Anyone with autism NOT have ADHD?

Post Reply New Topic

I meet traits of ADD and my psychologist said, that it occurs autism, but it would not get diagnosed separately.
But when I am into an SI I can absolutely hyperfocus. In fact I think I always hyperfocus, even if it is only in my thoughts or on my thoughts, which makes me unable to concentrate on other things. Or I hyperfocus on the pattern at the wall. This makes me unattentive for other things.

I wish. Can't ever finish anything or barely get started. I need to drag myself away from this forum and write.

I once forgot to lock the front door then we went out for two hours. Everyone knows it was me.

I wish I had the long term memory like many with autism have. But I have to settle for constant re-vision. If I don't write down or plan a task I forget. I spiral through my interests quickly unless I make sure I stick with them.

I've got both forms of ADHD and ODD co-morbid. Sometimes my mouth just runs and I can be insulting without realising it.

I'm pretty sure I've been diagnosed with AS and I haven't been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, but as I compare the characteristics of the two I feel a lot more like ADHD than AS.

No ADHD here.

I sometimes feel quite unusual in that I solidly don't have ADHD. I don't even meet 4 criteria of any variety of ADHD (and didn't even as a child)

I don't meet criteria for ADHD. In fact some of my traits are the opposite of ADHD, such as long attention span (which is a common autistic trait).

However, when I hear ADHD people describe how they think, especially Inattentive ADHD, I often identify with them a lot. In fact many ADHD people think more like me than many autistics do.

I have Asperger's, but I don't have ADHD.

I have Asperger's but not ADHD.

I have AS, but not ADHD.

I solidly meet the criteria for inattentive type ADHD, and I just barely miss meeting the criteria for combined type. If I were diagnosed under the DSM-5, I would easily meet the criteria for combined type.

I notice people say "I can't have ADHD, I don't have an attention deficit." ADHD is called "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" but the name is a misnomer - it isn't actually an attention deficit. You could call it an intention deficit disorder or a motivation deficit disorder, or an executive dysfunction disorder, or even a self-regulation deficit disorder, but it's not characterized by a short attention span or a true attention deficit. Calling ADHD "attention deficit" is like saying autism is all about flapping hands.

For me, ADHD isn't about how long I can pay attention to something at all. I can pay attention to things for hours. It is about - to some extent - controlling how I direct my attention, intentions, motivations, etc. The problems it causes for me are related to impulsiveness (I often do and say things without thinking, purchase things I don't need without really thinking about whether I can afford it, etc.), organization, doing anything I find to be boring, shifting my attention from things I like. I can't plan very well - when I clean a room, my plan is fairly haphazard and tends to involve shifting from one task to the next without making a lot of headway, and without really knowing which part I should do first, or next. Usually, what motivates me is that I need to find something I lost, or I need to have a room clean by a certain day for various reasons, but even then I don't manage it very well. I lose things all the time. I don't do it as much, but I used to set things down and then spend hours trying to find them again. Nowadays, it's more like I don't have as much stuff to keep track of and therefore lose.

I remember occasions when I set out to clean up a room to find a specific thing - a pair of shoes for example. Once I found the shoes, the motivation to continue cleaning simply evaporated. I couldn't prioritize it above other things I wanted to do, which made it difficult to push forward with the cleaning task, even though I actually did want to finish.

It impacts my sense of time, as in I barely have one. I am really good at guessing what time it is, but I am terrible at knowing how much time has passed. To me, I may feel like only a few minutes have passed, but in reality hours have. Further, I don't really have a strong sense of "the future." I mostly have a sense of "now," with a somewhat faint sense of "tomorrow" followed by "next week to next month." Anything past that might as well be never as far as how I think about it.

I think some of this is autism and some of this is ADHD. And some is both. But mostly, ADHD is a lot of things that aren't best described as "attention deficit."

The above is not saying people have ADHD if they say they don't. More that people are describing ADHD inaccurately.

i have AS but not ADD or ADHD. it does seem to be prevalent in the spectrum and some symptoms seem similar. when i got tested for AS i also got my attention span tested for some reason i couldn't understand. i have consentration issues but 7 years ago when i was tested i was told it didnt need medicating yet. the shrinks place tested people for 2 things(i dont know if they did them at the same time) aspergers and either ADD or ADHD. i just thought it rather queer at the time.

I have Asperger's and ADHD - I'm starting on Strattera this week, the first time I have been prescribed ADHD meds.

According to Dr. Russell Barkley 20% of those with ADHD are on the Autism spectrum and at least 20% of those on the Autism Spectrum have ADHD.

It's only in the last 6 months that I have really seen and understood how impairing ADHD has been to my life, FAR more than Aspegers!