Girl Scouts of Southeastern New England recently announced that Isabelle Sharp of Bristol earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest award in Girl Scouting.

Isabelle’s Gold Award project is titled “ADHDmons (Life with an Invisible Disability)”. Her Gold Award project addressed the lack of information and education about ADHD and similar disorders that are often co-morbidities. Her Gold Award project involved educating her community about ableism and ADHD.

Isabelle created five illustrations to show how she lives with ADHD, including use of accommodations and how she tries to positively react to make others aware of their unintended ableism. She incorporated her illustrations into a slideshow that was used to educate the community including educators, parents, students, and other neurotypical people, as well as the neurodivergent/neurodiverse (ND) community.

By creating awareness about ableism surrounding ADHD, it will enable neurotypical individuals to gain empathy for those with ADHD. Isabelle hopes that her Gold Award project will create a healthier and more understanding community. Individuals who gain this awareness will then help create a change in culture or a way of thinking about ableism and ADHD that will have national and global impact.

“Bringing awareness to ADHD and ableism was important to me because I have felt misunderstood and out of place for most of my life,” Sharp said. “From elementary school to high school, I did not fit into the neurotypical student mold that most schools’ curricula are built for. Because I excelled academically, I was not diagnosed with ADHD until the end of 7th grade. Then I was able to get approved accommodations the teachers were required to provide me. Even once I had been officially diagnosed with ADHD and had accommodations approved, it was still difficult for neurotypical individuals to understand that my symptoms manifested because of my ADHD and that I was not choosing to do—or to not do—something.”

“Thankfully, I had a few teachers who were very interested in learning more about my disorder and even provided additional accommodations to show that I mastered the material,” Sharp continued. “My parents and I were surprised that some teachers did not know much about ADHD or executive dysfunction which is often caused by ADHD. By bringing awareness to ADHD and ableism to the Bristol-Warren community and the school district, my goal is to help other students find themselves better understood by people who have gained empathy for individuals with invisible disabilities.”

Sharp said she will attend Syracuse University for college.

“A major reason why I chose to attend Syracuse University is its robust Center for Disability Resources and its ADHD/executive function coaching program,” she said. “I am thankful to be in such an inclusive and accommodating environment, and I hope that my project will help further ADHD and ableism awareness to foster such an inclusive environment in my community and beyond.”