Published on 12, July, 2020
I have just recieved my full assessment report from the person who gave me a diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder and she has also sent me and email saying that due to my processing difficulties she would like me to fill in an ADHD questionnaire. On the report she said she was sending one to ‘rule it out’
Can ADHD and ASD co-exist? I always thought that if there was a diagnosis of ASD then any other difficulties were put under the umbrella of that, and not a separate thing?
It is true that, under older guidelines, there was a time when autistic people could not also be diagnosed with ADHD or ADD, but the thinking on that has changed, and more recent guidelines do allow a dual-diagnosis. In fact, some preliminary research suggests that anything from 30% to 80% of autistic people may have significant signs of attention deficit distinct from their autistic traits (for example, this newspaper article.) It seems to still be controversial exactly how much the traits of the two conditions overlap, but it certainly seems that there is a cohort of autistic people with a slightly different presentation that suggests attentional problems to a greater degree than other autistic people (just as any other autistic trait varies between individuals.)