September is the designated month for giving extra attention to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. That’s fitting because September is the first full month of school for many children with ADHD who are dealing with a system that often fails to understand them.

We thought it would be prudent to explain some truths about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (all thanks to ADDitude magazine):

• ADHD is a real medical disorder. It is basically an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain. The result is inattention and impulsiveness. ADHD people often have problems with organization and time management, yet can be outstanding with ideas and their specific interests.

• Many children who have ADHD continue to have it in adulthood. In fact, 70 percent have it into adolescence and 50 percent into adulthood. It’s not merely a childhood disease, and many adults have gone undiagnosed because the disorder wasn’t widely recognized when they were young.

• ADHD affects girls and boys just the same. Myths about it affecting boys more could result in more boys being diagnosed.

• Poor parenting is in no way a cause of ADHD, nor is it a cure. In fact, strict parenting can make the symptoms worse. Again, the cause is brain chemistry.

• People with ADHD often possess above-average intelligence. It’s just that they show it in different ways. Some people thought to have ADHD are Mozart, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, George Bernard Shaw and Salvador Dali.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder remains a controversial topic, as some people who know nothing about the brain believe they know much about why people behave certain ways.

The lesson we all could use is to just give one another a little bit more understanding and empathy, whether a disorder is present or not.