A PSYCHOLOGIST AND AN AUTISM THERAPIST OVERVIEW THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN ASD AND ADHD, AS WELL AS THE MANY OVERLAPS.

By Karla PRETORIUS, M. Psych and Nanette BOTHA, BEd

We don’t ask our pediatrician “what else” when we receive a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for our child. We tend to think there is enough we can focus on to support our child with the current diagnosis. But what if we find the support we are implementing is perhaps not helping our child, or we believe there is something else the professionals might have missed?

Parents are the true experts of their children. We know when people are over, or underrating our child’s potential. We are fully aware if a support service makes a difference or just promises to do so. Sometimes, as parents, we feel we cannot be assertive about these instinctive parental observations or findings, but we should always listen to that intuitive superpower.

According to Mandell et al. (2005), ASD and ADHD diagnosis rates have rapidly increased since the 1980s. We have seen a trend of exclusively diagnosing one or the other of these conditions, with fewer comorbid diagnoses. Sometimes there may be potential for a more accurate evaluation to compliment the profiles we see in practice.

When we think of a child recently diagnosed with ASD, who might be intensely active and impulsive, we can easily imagine the child might have a comorbid diagnosis of ADHD. We use the phrase “he or she is so hyper”, sometimes without wondering what the chances are of that child actually being diagnosed with ADHD.