Is there any research on ASD with ADHD

Post Reply New Topic

I have the impression that it is just assumed one has two different conditions at the same time?

Is there any research done?

Is anything really known? (Apart from random observations)

Lots of research. Here's what a quick search on Google Scholar turned up:

http://jad.sagepub.com/content/4/4/203 - found that ADHD/autistic kids and ADHD/non-autistic kids didn't differ on ADHD traits, and ADHD/autistic kids and non-ADHD/autistic kids didn't differ on autistic traits.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/n25368v67r1302v3/ - found a subset of kids who met criteria of autism as preschoolers but around school age they'd grown into non-autistic ADHD kids

http://www.springerlink.com/content/c456651pq5231117/ - found inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive and combined type ADHD could be recognized among autistic kids, and each subtype had different correlations with other symptoms, with combined type generally being the worst off and non-ADHD autistics being the best off.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 0405002561 - found high rates of autistic traits in ADHD kids and ADHD traits in autistic kids, and suggested that the two conditions were basically different flavours of the same thing.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/g41444784g0011jh/ - found autistic and ADHD traits were common in siblings of ADHD kids. Autistic traits between siblings correlated strongly, as did ADHD traits, but ADHD traits in one sib didn't correlate with autistic traits in the other sibling or vice versa.

http://jad.sagepub.com/content/9/3/543 - found that Donepezil, a stimulant used to treat ADHD, was effective in reducing ADHD traits in a series of autistic teenagers, and also seemed to help with communication and social skills.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/5d5qqrk9x9ykf964/ - found that 68% of autistic kids met criteria for ADHD, with it being more common in higher functioning children and in younger children, and that dual diagnosis of ADHD/autistic kids served them better than either diagnosis alone.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/5ajn6behem4ujc9j/ - found that AS individuals scored poorly on an attention task used to screen for ADHD, with greater variability in scores than NT controls.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 0404001780 - found that several school-aged autistic kids met criteria for ADHD, but no kids under 6 did. They also found that presence of inattentive ADHD traits correlated with internalizing (depression/anxiety) problems on the CBCL.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2827258/ - found that ADHD kids experienced social problems similar to autistic social problems but less severe.

Wow. Ettina is really into it. I havent read any research papers about the subject, but I have read about Aspergers diagnosis, and I read that while people with Aspergers might show some characteristics of ADHD, the diagnosis are different, and you cannot treat and Asperger as ADHD because it wont work. My daughter was diagnosed and treated for ADHD and it did not work, only when she began receiving therapy for Aspergers she started getting better, and she did not continue taking meds for ADHD. The therapist worked her focus and she is way more concentrated now.

I have AS, but I definitely do not have ADHD. A person with ADHD cannot focus on any specific task, whereas for me, it's impossible not to focus on one specific task.

Yes, same here. I feel like I have the exact opposite of ADHD. In fact, from my perspective, everyone in the normal range of attention/hyperactivity/blahblahblah appears to have ADHD.

Ironically, I can look like I have a severe case of ADHD. This happens when my brain shuts down from sensory overload, and I am not paying attention to anything, because there is nothing going on in my brain and nothing from the outside getting processed either.

I think psychologists need to be careful assessing ASD children for ADHD. Careful to distinguish the ASD traits that can look like ADHD versus actual ADHD traits. It's doubly hard with ASD children, because they might have trouble describing what the heck is going on inside their minds, or there could be misinterpretations on both sides.

Actually, people with ADHD talk about something called "hyperfocus," which is focus on one specific task, but it's not controllable.

The ability to focus on one specific task does not rule out ADHD. If you can always control what you focus on without difficulty, then that would likely rule it out.

"Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" is actually an extremely misleading name. It's not reflective of what ADHD is at all, as people seem to assume it means "can't pay attention" or "has a short attention span." This also trivializes the difficulties that ADHD actually causes with intention, motivation, organization, self-regulation, and other features that are not coming to mind at this moment.

as btbnnyr wrote, to me, nearly everyone else seems like they have ADHD. I'm just about the opposite of ADHD in nearly every way. Just as a few examples:

People with ADHD tend to speak first and think about it later. I always think carefully before I say anything.

People with ADHD have too many thoughts at once. While I'm always thinking about something, thinking about more than one thing at a time is impossible. I naturally think about one thing and block out everything else. It is extremely difficult for me not to do this.

People with ADHD tend to be disorganized. I'm the most organized person I know.

Okay, here are some short videos that explain ADHD in more detail, and get around a lot of the common misunderstandings about the condition:

http://www.youtube.com/user/A9Kam#g/u

The videos are all of those featuring Russell Barkley. Also, this page has a couple of pdf fact sheets that may help:

http://www.russellbarkley.org/adhd-facts.htm

I did not try to say that I think you have ADHD, I said that what you said about ADHD was inaccurate.

I think both ASD and ADHD people have hyperfocus that is different from normal focus and probably similar to each other. I think hyperfocus may be inherently difficult to control, so the level of control may not distinguish between ASD and ADHD, but rather between hyperfocus and normal focus.

I'd like to see a study comparing normal focus vs. ASD hyperfocus vs. ADHD hyperfocus: duration, ease of entry and exit, different cognitive functions during and not during. With AS, I feel that hyperfocus is both a delightful state of mind and a built-in mechanism to protect my brain from excessive external stimuli. No sensory issues if my brain blocks off all the senses. I wonder if hyperfocus serves a similar purpose for people with ADHD - protection from excessive internal stimuli, the loads of internal channels vying for one's attention and the loads of attention-switching amongst them. Also wonder if executive function improves significantly during hyperfocus.

Yes, this would be interesting to see.

I've seen people (including Dr. Barkley) twist their logic into pretzels trying to distinguish autistic hyperfocus from ADHD hyperfocus. I think Barkley's claim that autistic people hyperfocus and people with ADHD perseverate was kind of interesting way to present it, but not very convincing.



Hyperfocus is, based on descriptions, similar for people with ADHD, although I don't think it has a purpose so much as it is a consequence of being unable to properly regulate focus and perceive the passage of time - so sometimes it is difficult to focus on a particular thing at all, and sometimes it is difficult to shift focus away from a particular thing for long periods of time. The side effect is that one's entire conscious awareness is focused on that one thing and nothing else.

I don't think executive function improves during hyperfocus as hyperfocus itself is a sign of impaired executive function. However, it is possible to complete tasks while hyperfocused, so the consequence is an improvement over not hyperfocusing if you're focused on something you need to do.

I hope that makes sense?

Hyperfocus vs. Perseveration? He'd have to define each of those precisely before he could claim that one group does one and the other group the other. As far as I know, there's not even an accepted definition of hyperfocus, and I don't even know if people without ASD and ADHD also hyperfocus. I've asked around, and it seems like they do, but not nearly as frequently. And interruptions are not described as feeling like "someone has come to murder me".

I'm now officially confused. Nothing makes sense anymore.

The more I look into it, the more it seems as if ADHD is really just a motivational problem. But apparently this isn't true.

Right. Further, some people will even try to argue that hyperfocus in someone with ADHD is just like "normal focus" in a neurotypical, despite the utter lack of any research or evidence to support this.

But yeah, he didn't really define those terms, and I think he definitely misused perseveration in that particular instance.



It's not just a motivational problem, although it plays merry havoc with motivation. It is a pervasive disorder that impacts multiple areas of neurological functioning.

Has anyone else observed that nearly all children appear to have a plethora of ADHD traits until a certain age, around early school-age, when "normal" children start to grow out of the traits, and children with ADHD retain them and their associated differences in neurological functioning? Viewed this way, there's no age of onset for development of the ADHD profile, but rather, age of offset away from the in-born ADHD profile. I also read that some children with ADHD will not retain the traits into adulthood, so as adults, they are no longer considered to have ADHD. Dunno how accurate that is, but if it is, perhaps it takes more time during childhood development for some brains to "outgrow ADHD", and some other brains never "outgrow ADHD"?

Actually, the one group of children that does not appear to have ADHD in early childhood is ASD children. Of course, some children have both, but the rest probably compose the largest population of young children who do not appear to have any significant traits of ADHD.

ADHD is a developmental disability in which self-regulation is delayed, so yes, a lot of children show ADHD-type traits at an age-appropriate level (which means they're not yet ADHD traits). ADHDers never quite match that age-appropriate level.

Some adults do reach the point where their symptoms are not severe enough to be diagnosed with ADHD. This typically happens around 30, and that may not be the case when the DSM-V comes out with slightly different diagnosis criteria for adults (children require six traits from one or both lists to be diagnosed, adults require four traits and the H/I list has four additional symptoms that are more appropriate to adults - plus, all of the symptoms are modified to be more applicable to adults in addition to children).

A large percentage of ASD children also meet the criteria for ADHD, as noted in Ettina's post. I am uncertain that this means people are confusing ASD and ADHD traits, although I do hope care actually was taken to properly distinguish them.

I am not sure how much overlap there actually is.