Frances Kuo, Ph.D.
Can ADHD symptoms be eased by alternative ADHD treatments like a walk on the beach or a weekend camping trip? Child advocate and author Richard Louv certainly thinks so; his latest book is titled Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.
And recent studies led by University of Illinois researcher Frances Kuo, Ph.D., provide solid evidence linking time spent in natural surroundings to an increased ability to focus with attention deficit disorder (ADD ADHD). Recently, frequent ADDitude contributor Carl Sherman, Ph.D., spoke with Dr. Kuo about her findings and what they mean for the parents of children with ADD."
What gave you the idea that nature might be good for kids with ADD?
A number of studies had shown that adults without ADD concentrate better if they have access to natural surroundings. Researchers asked people how much time they spent in parks, gardens, and other green environments. Then they asked how attentive they felt, how focused they were at work, and how likely they were to misplace things.
The researchers found that, the greater the exposure to nature, the greater the attentiveness. These findings have been corroborated by objective measures of attention. There’s less research with children, but it points the same way.
What, do you think, is going on?
The theory is that, when you have to struggle to maintain attention — what happens when you concentrate on a task like writing or doing computations — neurotransmitters in the brain’s prefrontal cortex get depleted. If you struggle too long without a break, you experience a condition that might be called “attention fatigue.” You need to let the system replenish itself, and being in a natural environment seems to let it do that.
It’s a small step from this to ADD, which is basically a chronic form of attention fatigue. The question is whether the positive effect of being in nature is big enough to produce a noticeable reduction in symptoms.
What do your findings suggest?
Our findings suggest that the effect is big enough. In one of our studies, published in the American Journal of Public Health, we asked nearly 500 parents of five- to 18-year-old kids with ADD about the effect of different after-school and weekend activities.
Did certain activities improve the children’s ability to concentrate? The parents told us that their kids’ focus was better following outdoor activities than after indoor activities, and that activities done in green environments, with lots of trees and grass around, lead to the biggest improvements in attention of all the outdoor activities.
Maybe it’s the types of activities typically done outdoors. In other words, could it be that playing baseball promotes concentration better than, say, reading?
I don’t think so. We compared the same activities in all three settings — for instance, you can play basketball indoors, in an asphalt schoolyard, or in a park — and there was a clear advantage to the most natural environment.
We also asked parents where their children typically play—in a windowless basement, in the kitchen with a view of the yard, outside in the street, or in a place with trees and grass. It was the same story. The greener the setting, the better the ability to focus — in other words, the milder the ADD symptoms.
Do green environments help curb hyperactivity as well as inattention?
There’s reason to think so. A study of healthy kids in public housing found that those who lived in apartments with a relatively green view had better impulse control than those with barren views. There are some findings along the same lines for adults, but we haven’t tested it yet.
This article comes from the April/May 2006 issue of ADDitude.
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