ADHD vs AS Traits, Similarities & Differences

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Good point. I think a large number of stims are considered "nervous habits" because of how they are perceived by other people. The reality is that the individual may not actually be anxious at all. I know I'm not anxious every time I stim.

I'll update the wording a bit, to make it clearer.

There are a lot of differences between AS and ADHD explained in the book "Different Minds". It really is a great book. I'm sure it could be used to make this already magnificient thread that much more exhaustive.

Thanks for the suggestion! Maybe I can order the book at some point. Looking at the reviews, it sounds like a pretty decent one. I'm always up for more reading, assuming I don't too much else to do. I also just recently got a Kindle... maybe I can make it the first e-book I purchase!

Well my sister whos adhd, clearly not aspergers managed to get mis-diagnosed with borderline aspie??? So I figure there must be enough overlap between aspergers and adhd. My sister is well if she IS aspie, is probably the most social aspie you've ever met. She's NEEDS social contact, shes very NT like to the point where shes stuck to her friends. Plus shes never had problems making friends. Not to say shes hasn't had problems with friends. She DOES read body language and she never had problems doing so. When we were little, she'd get pissed at me after family gatherings cause I never "noticed" some subtle thing about something that happened. Later to figure out, I didn't read it. She used to criticize my parents for being to lenient on her in social behavior?? So I figure there MUST be enough overlap between adhd and aspergers if someone like my sister could be misdiagnosed with it.

Ah, I see. I thought the both list was supposed to be for people who have both ASD and ADHD. There was a thread recently about what it's like to have both.

Maybe! I personally don't like buying books, so I ended up checking it out from the university library.

Darn. I just checked the public library, but it doesn't look like they have it. I'm not near a university anymore, so I probably can't go the university library route either. Oh well. Maybe I will just download it after all.

Well, if we wanted, we could make a list for characteristics of people who have both. I imagine it'd be harder, though it would make for an interesting study.

Honestly, I think it's probably a subject better left for another thread.

www.worldcat.org - If you can find the book here available at another city, you could do an interlibrary loan at your public library. But, it is a bit faster and a helluva lot more convenient to download it.

Oh, thanks for the link! That looks like it'll be really useful.

Also, I like your new avatar! I'd say it's even a little cuter than your bunny with the evil horns. Haha.

Sorry, just read your reply.

It's possible that your sister is "borderline Aspie", but I don't really know her personally. Hence, it's hard to say. It could be that she functions mostly okay, but is just a little off in her mannerism. Perhaps that is what her therapist or whoever is picking up?

It could also be like my dad's case. He definitely has ADHD and craves social connections too. He is very extroverted and loves to be around people. That said, he's not very "touchy feel-y" (as my mom puts it.. he's not very sympathetic to the concerns of others) and tends to monologue about his research (even though no one is interested or has much of a clue what he's talking about). In other words, he has some difficulty with theory of mind. Alone, it's probably not diagnosable.

Most of the people I know with ADHD have some "Aspie" traits, so I think the two are connected in some way. I mean, it's all neurological and these labels that psychologists have come up with only measure trends across a group. In reality, no people with ASD's are alike. Everyone's an individual.

I also remember at least one article suggesting that ADHD may actually be somewhere on the autism spectrum. That said, as others will happily point out, you can have ADHD without any of the symptoms of AS, too (and be fine socially). I guess it just depends on the person and their particular combination of genes.

I've heard that a lot of people think they're great at reading between the lines and picking up on subtle body language. Or even saying that they great intuition and know what a person will turn out to be like.

People with ADHD do have social issues but it's different to AS. They're impulsive so say things that may be inappropriate before they realise it is. My mum who has a lot of ADHD symptoms is really social but really awkward, not quiet but very impulsive and is always saying embarrassing things. She doesn't show a lot of sympathy too. She gets really caught up in her emotions like thinks people are always out to get her.
Yeah there is an overlap but I think if you look back on ADHD only symptoms (or dominant symptoms) and apply them to the persons behaviour you can start to separate it from AS. Same way for AS.

Yeah, that's a good point. Your mom sounds a bit like my dad, too. He is always getting into trouble with people because of his sometimes volatile personality. He says exactly what comes to mind and is extremely impulsive. Generally speaking, people like him... but there are times when he offends people because he's very vocal about his opinions.

My dad also has that "paranoia" a bit at times. Any slight, no matter how silly, is taken personally. If someone cuts him off while driving, it was deliberate. That sort of thing...

Socially nearsighted is how I would describe him. That's probably how I am, too, though I am not nearly as impulsive as he is.

> They're impulsive so say things that may be inappropriate before they realise it is.

Then, of course, there's the Aspie+ADD variant -- having no idea what to say, agonizing over it for a while, coming up with something, and having it be equally bad and inappropriate

There's also the matter of context when trying to reconcile the list of ADD and Aspie traits. Take "Love of routine". Left to my own devices, in an unstructured environment, I hate routine. Some of my most fun days were spent semi-aimlessly roaming around New York, DC, downtown Miami, and Montreal with no particular goal or agenda in mind. I've had plenty of totally spontaneous days.

HOWEVER... at work, when I'm forced to be productive, it's another matter entirely. Disrupt my work routine, and I'm going to start to forget to do things that I'm supposed to do and stress out. Totally disrupt my work routine, and I'm going to get really annoyed. Put me in a situation where I'm getting slammed in person, by phone, and by email nonstop for more than 3 minutes, and watch me come totally unglued. At work, being able to point at a specific routine and say, "I did what I'm supposed to, see the checklist? Now go fsck off and leave me alone." is definitely comforting.

By the same token, I love to plan trips. I'll plan them in exquisite detail. Then completely ignore the plan once I arrive.

In other words, when I *have* to get things done, routines are comforting and reduce my stress & anxiety level. But the moment I have the freedom to do whatever I want to do, with no real requirement that I do anything specific, the routines go out the window and are totally forgotten about.

How much of that is "Aspie", how much of that is "ADD", and how much of it is due to two semi-conflicting conditions fighting for dominance, is anybody's guess. Personally, I think that particular "aspie" trait is just a common coping mechanism rather than an inherent trait. IMHO, the entire DSM does a crap job of identifying and differentiating between things that are inherent and caused by biology, vs things that are just coping mechanisms or their related side effects.

I personally hate the artificial division between psychiatry and neurology, and wish there were a middle category like "psychiatric neurology" for doctors who are kind of like the medical equivalent of embedded software engineers (where you have people who do mostly hardware design and others who do mostly software design, but very few who don't end up touching both ends of the design process at one point or another).

Thanks for the great list, Syrella!

This is something that I had been wanting to do for some time, but never quite got around to it...
I think I may have found a highly regarded psychologist here in town that specializes in ADHD but is knowledgable about ASD and is open to the idea of re-assesing me in regards to having both. More and more I think that could be the answer. As soon as my money situation improves (hopefully in a couple of months) I will be going to see him.
I'm sure your list will be helpful to a lot of people!

I actually have practically all of the traits in the ADHD list, but was diagnosed with AS.