Hyperverbalism (rapid, non-stop talking) is a common symptom in people with attention deficit disorder. For the executive with ADD, the effects of hyperverbalism are at least twofold: (1) it impedes the ADDexec’s ability to listen and (2) it hampers the ability to understood.

Hyperverbalism is also a known symptom in several disorders, including bipolar disorder, autism (including Asperger’s Syndrome). Michael Bartos, MD, has an interesting list of ten similarities (and ten differences) between ADHD and bipolar disorder, available in this article at BipolarCentral.com.

A related term is logorrhea,* which Merriam-Webster defines as “excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness”. Dorlands Illustrated Medical Dictionary in MerckSource.com defines logorrhea as “excessive volubility, with rapid, pressured speech; as seen in manic episodes of bipolar disorder and in some types of schizophrenia” and lists several synonyms: agitolalia, agitophasia, pressured speech, tachylalia, tachyphasia and verbomania.

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*Fun fact: Fourteen-year-old Nupur Lala spelled “logorrhea” to win the 1999 Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee.

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