Do you think people with ADHD are NT?

Post Reply New Topic

I can't see how people with ADHD can be NT's if people with autism are not. ADHD is a neurological disorder that shares genes with autism. There are physical differences in the brain as well as chemical. People have ADHD their entire lives and though they might do better socially than us (reading non-verbal body language, capable of talking about more than interests) they still struggle with making friends. They're impulsive, hyperactive and inattentive. That can all lead to issues with socialising. Heck, I can't even stay focused on someone talking for longer than 5 seconds.

It's been found people with ADHD are usually five years behind their peers in emotional development too.

The problem is how it is diagnosed. Any fitting those symptoms can be diagnosed but they don't have to show the symptoms in the same way. Basically, the disorder is the symptoms. That's what a doctor with 20 years experience in children psychology had said. I got a bit defensive over it because I saw ADHD as being a disorder where each people with the disorder would experience the symptoms the same. I'm in an ADHD forum and we all seem to not just relate to the symptoms but the way they manifest. But when I just think ADHD is the symptoms then the cause can be anything. It's not actually being misdiagnosed or overdiagnosed. Yeah. I'm cheeky like that. I tell that to the deniers.

I wouldn't call people with bipolar NT too. Though it manifests as mental illness, there's usually a biological reason for it.

Basically I see non-NT as having a difference in your brain that affect you so much that you have a different way of processing the world. Even someone who's had anxiety all their life that doesn't respond to treatment. If you develop the common mental illnesses later then there is a better chance to recover but if these developed early in age then they've sort of affected the way your brain has grown and your whole outlook to life.
I used to just judge someone's lack of being NT on how poor their social skills were. It does;t matter if they socialise a lot; if they are poor then I wouldn't say they were NT.

It's a bit of a vague term. I should just stick with the neurological differences.

Yes, if someone only has ADHD or ADD (or dyslexia or dyscalculia) then they are NT IMO.

So neurodiversity means there are autistic people and then there is everyone else? Doesn't seem very diverse.

The differences in cognition, behavior, perception, etc. are not like autism, but they're not like neurotypicality either.

I kind of feel that way because to me, the people with ADHD are over time much more able to play the NT game successfully in the real world without losing their minds.

The thing is, to people with ADHD, their experience often is that they are seen and feel atypical. The fact that to my point of view it's not as pervasive a difference really doesn't change how they feel, which sometimes, is that they are atypical, they are different, they may not feel neurotypical. And I don't feel like it's right for me to try to say otherwise, how they feel is valid for them. And unfortunately, valid in a world where people are supposed to be predictable and fit in,

I agree with you 100%.

my husband is adhd and i wouldnt call him a Nt. his adhd causes a lot of problems. even as a grown man in his 50s he can behave like a 5-year-old sometimes, and i sometimes feel like i'm his mum.

i think he has a few mild autism traits too but i wouldnt say he has enough to get a diagnosis of it. he might just be borderline.

I agree 100% as well. Although sometimes I think there is a degree of overlap/similarity.

I do not have ASD, but I do have ADHD. What I can tell you is that I have always known I was not like other people. I do not think and process like other people. I may not have impaired social interactions in the way that someone with ASD does, but I do have impaired executive functioning, and it strikes me that there is a lot of similarity in my executive functioning issues and that which is described by people on the spectrum.

I think--sometimes and for some people--there is a belief that if one does not struggle with social disability, that one is NT or in some way typical or unimpaired. Executive dysfunction is not easy. I will tell you that my son who has moderate to severe ADHD is significantly more impaired in his day-to-day life than my daugther with ASD, who has notable social impairments. A perfect example of this is that he completes his homework nearly 100% of the time, but he turns it in about 10% of the time. Everyone tells him "just turn it in!" Listen, folks, if it was that simple and straight forward, he'd be doing it. You would have to be flat out stupid to put the work into doing all of you assignments and then purposefully just not turn them in to tank your grade. But people with typically functioning brains cannot understand why he doesn't turn it in. It seems incomprehensible to them. And willful. And simple to fix. Just a matter of opening his folder, taking out his homework, and handing it to the teacher. For a typically functioning brain, it is that simple. For my son, it is an insurmountable task. He has actually been assigned a teacher to collect all of his homework and distribute it to his other teachers' mailboxes. He is in 7th grade, so this is a significant deviation from what is normally expected by a kid his age.

And the truth is, it is not willful and it is not simple to fix. For as incomprehensible as it seems to others, it is due to the wiring in his brain, which is not something he is going to change through effort. Believe me, I am a certified time management trainer and I could organize your office and files like no one else. Because I know how to do it. But knowing how to do it, does not help me do it personally. I am disorganized, late on assignments, my office is embarrassing, I forget things that I should remember, I get stuck on small details of assignments that should take me 1/3 of the time to complete, some assignments never get done despite the fact that they should be easy for me to complete and sometimes I simply cannot make myself focus on the assignment I need to complete at the moment. My brain just flat our refuses to think about it. I can't even read about it because I can't follow what I am reading. But two days later, I might be able to fly through the reading material and complete the assignment in one hyper-focused session. This "on-again-off-again" issue, where something is impossible one day and easy the next, leads to a lot of people seriously misunderstanding what is going on. They think I can control it. I wish I could. Life would be a lot easier and a lot less frantic at times.

Another way in which I think ASD and ADHD are sometimes alike is that, like many autistics I have met, I have a love-hate relationship with my wiring. There are certain things about the way I think and process that I prize very highly and I know they are a result of my wiring. I know if I was typically wired, the way my brain works would no longer exist. And I love the way my brain works (when I am thinking about the parts that give me an advantage). Yet, on the other had, I hate the way my wiring impairs me and the extra effort I have to put into things that typpies find easy. I wish there was a way that I could parcel out and keep the parts that I like, and eradicate the parts that I don't. But I know that is impossible. Because the good and the bad have the same origin: my wiring. I have met many people on the spectrum who feel the same way.

In my opinion gifted people aren't NT. Giftedness isn't just doing well on tests - gifted people process information differently. It's just as much of a difference as autism or ADHD is. Just because society labels giftedness as a good thing doesn't mean they're any less different from normal.

Without treatment this is not generally true. Statistically speaking, ADHD is more severe than any other outpatient disorder such as major depression or anxiety. It's not as severe as anything likely to get you hospitalized, and it is less severe than autism. It's also extremely treatable.



It goes beyond feelings too - a higher likelihood of teen pregnancy, higher likelihood of dropping out of/failing high school, greater tendency toward unemployment and underemployment. Having ADHD tends to have some rather material impact that a lot of the talk about the disorder doesn't really address (and is frequently avoided).

There is some overlap and a tendency for people with ADHD to have ASD/BAP traits. Also, although it is not yet well understood, ADHD can present some social impairment as well:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17354064



I snipped the excellent middle part - but I am glad you provided such detailed descriptions of what ADHD is like.



Keeping this because this is I think a core part of neurodiversity.

This is what Russell Barkley says, that ADHD is the most impairing disorder that is seen on an outpatient basis, more impairing than Asperger's.

Like you I am great at knowing HOW to organize things. But being able to DO it and keep it organized is something else.



Yes. I experience a lot of inconsistency and I can't really predict when I will be able to do something.

I usually understand what you write ok, but am confused what your point is. Yes, there are children and adults with very severe ADHD who have severe impairments, often accompanied by comorbid conditions. However, with 9.5% of American children at some point diagnosed with ADHD, are you really saying that, in your opinion, ADHD is more severe than any other disorder that isn't severe enough to require hospitalization? That's a very strong statement, I would certainly not agree with you there. I don't know, maybe I am taking you too literally, but this just is not making sense to me.

I am told my ADHD is pretty noticeably severe, and my own experience, not necessarily how others see me, but my experience is that the ASD causes me much more difficulty. Also, as you pointed out, ADHD is pretty treatable. Assuming one can tolerate side effects, which is not a given.

I'm also not sure, do you really think that it's generally not true that without treatment, most people with ADHD can't learn to play the NT game better than most people with ASD? That is the comparison I was making, that they seem to be more able to learn more, in terms of social skills, faster than people with ASD, on average. There certainly are exceptions, though. And both ASD and ADHD are developmental problems that exist on a spectrum of severity.

Most of the posts here have been comparing ADHD and autism to being neurotypical, so I had not specified. Not minimizing the impact of ADHD relative to not having a developmental problem. That is very real.

You're not taking me literally, because I used the word "statistically" to avoid this specific question you just asked. No, everyone who has ADHD does not deal with more severe problems than everyone who has major depression, anxiety, etc. Statistically speaking ADHD is more severe and more impairing than outpatient disorders.

It's also a statement made by Dr. Russell Barkley in a book called ADHD in Adults: What the Science Says and not my personal opinion. In the past when I've mentioned it, people have brought up that they find their depression or anxiety pretty severe, so I tried to qualify my statement to clarify that it is a statistical trend, and not an absolute statement that applies to every single comparison between someone who has ADHD and someone who has another relevant disorder.



Yes, if it's treated, much of the impairment (not all) can be mitigated. Its treatability is not relevant to how impairing untreated ADHD can be.



I don't think it's true that people with ADHD as a group are particularly good at "playing the NT game."

I'm not sure why you're arguing with me, Verdandi, but I will again say that, IMO, people with ADHD are not NT.

ADHD and autism are defined as neurodevelopmental problems, autism is typically a more severe and pervasive problem than ADHD, and it is not simply my opinion that people with ADHD get along better, on average, than people with autism over time. It's the reality for the majority of scientists, clinicians, affected individuals, and families.

You seem to want to make the point that ADHD can be quite impairing, and I don't disagree. My point is that ADHD IS easier to live with than autism for the majority. That was my point, that's my opinion, and that's my interpretation of the science.

I wasn't arguing with you. I tried to answer your question about what I meant.



Yes, my first response refers to ADHD as a neurodevelopmental disorder and my first response to you states that it is not more severe than autism.

My frustration was that I tried to phrase things so as to be clear that every single person with ADHD is not more severely impaired than every single person with major depression, but somehow I managed to communicate that anyway.

And since you mention the science, the statement I made that you said made "no sense" is directly from that science.

I would agree this is generally true, but then I wonder why Dr. Barkley makes the statement so often that ADHD is the MOST impairing disorder that is treated on an outpatient basis. He has said specifically that is it more impairing than Asperger's. Maybe he is also not counting people who need caregivers or support workers as outpatients. He also says that ADHD is the most treatable disorder of all, but the vast majority of adults with ADHD go untreated.

I don't know if the statistics say this for sure but I think people with (untreated) ADHD may be more likely than those with autism to make horrible life decisions, that can lead to financial ruin, incarceration, or death. I do remember that the percentage of those in prison with ADHD is higher than it is in the normal population, but I don't know if it is higher than the rate of people in prison with an ASD. And the mortality rates for people with ADHD are significantly higher than average for things like car accidents and heart disease.

Part of what makes ADHD such a serious impairment is that it doesn't seem as impairing as it is. People who have it, especially under the age of 30, typically underestimate the severity of their own impairments. That lack of awareness, combined with impulsivity, low frustration tolerance and an inability to consider future consequences makes a volatile combination.

The disorder might seem less impairing overall because the person with ADHD is able to do things that someone with a more severe disability might not be able to do, like driving for instance. But they also might be unaware of when they are truly able or unable to do something, similar to the way that a drunk driver might underestimate their own level of intoxication.

It's not always cut and dry to compare the severity of disorders that have different types of impairments (or for that matter, the severity for different individuals who have the same disorder). Yes ADHD is generally less impairing than autism on a day-to-day basis, in terms of life activities and functioning, but I don't know if it is less impairing in terms of how the brain functions. With ADHD you basically function okay, until you don't, and that moment could come when you least expect it and have dramatically life-altering consequences.