Curious to hear from Aspies with no ADHD diagnosis.

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I am wondering about what kind of cognitive impairments usually come with AS only. For those that have not an ADHD diagnosis, did your doctor say that you have traits of ADHD but the ADHD wasn't being diagnosed because of the AS? Or that you simply have AS? Is it even possible to have AS with no traits of ADHD ? I would like to hear from those who's doctors have told them they have AS with no traits of ADHD.

Aside from social interaction, what kinds of things do you struggle with daily? Do you find your cognitive impairments to be severe? The cognitive deficits honestly don't seem so bad as they are described in the DSM but I am more interested in individual experiences.

I have been diagnosed with AS, but I have not been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. A counselor once suspected I had ADHD, but changed her mind after talking to me a bit more and asking me some questions specifically targeting at detecting ADHD.
I do have attention problems because I hyper focus on things. I am always paying very close attention to something, even if it is just in my mind. This makes it difficult to pay attention to other things. If I manage to stop focusing heavily on a certain idea or interest, my brain locks on to any visual or auditory pattern it can find, so I still have a hard time paying attention to, say, someone giving me oral instructions or a casual, everyday conversation. I also have problems with attention in any place where there are fluorescent lights, strong odors, or loud noises because I am very sensitive to them.

Interestingly, my brother is suspected to have ADD or ADHD by himself, his family, and a person who has worked with various special needs children for many years. My brother seems genuinely unable to keep his attention on one thing for very long except on rare occasions.

Previously, I thought ADHD was similar to my problem; however, after realizing my brother's issues and the issues of some other people like him, I suspect it is two different issues that are often mistaken for each another (or at least, AS is mistaken for ADHD).
As for people I know and have met who have actually been diagnosed with both AS and ADD or ADHD, most seem to be like me rather than like my brother or other people I have met who have been diagnosed with ADHD only or seem to have ADHD. They are paying so much attention to something they are interested in they can not pay attention to other things, or their sensory sensitivity is making it difficult for them to focus. Therefore they appear to be attention deficit to many people.

I certainly do not know enough people or have enough experience to state that this is a fact, but I am under the impression that most people with AS who are diagnosed with ADHD are misdiagnosed on the second, and that their attention problems are do to AS.

Anyway, that is my two cents. I am interested to see what others have to say on this subject.

Never diagnosed with ADHD just aspergers. I struggle with lights, minor sounds that others can ignore but drive me to cover my ears or get away or if I'm having a good day can just go off into my own world until the sound stops. When you are around people that don't understand what is going on then it becomes uncomfortable. If you get up and walk away from a setting that is over bearing over sounds, too much going on, lights then you are being non-sociable and unfriendly. If you cover your ears, you are treated like a freak. If you rock, you are a freak. If you go off into your own world to avoid then you are a non-sociable freak.

If you finally come out with it that you have aspergers then you get to listen to people spouting off ignorant statements of how they know everything about autism because they watched Rainman.

It's different experience for each individual with autism. I cannot fit into a neat little box. Someone else with aspergers may be able to relate to some areas of the struggles I deal with but doesn't relate to some other areas. Some people with autism may learn how to accomplish and defeat these boundaries and break down the walls in some areas while the other areas remain the same.

For everytime I have been scolded for being peculiar, for stimming, for finally getting fed up of being treated as a person with no rights to dare talk back, I can also think of all the circumstances where the same people preaching at me have had their own little nervous habits, akward silences, told someone off or didn't fit into an environment that someone else took them too. When I think about it that way, all I can do is think about how much in common we all have regardless of what societal labels are placed on us.

I am me. I know what me is. I am a thinker, I am a perceptive, I am happy, I am sad, I am angry, I am calm regardless of what my outside shows. I am sensitive but I am also a fighter. I have hobbies that if I didn't have growing up would have made life even more difficult. I am a human and I have the same rights as everyone else. I can vent frustration just like anyone else regardless of their little nuh uh uh you aren't allowed BS routines. I AM ALLOWED because like you, I am a human too.

I was suspected of having ADHD when I was ten but never got diagnosed with it. I was only diagnosed with ADD. I don't know why I was never diagnosed with ADHD. Maybe I was too much of a neat freak and too obsessed about cleaning and liked my stuff put away while ADHD people are messy.

I was hyper and I fidgeted and I was very impulsive and I got distracted by noise and sounds very easily. I had difficulty time concentrating. Now it seems like I have outgrown the ADD or maybe I was misdiagnosed.

No signs of ADHD here I will concentrate my attention on a task until well past the point others have gotten bored and gone away.
I am extremely disorganised, untidy, dispraxic and very dislexic.

I don't have ADHD, but terrible executive functioning - it takes me ages to do anything that isn't part of a routine or part of my interests, have a horrible time being organised. I tend to hyperfocus on something and don't pay attention to everything else and have sensory issues which affect my ability to focus and to do things.

I don't have adhd, I'm extremely calm and rarely have outbursts of anger. I do stim to some extent, but it's not excessive and it's something i'm fully aware of. When motivated I don't have any trouble carrying out tasks, but it's sometimes hard to find that motivation and know when to feel motivated.
For me lack of interest in social relations, depression and social anxiety seems to be my biggest obstacles in everyday life. I'm also very introverted and prefer 'living in my own head' over real life.
I don't focus enough on practical issues or social ones, but instead spend most of my time reading/reflecting/analyzing and solving theoretical problems. So, while being very good at abstract ideas and theoretical issues, I'm terrible at doing chores and prepare meals. In life, i'm years behind my peers and they seem so much more mature (till they open their mouth) and have so much going on. I often feel bored by routine, yet I've come to realize that I can't function properly without it.

I only have some AS traits and not others, and I don't have ADHD.

There seem to be traits and behaviors of AS that mimic certain aspects of both OCD and ADHD, but may not be precisely the same, leading to frequent misdiagnosis of one for the other.

In the OCD type behaviors, it looks to me to be a difference in motivation - those with classic OCD engage in repetitive behaviors and rituals because they actually become convinced that if they don't, something bad will result, whereas, with AS, repetition and ritual have more to do with reducing the number of unexpected stimuli we're likely to encounter in any given situation. The less stuff comes up unexpectedly, the less overwhelmed we are with the demands to process. Its more comforting than compulsive.

For me at least, there are no symptoms of external hyperactivity and never have been. On the surface, I'm as mellow as a Kenny G tune. Internally, my brain is flitting from one idea to another, unable to rest on any one thought for more than a minute or so, until it hits something I've already built an obsessive Autistic neural pathway for, then I can hyperfocus for hours on end. That doesn't fit the textbook description of ADHD, yet in many respects, it presents as Inattentive ADHD.