Phyxius,

I suffer the "easy distractability" symptom. My neuro could see it in my qEEG. The neuro-psych suggested it also. My understanding is that it is a result of the 'gating' mechanism in the brain malfunctioning. This is also referred to as 'filtering.'

The brain does not know how to shut out the other stimuli. For me, this other stimuli can be visual and/or auditory. A room with too much stimuli on the walls can be easily overwhelming. My attention will be darting from one to the next with very little ability to pull it to a single focus and stay there.

You need to work on finding areas where you can stay focused on your task at hand. It may just be a quiet room, meaning a room with simple visual stimuli and minimal sounds.

I have had two neuro-psych assessments. Both were intended for diagnosis of work disability.

One was in a very chaotic room, professional plaques and auditory distracts were overwhelming. The neuro-psych Ph.D. did not understand my distractability. He actually made negative comments inferring that the claim of over-stimulation was a aberration and not pertinent to his assessment.

The second was in a very sterile environment. My results from the second were much better that from the first. There was no adjustments to the report for the sterile testing environment. This is not a practical work environment. But, the sterile testing environment was not considered in the final analysis.

You have an opportunity to determine if there are work environments that are conducive to doing your job effectively. If there are, and they can be reasonably accommodated, you should still be able to pursue this direction. Of course, you will still need to master the sign language discipline.

But, ADA (American's with Disabilities Act) provides you with access to 'reasonable accommodations' in a work environment. A fixed office should be able to provide this accommodation. If you need to do field work, this accommodation will be difficult to achieve.

So, maybe you need to investigate further into the work environments available to your career direction.

This distractability is very hard to treat. It is primarily organic. So, learning to recognize it and find work-arounds will be important.