Is ADHD/ADD considered to be on the autism spectrum?

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eelektrik
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20 Sep 2012, 3:55 pm

Joe90 wrote:
I wish I had ADHD on it's own. AS involves everything; sensory issues, emotion issues, bad coping skills, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, anxiety, routine desire, addictive obsessions, outbursts, thinking oddly, acting oddly, talking oddly, walking oddly, liking odd things, insanity to NTs, stimming, and the most awful one of all: social awkwardness not just in one way but in almost every area.

According to this thread, people with ADHD are just hyper but otherwise are perfectly normal people. Did I miss something?


There is definitely more to ADHD than just being hyper. The first two letters do stand for Attention Deficit after all, if it was just being hyper it would generally be considered a good thing having a ton of extra energy. But having that extra energy and not being able to properly focus it on what you want? That causes problems.

I was diagnosed with ADD, or what would now be referred to as ADHD-Primarily Inattentive, so I never really had the hyperactivity beyond normal child levels, but my attention span was pretty much nil unless it was something I was interested in and even then I needed help to be kept on task. I still have problems initiating and finishing projects as an adult, my time management skills are nonexistent, and I get stressed out when I have multiple things to work on that are due at the same time.

Also unlike the stereotypical ADHD child who is hyper, distracted, but still outgoing, I am very much an introvert.



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20 Sep 2012, 5:31 pm

Surfman wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
.....people being assumed to grow out of it........ I just think there are also people who really do.


I spoke at length with a pharmacist recently
But she spoke highly of meditation....
Which has been shown by recent tests
To remodel the functioning of the brain....

So yes its possible to turn off
and turn on sectors of the brain
by the action of willpower
and intent


I was not talking about that (although I know someone who swears by it, which makes me think he never had ADHD in the first place). More that some people really do just outgrow it. But even when they do they're still living with the consequences of having had it, which may limit their overall life opportunities.



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20 Sep 2012, 7:57 pm

It takes a special person to turn their life around....



Surfman
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20 Sep 2012, 8:21 pm

Joe90 wrote:
I wish I had ADHD on it's own. AS involves everything; sensory issues, emotion issues, bad coping skills, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, anxiety, routine desire, addictive obsessions, outbursts, thinking oddly, acting oddly, talking oddly, walking oddly, liking odd things, insanity to NTs, stimming, and the most awful one of all: social awkwardness not just in one way but in almost every area.

According to this thread, people with ADHD are just hyper but otherwise are perfectly normal people. Did I miss something?


Its still suffering but not as you know it. It can be quite debilitating..... you can be hypersexual like whats her name, she used to be around here a lot....

But there is a lot of angst in between....



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21 Sep 2012, 2:24 am

I dont think ADD or ADHD are a on the autism spectrum maybe perhaps just outside of the specrum like at the border outside of the spectrum in its own sub-spectrum. It would be scraping the outside of AS and HFA on the spectrum edge.


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Raziel
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21 Sep 2012, 3:12 am

AspieOtaku wrote:
I dont think ADD or ADHD are a on the autism spectrum maybe perhaps just outside of the specrum like at the border outside of the spectrum in its own sub-spectrum. It would be scraping the outside of AS and HFA on the spectrum edge.


Yes, also my opinion.

My social understanding is for a person on the autistic spectrum actually quite good, that's why I'm thinking that I've moved from HFA to PDD-NOS since puberty I guess.
That's why I also had once and ADHD-suspicion, but I score negative on the ADHD/ADD-tests and positive or with at least higher scores on the ASD-tests.
That's why it's also even wrong to say ADHD/ADD would be something like autism, just with a good social understanding and vice versa.
But it's possible that now I look more like ADHD/ADD at first sight, because the symptoms are overlapping but have totally different reasons. I even thought once myself that ADHD/ADD could fit better or that I could have some tendencies. And I took those tests and thought: "wow, totally not my problem." :lol:


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howzat
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23 Sep 2012, 2:43 pm

It isn't on the autism spectrum.



Surfman
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23 Sep 2012, 2:47 pm

yet you can be Dxed as either by a quack.... must be fairly close enough to cause such confusion by experts?



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23 Sep 2012, 2:54 pm

I think a lot of aspies were initially diagnosed ADD or ADHD and later received autie/aspie diagnoses. That happened for both my son and me and also for the daughter of a family friend. I believe I have both but there is no doubt that for me and my son the ASD diagnosis is the more meaningful one in describing and explaining our behaviors.



Raziel
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23 Sep 2012, 3:37 pm

Surfman wrote:
yet you can be Dxed as either by a quack.... must be fairly close enough to cause such confusion by experts?


Yes, there are a lot of connections and it is even genetically related, but a lot of times it can get differentiated by early childhood, tests and so on, but a lot of time it's not that easy and it's not very clear if there is a connection and some ware a "mixture" of both, like there are also other connections to other disorders.
So ADHD is not the only one, it's just more obvious that there is a connection because ADD/ADHD is very common.


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btbnnyr
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23 Sep 2012, 3:43 pm

I thought that I had OCD at one point, because of my ASD-caused RRBs. Then, I took a test for OCD and anxiety disorders, and the questions about what I was thinking if I had OCD were alien to me, and I had never thought like that in my life. But on the outside, I thought that some of the behaviors were similar, and that was why I thought I had it.



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23 Sep 2012, 3:54 pm

btbnnyr wrote:
I thought that I had OCD at one point, because of my ASD-caused RRBs. Then, I took a test for OCD and anxiety disorders, and the questions about what I was thinking if I had OCD were alien to me, and I had never thought like that in my life. But on the outside, I thought that some of the behaviors were similar, and that was why I thought I had it.


Yes, same with me. :lol:

But I noticed that a lot of disorders/syndroms that look similar on the outside, but are still something different (like routines and OCD, tics and stimming, hyperactivity (ADHD) and hypomania (bipolar) etc.) are more often a comorbidity. So there seems to be some conection.


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28 Sep 2012, 11:05 am

Sorry, I forgot I started this thread & now it's gotten really long.

A lot of interesting points here. First off I will (repeat, I think) that I didn't even get diagnosed with ADHD/non-attentive type until I was in my 40s, following my son's diagnosis, who was also diagnosed with ADHD/non-attentive type. . . which is to say neither of us was hyperactive, even when we were children.

I drifted off involuntarily when something lost my attention, but remained in place physically. Prone to impulsive actions, but not in constant motion in the way a hyperactive kid behaves.

Although I have no reason to seek any further diagnoses & believe the time has come & gone when it would have been possible for me to be diagnosed with any kind of developmental disorder, I do feel that I share the experiences of many autistics/people with autism, and have since childhood. Acquired changes in my neurology have intensified my autistic-style traits, such as sensory issues, executive functioning difficulties, desire for sameness, introversion-type feelings & behavior, etc.

Otherwise, I myself might never have had a clue. If I hadn't made it to the age of 50-whatever I was when I figured it out, I would never in my life have thought I had autistic traits because I did not know what they were. I was just the annoying, badly-behaved kid who didn't live up to her potential, and never got around to actually turning into a "regular" grown-up, even now, despite having raised two grown-ups already.

I was ready to discount the AQ test/other online tests but what really got me was a thread on WrongPlanet "you know you're an aspie when . . . "

Wow. Never in my life did I imagine that other people shared the same set of experiences that I had grown up with.

I feel like the internet's primary purpose is/has become a surveillance system, but they do dangle some pretty amazing candy IMO. . . (I do like metaphors, sorry... I've read a lot of books). I've learned a lot and I'm a very small fish, for anyone to want to surveil me . . . so to me the internet is net ~ positive.

Can't believe I just told my younger son's school nurse (first year new school, so never spoke to her before: she called about a required immunization) pretty much the same thing. How cool it is that the surveillance system in place to keep track of us has such appealing perks, such as being able to look up schedules, information of any type really, just instantly at the tip of one's fingers. . .

:) She said she knew exactly what I was talking about. If I'm not totally missing something, my early interactions with her & w/the principal of the new school have gone well. Now I just need to win over his teacher. Oh, must call the teacher.... what am I thinking.... going right this second to do that.

Oh good, she makes appointments only by email. A woman after my own heart. (Now for some reason that looks wrong; is that the saying I meant?)



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29 Nov 2013, 8:41 pm

Surfman wrote:
fizzing around like a fart in a bottle


Is this really an expression?



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29 Nov 2013, 8:52 pm

ColdBlooded wrote:
Plus, a large amount of autistics also have ADHD (but may not be diagnosed with both due to the current DSM not allowing an ADHD diagnosis in someone with a PDD. some professionals will still diagnose both though).


What is really strange is that apparently on the current DSM thing, people aren't supposed to be diagnosed with Asperger's but just autism all together, plus you said that one is not supposed to be diagnosed with both ADHD and an ASD mostly, but I was diagnosed with Asperger's Disorder this year supposedly on the current DSM plus ADHD this year at the same time.

Meh, that's strange.


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30 Nov 2013, 12:12 am

number11 wrote:
I haven't been diagnosed with any autism condition and I doubt that I will pursue diagnosis although I definitely can identify with a lot of the traits, but ADHD/non-attentive type is among the many diagnoses I have accumulated. My son was diagnosed with the exact same disorder but in his case they called it ADD (it was a few years earlier than my diagnosis). Which I don't see why they changed to add the word "hyperactive" and then subtracted that word back out by saying "non-attentive type" meaning the type that isn't physically hyperactive, yet often spaces out and loses attention. I guess that's irrelevant to my question though.

Which is: Reading around on different parts of Wrong Planet, I have come away with the impression that AD/H/D is considered to be part of the spectrum, in a way? But not completely? Or only by some? Are they "cousins" so to speak, or what would you say is the relation?


The two types of ADHD are ADHD - Primarily Hyperactive and ADHD - Primarily Inattentive. I don't know why they changed ADD to ADHD but they did.

There's a third type - ADHD - combined (that's me)

Although ADHD shares symptoms with autism, they are for different reasons and like someone said there are less communication deficits and repetitive behaviour. I know people with ADHD who really struggle with routines.

There are a lot of disorders that have overlapping symptoms yet there's no real connection between them. Epileptic seizures and migraines can have similar symptoms but different causes.


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