- Autism versus ADHD, what are the similarities and differences between autism and ADHD? In today's Patreon's Choice Video, I will be throwing some
random information at you because that is the way that my morning has gone at the moment, I've basically canceled
everything else I've got today, because I have energy for this video and you are going to see what a little bit of how my mind works around trying to explain some concepts (ball thuds) and what I need
to keep myself on track. You'll notice I'm speaking a bit quickly, it's because if I stop speaking, I'll probably forget what I'm saying. Back on track, what was I saying? So autism and ADHD, there's a lot of similarities
between autism and ADHD. They're one of the most
misdiagnosed, as in getting one, misdiagnosing one when it
should have been the other and also commonly occurring conditions where someone actually has
autism and ADHD at the same time. So clearly, there's a lot of overlap
but there are also some very significant differences as well. So I'll be going through
some of that today in as structured way as I can
given the state this morning. So these notes are for me, don't worry too much
if you can't read them. I just needed to write it out
before I forget essentially. So my name is Paul, I am from
Asperger's from the Inside, you may have seen the channel. I discovered I was on the
spectrum about five years ago now. So I definitely have Asperger's, definitely do not have ADHD. You might have seen my video yesterday where I took the ADHD test. So I'll be speaking from my
own experience about autism, but I do not have ADHD. In fact, as you'll see later, some of my characteristics are the complete opposite of ADHD. So I've done my best to use
the language and analogies that I've heard other people
with ADHD actually use, but if you wanna get to know
more about autism or ADHD or anything else for that matter, my number one piece of advice is, go out and meet not just one person, but many people with the condition and let them tell you what
it actually means for them. However, if you're after resources, I've got a video explaining autism. And my personal favorite
explanation of ADHD is from Jess from How to ADHD, and it's called the motivation bridge. And it was the most helpful
video that I've seen so far that helped me understand
what ADHD actually is, and why stimulant
medication actually works. So that was a really good one. Okay, I should have probably, you're probably not even watching anymore. Okay, that's okay. Let's keep going. So, the first thing to
know is that the name ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is probably the worst named thing in the entire medical profession. Attention, great, yes, it has something
to do with attention. Deficit, yeah, no, not always. Hyperactive, no, not always. Disorder, arguable, right? So the best way to understand ADHD is it's around attention, has very specifically to do
with attention and regulation, whereas understanding autism, it's a difference that can be in many, many, many different areas, attention being one of those areas. So how are they both the same, they are both a
neurodevelopmental condition, meaning it's something to do
with how our brains develop, our brains develop differently. However, we both have issues regulating behavior and emotions, which results in social issues and especially feeling misunderstood, having our behavior misunderstood, and getting labels like lazy or people thinking that we
don't care or that we're weird, and being told off for things that we don't actually control. So there's a lot of unhelpful stereotypes about both autism and ADHD. And one of them is that it
affects young boys only, right? So, adults surprisingly enough, still have autism, still have ADHD. And also, a lot of girls and women tend to fly under the radar as well, and being underdiagnosed, because it's not so well known, and it's not as easy to
pick up in girls and women. So, one thing that puts us all together is that being normal is difficult. Our natural way of being is to do things in a certain way and to conform that to society and what we're expected to do is often really challenging
slash impossible, and we'll get to that a
little bit more later. Something else that we can all agree on is that you cannot be
a little bit autistic any more than you can
have a little bit of ADHD. All of the behaviors that I'm going to be
talking about in this video, they're all human behaviors, we all do them from time to time, right? Have you ever lost your keys? Have you ever not felt like socializing? Have you ever been
overwhelmed by a situation or stressed out by something? Of course you have, they
are all human behaviors. And for most people
that's not a big problem. So how to understand autism and ADHD, it's less of an a thing itself, like this is autism or this is ADHD, and it's more a deviation from the average neurotypical person. So let's say if you have a
neurotypical person, right? They will find something's
easy and something's difficult. So let's take a really
simple example, right? I'll use children because
it's an easy thing that we can all relate to, right? As a kid running around playing with your friends is
fun and easy and exciting, sitting still at a desk doing
homework is less stimulating, less interesting and harder
to do and less fun usually. So if that's the case for
every kid or virtually, then for ADHD, those impulses
are exaggerated, right? There is no middle ground, it's either nothing or everything. So, running around playing with your friends is really exciting and really
fun and really stimulating, and it can be hard to stop
doing that because it's so fun. And at the same time, sitting still looking at a piece of paper, without the mental stimulation is really boring, really hard to the point where it might
physically be impossible to force yourself to do that, right? So one way of thinking about ADHD is that if you've got
a neurotypical child, then all of the impulses are exaggerated and the ability to
control them is reduced. Now, again, massive oversimplification, I hope I haven't offended anyone, I'm just trying to be
giving a sense, right? So how does autism differ from
the neurotypical population? Well, with autism all bets are off anything is possible. You might have a kid who
doesn't like going outside and running around and
playing with their friends. Some people don't like
moving very much at all, and would much prefer, you
know, really firm pressure and to sit there and not
actually have to move. Because movement is not
a very fun thing to do. Other kids will really love just spinning and spinning
and spinning and spinning 'cause they never get dizzy. Or maybe this particular kid
loves doing their homework. All they wanna do is sit down and read and do maths questions and no,
they don't wanna talk to you and no, they don't wanna play. Anything is possible with autism. So, in summary, you've got neurotypical, you've got ADHD, where all of the normal impulses are souped up out of control. And then you've got autism where absolutely all bets are
off and anything is possible. So this means that we tend some of the things that we
struggle with are the same, but a lot of the things that we struggle with are quite different. So again, when we're talking about ADHD, it's predominantly around
attention and regulation and impulse control and things like that. One of the biggest differences is that ADHD has a medical, like physiological background that we know what is actually happening. It's something to do with low dopamine in the brain
or something like that. Which means that you can actually, there is medication that helps regulate ADHD and regulate attention. Another thing with ADHD and this is something I picked up from watching Jess'
videos from How to ADHD, is that a lot of the time, the internal dialogue is, "I know what I wanna do, "I know what I need to do, "I just can't do it. "There's a huge thing over there, "It's really hard, "I really want it, "but I can't do it "because I just can't give
myself the motivation, "I know it's important, "I just can't do it." Autism can be significantly
different to that. Very often we're confused and don't know what we're
supposed to be doing in a social situation, for example. Autism is characterized by anxiety and a lot of the things that we do are centered around trying to feel better in an unsafe world, in a hostile world and we just wanna run away
and make it feel better. So a lot of autistic people have a huge ability to mask, even young children have
the ability to go to school and do everything they
need to do at school and then they'll come
home and they will crash, they will have a meltdown or a shutdown, or just have no energy and crash, because they've used up all of their energy trying to be normal, and then they've got no
energy at the end of the day. In contrast, ADHD is more characterized by an inability to do those things that you know you're expected to do. Now, be very careful here, do not think that one is
better than the other. One is, if you can't do something that someone is expecting
you to do, right? Then you might fail more publicly, but if you have to mask it all the time, then that is a crushing
internal experience, and eventually you will no longer be able to take it anymore. And eventually that mask will fall off and then you'll fail in a
much more spectacular way. So very similar challenges due to being wired differently and having different
things that motivate us. So one of the reasons that
I'm doing this video today is because I started
thinking about it yesterday. So I've started writing
out what I'm gonna do, and I've started thinking about it, and I'm getting really good ideas, and I'm getting on a roll. And so I went to sleep. And I woke up early this morning, and my brain was still on that same thing. So for me, what autism looks like is when I'm on something, when I'm in the zone for something, it's really difficult to
change and do something else. And at the same time, it's really easy to keep
doing the same thing that I'm doing, to maintain
a long focused attention on one tiny little task and just keep going and
keep going and keep going until it's done. So this is another way to understand a potential difference
between autism and ADHD. And that is around under and overregulation of our attention. So if a neurotypical brain, right? Has the ability to
regulate their attention somewhere in the middle, right? I have the ability to concentrate, I have the ability to just let it go. ADHD is characterized by underregulation, difficulty regulating attention. Whereas autism for me is characterized by overregulation, every bit of my attention is
heavily regulated by my brain, you could say that my
inhibitions are huge, it's really hard for me to
get in the spirit of things, to go with the flow, to pick up of the emotions of the room and actually, you know,
go with other people, because it takes me a
lot longer to do that, and I've actually got a video on what I call emotional damping, where I still feel the same things but it just takes longer for the feelings to kind of take over. So this for me means I have an absolutely huge
starting inertia, right? To start a task is a huge amount of
energy to start a task. To continue with a task is really easy. An analogy might be trying to power a freight train up a really steep hill, getting there is hard but once you're over the top and going, once you've got the momentum going, the easiest thing to do
is to just keep going. Whereas ADHD what I've
noticed from my friends is that a lot of people have a very, very low instigation energy, "Oh look, I've got an idea. "I'm already doing it. "Oh I've already finished it, "I'm already back, "I'm already thinking something
else, I'm already back." And me I'm sitting here
going, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, "I can't keep up. "I'm doing one thing "and if I'm gonna switch to another idea, "that is a huge amount of energy for me. "I just can't switch
between those two tasks." Now interestingly, ADHD is also characterized,
well not characterized, but something that can happen
with ADHD is hyperfocus in a similar way that
autism can have hyperfocus. But in the ADHD case,
it's less of a hyperfocus and more of a hyperdistraction,
hyperstimulation, I'm being constantly
stimulated by this thing, and therefore I'm stuck on it, like video games or something. Whereas with autism, because my regulation is so
controlled, so overregulated, I can focus my attention on something and block out the rest of the world, so that I am doing just this one thing, and I just do not notice anything else. So you can see that there's a bit of a
subtle difference there. Now, here's the absolute clincher that makes it so confusing as to whether it's autism or ADHD or both. So I mentioned that neurotypical can regulate their attention, ADHD has trouble
regulating their attention and my version of autism
is an overregulation. However, this end of the attention
regulation curve, can be autism as well. Autism does not care which
side of normal you fall. Autism is characterized by too much or too little of a huge variety of things. So that might be I talk too
much, or I talk too little, or I feel too much, or I feel too little or I'm too sensitive, or
I'm too undersensitive, or I'm too intelligent, or I'm
too not intelligent, right? All of those things are autism. So to give you an example, if a child is four years
old and not talking evidence for autism, click, right? Language delay. If a child is 18-months-old, and he's going to their parents going, "Daddy, why are the other
kids not talking to me?" And you have to try and
explain to an 18-month-year-old that your peers can't talk yet, that's why they're not
talking to you, right? That's a significant social thing that makes it difficult
to relate to your peers if you're not on the same level, either too far ahead or too far behind. So, autism can be overregulation, autism can also be underregulation, the same as ADHD. Now, depending on the degree
of this underregulation, or how and why it occurs will depend if you meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD or not. And I'll come back to that in some examples of memory
and executive function. So, let's take some examples, right? So let's take small talk. So it's possible that someone
with autism and or ADHD might have difficulty with small talk. "It's boring, "why do I do this?" However, for ADHD it's
going to be more like, "This conversation is not
stimulating enough for me, "I'm really trying to pay
attention, but it's so boring, "I just can't keep listening to you, "can we please talk about
something interesting? "Because otherwise, "I just will not physically be able "to keep my attention on this, "I need more stimulation." Whereas for someone on the autism spectrum it's more likely to be something like, "What is the purpose of small talk? "I have no idea what small talk is, "I have no idea why you're even
trying to small talk to me. "This whole situation is confusing. "Can we please just talk
about something else "that's interesting? "Surely that would be better
for everyone concerned." So you can see that there's a bit of a lack of acceptance and understanding of the
social norms with the autism, whereas with the ADHD, the similar behavior is more driven by the need for stimulation, even if the social norms are understood. So another example, what about someone who talks too much. Have you ever met someone who gets really interested in something and just keeps talking at you and does not require
any feedback from you? Right? So, again, for autism this could be because of a lack of recognition
of social cues, right? I'm talking at you, and I think you're interested when you're not actually interested. Or maybe I get so focused
on what I'm talking about, 'cause it's so interesting that I don't notice that
you're trying to leave and I'm suddenly following you, and it's a little bit creepy. Whereas again, on the ADHD side, think about the motivation being attention and the need for stimulation. So if I'm talking about, ADHD talking about something, and it's really interesting and stimulating to talk about it, it's easy to keep talking and again in a very similar way, not notice what else is going on. Similar thing. So executive function is another thing that can be a challenge (ball thuds) for both autism an ADHD? But again, what's happening behind the scenes might look very different. So if you get distracted and forget about what
you're supposed to be doing, because something else has
grabbed your attention, well, that's an attention thing, and that could potentially be ADHD. Whereas, if the reason that I forget is because I don't have a
reminder and nothing prompts me, then it's not so much that
something took my attention away, it's that there was no
reminder to make me think, I'm sitting here thinking, is there anything else I need to do? And I come up with nothing, because I didn't have the right prompt. So that's why things like visual schedules often work with autistic people. It might actually be that it's the format of the
information that's the issue and it's not actually an
impulse or attention problem. Do you have a bad memory? Are you forgetful? Or is it just the way that
information is presented to you? For me, for example, I'm a pattern thinker, which means I need to have
a piece of information in context with everything else, and then I'll remember it forever. Whereas, if you just tell me something, then I'm unlikely to remember it. I also have a really good auditory memory. If you verbally tell me something, it's much easier for me to process and understand that information compared if I have to read it or get it from some other method. Again, it's not an attention thing. I don't forget because I
wasn't paying attention, I forget because the information
didn't get through to me because of the processing
of that information due to how I process information. So the last thing I'll talk about briefly is motivation, right? So the gap in motivation might potentially be quite different depending on what's going on underneath. So for example with autism, especially this
overregulation form of autism, I am going to need to know why I'm doing something because it takes me a lot of energy to do something that I don't wanna do. Like small talk, for example, why am I doing this? Is it better for me to
just avoid the situation rather than have to spend all this energy? Or alternatively, maybe something is really difficult because of a sensory processing thing or an information processing issue. Why would I read 100 page document when I can listen to an audiobook. Instead for ADHD, it's more likely that the person actually knows what they wanna do and knows and understands at least at an intellectual level, that it's important, but just can't physically, emotionally motivate themselves to actually do it. And in this case, right? "So why would I sit
down and do my homework? "It's boring. "Oh, colorful pencils." Right? So you can kind of trick yourself into giving motivation to overcome the emotional side of it if you already have the intellectual side, and you know it's easy. Anyway, that's been a
discussion on autism and ADHD, I've focused predominantly
on the differences, but that's because there's so much overlap and our experiences are actually very
similar in a lot of ways, not least, because if you
get told off regularly for something that you can't control, like an inability to understand something, or not sure what to do
in a social situation, or you're trying your hardest, but it's just not good enough
in this particular situation, and you need to do it in a different way. Or alternatively, you do it in a different way, but it's not a way that's
socially acceptable, but it's the way that
it has to work for you, then that's really challenging because people can't see, right? It's an invisible, for
the most part, condition, no one can see how hard you're
trying to pay attention, no one can see how hard you're trying to understand the situation or figure out what's going on socially. So, from the outside, it looks very different from the inside, so I've tried to explain a little bit of multiple reasons
for very similar behavior. And I hope this has been helpful getting a sense of the difference
between autism and ADHD. So thank you to our Patreon family for suggesting this video topic. If you'd like to support
this channel financially, you can become a cup of coffee
supporter of this channel for less than $1 a week and have your say in next month's Patreon's
Choice Video too. So check that out. Otherwise, I hope you've enjoyed this video and yeah, (ball thuds)
hope you see the difference between Asperger's and
autism and ADHD (ball thuds) and something I'm sure
there were more words, but I ran out of steam. Never mind, bye.
I was diagnosed with both...
Am I... Have I been lied to?
I don't know if i was misdiagnosed or if i have both now....