose Maisano, written for Drexel University.

We often think of creativity as making art or having ideas—but in cognitive science, creativity includes two types of thinking:

• Divergent thinking – generating lots of ideas quickly

• Convergent thinking means solving a problem by finding the one best or correct answer—often through logic or sudden insight.

Most studies on ADHD and creativity highlight strengths in divergent thinking. ADHD brains often excel at this because they make rapid, unexpected connections—a kind of thinking that’s hard to teach but easy to overlook.

But Maisano’s study zoomed in on something different: convergent thinking—especially the kind that doesn’t rely on slow, logical steps, but on insight.

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🧠 Why Insight Matters

Traditionally, people with ADHD aren’t seen as strong convergent thinkers. That’s because this kind of thinking is usually described as methodical and analytical—traits that don’t align with how ADHD brains tend to work.

But here’s the twist:

Convergent thinking doesn’t always happen through logic. It can also happen through insight—those sudden, intuitive “aha!” moments when the answer clicks into place.

Most previous studies on ADHD only asked if the answer was right. But Maisano asked a different question:

👉 How did you get there?

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🔬 What the Study Did

Participants weren’t formally diagnosed with ADHD, but they completed the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS), which placed them on a spectrum from low to high ADHD traits. They were then grouped into:

• Low ADHD traits

• Medium ADHD traits

• High ADHD traits

They completed Compound Remote Associates problems (a classic test of convergent thinking), and after each one, reported whether they solved it using:

• Analysis (step-by-step reasoning)

• or Insight (a sudden realization)

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📊 What She Found

One key result stood out:

“Individuals with high ADHD traits solved CRA problems with insight significantly more often than the (non-ADHD) control group.”

They used insight more often than their peers, and that insight style worked. They reached solutions not through effortful planning but through fast, intuitive leaps.

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🌱 Why This Matters

Instead of focusing on what ADHD brains “lack,” this research spotlights something they do differently—and possibly better.

It shows:

• Insight isn’t random—it’s a valid cognitive strength

• ADHD creativity may include more than just idea generation

• Fast, intuitive solutions can be just as effective as slow, step-by-step ones

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💭 What If...?

What if we’ve been mislabeling insight as impulsiveness?
What if schools are teaching ADHD kids to mistrust their best thinking?

And what if this kind of intuitive problem-solving can be fostered, not extinguished?

Maisano’s work covers much more, including what happened with the medium-trait group and how different strategies appeared across the spectrum.

But this one finding powerfully invites us to rethink how we define intelligence and creativity and how we support ADHD minds.

I am Kristen McClure MSW, LCSW, a therapist of 30 years and ADHD coach

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I hope you enjoyed this newsletter about ADHD and Creativity

Kristen