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Aspergers and/or ADHD

Sthira

Active Member
How to tell the difference between ADHD and Aspergers? My son was diagnosed with ASD about 15 months ago, but I often wonder whether most of his issues aren't explained by issues with self-regulation and executive function. He can seem very normal at times (great sense of humor, very natural response to fairly subtle non-verbal cues, etc.), but he gets wound up and starts bouncing around. He also seems to get a kick out of intentionally annoying people (he knows very well what annoys people) and, being very extroverted, often gets into other people's personal space. He also has issues with compliance (this is less of an issue at school, fortunately.) He was evaluated by his school and scored in the top 99%-tile for vocab and top 99.9%-tile for listening comprehension. The people on his evaluation team were particularly surprised by his "theory of mind" score which was also in the top 99%-tile. After the 60 day evaluation period they told us that they noticed some very mild autistic behaviors, but what they emphasized most was the issues he was having with focus. So, does anyone here have any insight into how one distinguishes ADD/ADHD from Aspergers? I'm asking this because I don't want to invest a huge amount of his time in ABA (he's been doing that for about 9 months and we've only noticed some small improvements -- he figured out the "game" pretty quickly) if his issues are mostly driven by ADHD. Are there any tests that can help to discriminate between these conditions?
 
I have both ADHD and Asperger's (or in my case ASD - autism spectrum disorder). I was diagnosed first with ADHD and then with ASD. All within a year. I've done a good job of hiding and managing the symptoms because diagnosis only occurred in my 40s.

The diagnosis reports are useful and I'm also learning as I go along. You asked about discriminating between the two conditions. In my case and based the diagnosis and on a lifetime of experiences,

ADHD - careless mistakes, trouble focusing, poor concentration, impatient
ASD - fixed special interests, impaired social skills, little empathy

Together, they have caused problems with executive function. This has been noticeable at work places.

This UK National Health Service (NHS) report may help with information ADHD and ASD comorbidity.
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/Whitwell Susannah - ASD CPD Updates.pdf
Pages 13-15 are perhaps the most interesting.
 
My daughter has both ADHD and Asperger's. Her neuro psychologist says it's more common than most people think. She was diagnosed with ADHD first at age 6 and wasn't diagnosed with Asperger's until age 16. I was told that a lot of times the ADHD (if it is severe enough) can hide the Asperger's causing it to be missed.
 

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