Coexisting conditions with ADHD and Autism

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Hey everyone,

With every blog I complete, I am building my own knowledge of Neurodiverse conditions and I hope you are finding the useful and interesting 😀 Please remember, if you have any comments, you can add them below and I will get back to you as soon as I can 👍

As I have mentioned previously, I have been diagnosed with Non-Attentive Adult ADHD (check out my ‘About Me’ page here, or if you fancy a much longer read, then check out ‘My 1st official blog – About Peter’ here) and this has affected me throughout my life, although it took until my forties to be officially identified! Anyway, let’s get started!

Coexisting conditions

I am going to look at some conditions that can commonly exist alongside Neurodiverse conditions. Although a lot of Neurodiverse conditions are linked through certain traits and behaviours, if you are diagnosed with one, then there is a high chance that you may be on the spectrum for at least one other. Personally, alongside my ADHD diagnosis, I am awaiting further investigation into Autism & Asperger’s 🤷‍♂️

Here is a one-minute video which explains the basics of Neurodiversity:

ADHD:

According to the Mayoclinic.org (1), Although ADHD doesn’t cause other psychological or developmental problems, other disorders often occur along with ADHD and make treatment more challenging. These include:

Mood disorders. Many adults with ADHD also have depression, bipolar disorder or another mood disorder. While mood problems aren’t necessarily due directly to ADHD, a repeated pattern of failures and frustrations due to ADHD can worsen depression.

Anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorders occur fairly often in adults with ADHD. Anxiety disorders may cause overwhelming worry, nervousness and other symptoms. Anxiety can be made worse by the challenges and setbacks caused by ADHD.

Other psychiatric disorders. Adults with ADHD are at increased risk of other psychiatric disorders, such as personality disorders, intermittent explosive disorder and substance use disorders.

Learning disabilities. Adults with ADHD may score lower on academic testing than would be expected for their age, intelligence and education. Learning disabilities can include problems with understanding and communicating.

AUTISM:

It seems that in a weird way, repetitive movements that are regularly labelled as “personality traits”, are misunderstood and it’s often thought that they can be stopped at will by people with some forms of Autism. These behaviours can also affect daily routines and can be brought on by stress.

Repetitive actions / stereotyped behaviours such as rocking, wiggling toes and flapping arms can be seen as ‘part of someone’s personality’ and it can be discouraged in regard to giving medication to stop these actions as this would be seen to take away from their individualism, but although this comes from a good place, it isn’t always the best thing for someone in this situation.

Actions like ‘stimming’ (self-stimulation) can be helpful as it can calm individuals who are overcome by a situation, there are a number of fidget style toys available, check out my review on ADHD/Autism Toys.

As well as offering a calming effect, stimming can also work to attract a caregiver’s attention when they are unable to verbally explain or express themselves fully.

Other behaviours which can appear disturbing like head banging, eye gauging, self-biting can prove to be a concern for parents. Although reports I have read show it is hard to work out a reason for these, it may be similar to stimming in that it is a way individuals deal with stressful or overwhelming situations. Amazingly, like with repetitive behaviours, some people will also try to pass off this behaviour as a ‘personality trait’!

These self-hurting behaviours are a disability and should always be taken seriously as they can result in significant injuries like broken bones, retinal damage and even death.

Another symptom of Autism which can affect people on a daily basis relates to Sensory problems.

“The brain’s filtering mechanism in autism reacts differently to that of neurotypicals. All senses are affected, and at any given time, an individual may be over or under reactive to a given stimuli. This creates a truly frightening environment to the autistic child” (2)

This can relate to infants who avoid close contact and can often throw themselves backwards to avoid touch, this is a major handicap and can require chronic treatment for anxiety. Again, this is a disability and not a ‘gift’ or a sign of an individual’s personality, and should be treated as such.

Seizures are also linked with Autism. They can sometimes be traced back to primitive cells that do not develop correctly, not reaching their target site and remaining behind an island of cells that provide no known useful function.

“Two thirds of autistic individuals exhibit electroencephalographic brainwave abnormalities and one third of cases manifest seizures. The latter are in many cases multifocal and recalcitrant to medical intervention. In syndromic autistic individuals (e.g., Dravet syndrome) the presence of seizures is a diagnostic feature of the condition“(2)

Some groups try to pass the seizures off as a comorbidity (the fact that people who have a disease or condition also have one or more other diseases or conditions), meaning that they believe that the seizures are not linked to the Autism, more just a coincidence. Whereas according to the British Dyslexia Association, seizures and sensory problems are part and parcel of being Autistic.

“The fact that autistic individuals have an excitatory/inhibitory imbalance of the brain has been used as an explanation for sensory and cognitive abnormalities. Autistic individuals are tweaked towards this imbalance by risk genes that mediate the function of inhibitory neurotransmitters. Having this excitatory/inhibitory imbalance is at the core of autism; it is part of whom they are. In a significant number of cases, this imbalance is expressed as seizures“

Conclusion

From the information I have looked through, it seems clear that are 2 views in regard to symptoms of ADHD and Autism.

Firstly those who believe that the ‘traits’ shown by Neurodiverse individuals are part of their personality and should not be interfered with and secondly those who seem to look at this from a medically based frame of mind, where although these ‘personality traits’ are individual to people they can be massively detrimental and on occasion lead to death so medical assistance should be sought.

Alongside medical treatments, options like therapy and even sensory toys / fidget toys can be useful. Check out my review on ADHD/Autism Toys here.

I hope you have found this blog useful and informative, if you have any comments, please add them below and I will get back to you asap.

Take Care, Pete 😀

(1) Adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) – Symptoms and causes – Mayo Clinic
(2) British Dyslexia Association (bdadyslexia.org.uk)