ADHD vs AS Traits, Similarities & Differences

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Mdyar
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02 Dec 2011, 8:23 pm

swbluto wrote:
Dr. Russell Barkley comes to clarify that people with ADHD don't "hyperfocus", a persistent myth among ADHD advocates, they have the seriously disabling trait known as "perseveration". 'Hyperfocusing goes with autism, Perseveration goes with ADHD' were his infallible words.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfkg0VWx3rM&feature=related[/youtube]


"Frontal injury" 8O

Ah, bummer.

But seriously.........

Deep down one can sense it though. I used to enter into deep imaginative states ( before Dx), to discover or delineate my cognition against a standard. Ya know something is off.

I used to think if I got an MRI for something else, incidentally the Doc would've found a "lesion" somewhere..... my spidey sense was spot on.



Mummy_of_Peanut
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03 Dec 2011, 7:12 am

pensieve wrote:
btbnnyr wrote:
Mummy_of_Peanut wrote:
I've been reading about giftedness too. It seems it can be hard to tell if someone is gifted/NT or has Aspergers or ADHD or is both gifted and has one or other of them.


I've known a lot of gifted NTs, and in my experience, they are not much like people with AS. They may appear socially awkward or distant to mainstream NTs, but they appear very socially adept to me and interact very well with each other. Gifted NTs are just as alien to me as mainstream NTs. Some gifted NTs have a few autistic traits with low severity, e.g. interests that they pursue as hobbies or careers but not to the intensity of ASD special interests, but they still understand the social stuff intuitively, even if they don't care to apply what they know, because it bores or annoys them.

I know many gifted NT's and one thing that sticks out for me is they like to be social and are very capable of it. My niece says she has some friends with no social skills whatsoever but I think it's an exaggeration. I've met most of her friends and if they can party all night then they have some social skills. And they don't always drink alcohol.

One of them tried to tell me what was 'couch etiquette' which I held off explaining to her that I don't follow social rules. Not ones that ridiculous. I'm on the couch more than them so I will act whatever way I choose to. They feel kind of sorry for me because I'm always on my own, but I really don't care to be around them because to me they are just NT as the rest. Oversocialised and uninteresting.

Note: I'm generalising, I know. I going through a bit of stress to do with NT's, denial of diagnostic labels and damn organic good or Earth friendly products that cost a fortune. So, I have some issues.

And I'll just add Russell Barkley will never say anything positive about ADHD. He wants to dispel the whole 'gifted' perception and wants people to see ADHD as a real disability. Quite right to.


I've read that a lot of gifted kids have been misdiagnosed as having Aspergers (not that I'm one as I don't have any diagnosis). I'm beginning to think I'm a mix of gifted/ADHD (ADD these days) coupled with 25yrs of shyness. Why I was picked on and treated with such disrespect, I don't know, but that's what knocked the confidence out of me. I went through all the usual trauma at school that someone with Aspergers would typically experience, do not socialise normally and I only have 2 real friends, no friends from my childhood or youth. I have an avoidant personality and only managed to overcome it due to determination after my daughter was born. It's something I'm going to have to bear in mind when my daughter's assessment process starts properly. I have sensory issues - can they be ADHD related? (I've really not read that much about ADHD so far.)


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Verdandi
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03 Dec 2011, 7:24 am

swbluto wrote:
Dr. Russell Barkley comes to clarify that people with ADHD don't "hyperfocus", a persistent myth among ADHD advocates, they have the seriously disabling trait known as "perseveration". 'Hyperfocusing goes with autism, Perseveration goes with ADHD' were his infallible words.


Are you being sarcastic? Because he's saying that primarily because of his thrust that ADHD is always negative and never positive, ever, ever, ever. "Perseveration" is perceived as much more negative than "hyperfocus," which sounds like a superpower. ;)

Since hyperfocus is simply a label people who have ADHD use to describe a particular state of mind that frequently happens with them, it's rather pointless to argue it should be called something else just for the sake of making it sound worse. Also, given that there seems to be little or no research into hyperfocus, I doubt anyone can make authoritative and credible "scientific" statements as to what it's supposed to be.

I do think that perseveration often happens in tandem with hyperfocus, but I don't think that hyperfocus is necessarily always perseveration, nor is it always doing something other than what you need to do (as I've hyperfocused on paying work before...which was also part of my special interest).

You were being sarcastic, right?



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03 Dec 2011, 7:29 am

Mummy_of_Peanut wrote:
I've been reading about giftedness too. It seems it can be hard to tell if someone is gifted/NT or has Aspergers or ADHD or is both gifted and has one or other of them. I'm trying to get my head round the whole thing. It seems that I come into the category of giftedness (I went to school a year early as I was identified as gifted), but I suspect either ADHD or Aspergers too. ADHD sounds closer to me, but I definitely do hyperfocus. However, giftedness can also present like these as well, so maybe it's only that. Gifted people can have the sensory issues too, so I've read, so it really isn't easy to distinguish the 3. I'm going round in circles thinking about this.


I have all three, and I went through a similar process last year. I was frustrated because a lot of the material on giftedness went into how it could present as similar to autism and ADHD, and then there was the whole "excitables" thing, where something that's impairing and even debilitating for autistic people and sometimes people with ADHD, becomes a positive for a gifted person, somehow.

The thing is, all other things considered, giftedness does not really present with impairments, and the other two conditions do.

Edit to add: Sensory processing issues are fairly common in ADHD, but less common than with autism.



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03 Dec 2011, 1:27 pm

Verdandi wrote:
swbluto wrote:
Dr. Russell Barkley comes to clarify that people with ADHD don't "hyperfocus", a persistent myth among ADHD advocates, they have the seriously disabling trait known as "perseveration". 'Hyperfocusing goes with autism, Perseveration goes with ADHD' were his infallible words.


Are you being sarcastic? Because he's saying that primarily because of his thrust that ADHD is always negative and never positive, ever, ever, ever. "Perseveration" is perceived as much more negative than "hyperfocus," which sounds like a superpower. ;)

Since hyperfocus is simply a label people who have ADHD use to describe a particular state of mind that frequently happens with them, it's rather pointless to argue it should be called something else just for the sake of making it sound worse. Also, given that there seems to be little or no research into hyperfocus, I doubt anyone can make authoritative and credible "scientific" statements as to what it's supposed to be.

I do think that perseveration often happens in tandem with hyperfocus, but I don't think that hyperfocus is necessarily always perseveration, nor is it always doing something other than what you need to do (as I've hyperfocused on paying work before...which was also part of my special interest).

You were being sarcastic, right?


Well, I did use exaggerating words for emphasis, so you could kind of say I was being sarcastic though every bit of what I said that he said was true.

Anyway, hyperfocusing is an ability that I would believe a significant percentage of the population would have. I believe this "hyperfocusing" is also called "the flow" in other, less technical circles. If the literature on "the flow" is correct, it appears that people with a greater ability to concentrate (Such as higher IQ folk or people with a higher working memory or whatever) would have a greater tendency to enter this state in non-physical-labor tasks, so I personally think it's possible to have this "ability" while also incidentally having ADHD, but it's definitely not exclusive to it (Hyperfocusing is probably as common or less common in ADHD than the normal population). Whereas perservation is far more common in ADHD than the normal population.



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03 Dec 2011, 1:38 pm

swbluto wrote:
Well, I did use exaggerating words for emphasis, so you could kind of say I was being sarcastic though every bit of what I said that he said was true.


I know he said it. I first saw that video a year and a half ago. I wasn't talking about what you said he said but your exaggerated assertions that he was correct.

Quote:
Anyway, hyperfocusing is an ability that I would believe a significant percentage of the population would have. I believe this "hyperfocusing" is also called "the flow" in other, less technical circles. If the literature on "the flow" is correct, it appears that people with a greater ability to concentrate (Such as higher IQ folk or people with a higher working memory or whatever) would have a greater tendency to enter this state in non-physical-labor tasks, so I personally think it's possible to have this "ability" while also incidentally having ADHD, but it's definitely not exclusive to it (Hyperfocusing is probably as common or less common in ADHD than the normal population). Whereas perservation is far more common in ADHD than the normal population.


I don't think it's the flow. It's... attention dysregulation. People think of ADHD as a lack of attention span, but it's more like a lack of attention control. Hyperfocus is the other extreme - too much attention on one thing, and not a thought to switching it unless interrupted or it ends. It is probably very much like the "flow" but it is not necessarily a gift or a superpower.

Enough people report it, though, that I think it's pretty typical with ADHD and autism, and possibly more common than in the general population.



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03 Dec 2011, 4:28 pm

For me, some negatives of hyperfocus:

Difficulty switching attention
Spacing out at the slightest sensory stimuli to focus on
Spacing out at the slightest thought to focus on
Getting onto the wrong track for protracted periods of time, usually 5-7 days, up to 2-3 weeks

For me, some positives of hyperfocus:
Being very productive and creative when on the left or right track
Feeling very happy while hyperfocusing on the left, right, or wrong track

For me, the positives outweigh the negatives by three elephants, two mastodons, and one woolly mammoth. I feel like I have total control of my mind when I am hyperfocusing, because I block out the awareness of all "useless" sensations and movements, and there is nothing for me to process except what I am hyperfocusing on. I don't get mentally stuck on one thing. Instead, my mind withdraws into itself and becomes more flexible than if it had to interact with the outside world. It basically replicates the world inside itself and plays with it there, where everything is smooth and flexible, and there are no annoying noises/lights/people, etc. Most of its problems appear when it has to interact with the outside and disappear when it is left alone to be inside. Hyperfocus is like a runaway train, the "Autistic Inertia Unlimited", and I love driving it.



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03 Dec 2011, 6:25 pm

btbnnyr wrote:
For me, some negatives of hyperfocus:

Difficulty switching attention
Spacing out at the slightest sensory stimuli to focus on
Spacing out at the slightest thought to focus on
Getting onto the wrong track for protracted periods of time, usually 5-7 days, up to 2-3 weeks

For me, some positives of hyperfocus:
Being very productive and creative when on the left or right track
Feeling very happy while hyperfocusing on the left, right, or wrong track

For me, the positives outweigh the negatives by three elephants, two mastodons, and one woolly mammoth. I feel like I have total control of my mind when I am hyperfocusing, because I block out the awareness of all "useless" sensations and movements, and there is nothing for me to process except what I am hyperfocusing on. I don't get mentally stuck on one thing. Instead, my mind withdraws into itself and becomes more flexible than if it had to interact with the outside world. It basically replicates the world inside itself and plays with it there, where everything is smooth and flexible, and there are no annoying noises/lights/people, etc. Most of its problems appear when it has to interact with the outside and disappear when it is left alone to be inside. Hyperfocus is like a runaway train, the "Autistic Inertia Unlimited", and I love driving it.


So this is what hyperfocusing is. Yeah, describes me a lot when I'm not in a hyper-distractable mood, I can get lost within my own thoughts for hours.


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03 Dec 2011, 6:28 pm

Verdandi wrote:
swbluto wrote:
Well, I did use exaggerating words for emphasis, so you could kind of say I was being sarcastic though every bit of what I said that he said was true.


I know he said it. I first saw that video a year and a half ago. I wasn't talking about what you said he said but your exaggerated assertions that he was correct.

Quote:
Anyway, hyperfocusing is an ability that I would believe a significant percentage of the population would have. I believe this "hyperfocusing" is also called "the flow" in other, less technical circles. If the literature on "the flow" is correct, it appears that people with a greater ability to concentrate (Such as higher IQ folk or people with a higher working memory or whatever) would have a greater tendency to enter this state in non-physical-labor tasks, so I personally think it's possible to have this "ability" while also incidentally having ADHD, but it's definitely not exclusive to it (Hyperfocusing is probably as common or less common in ADHD than the normal population). Whereas perservation is far more common in ADHD than the normal population.


I don't think it's the flow. It's... attention dysregulation. People think of ADHD as a lack of attention span, but it's more like a lack of attention control. Hyperfocus is the other extreme - too much attention on one thing, and not a thought to switching it unless interrupted or it ends. It is probably very much like the "flow" but it is not necessarily a gift or a superpower.

Enough people report it, though, that I think it's pretty typical with ADHD and autism, and possibly more common than in the general population.

Honestly, the difference between perseveration and hyperfocus confuses me. What I've heard other people with ADHD talk about, though, is that they get trapped into one activity for awhile and have trouble switching. For me, that means entering a state of high focus where I tune out the rest of the world. I think it could be compared with being in "the zone" or "the flow", but I'm not sure. Is there something that I'm missing in my understanding? :?


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03 Dec 2011, 6:33 pm

Ganondox wrote:
btbnnyr wrote:
For me, some negatives of hyperfocus:

Difficulty switching attention
Spacing out at the slightest sensory stimuli to focus on
Spacing out at the slightest thought to focus on
Getting onto the wrong track for protracted periods of time, usually 5-7 days, up to 2-3 weeks

For me, some positives of hyperfocus:
Being very productive and creative when on the left or right track
Feeling very happy while hyperfocusing on the left, right, or wrong track

For me, the positives outweigh the negatives by three elephants, two mastodons, and one woolly mammoth. I feel like I have total control of my mind when I am hyperfocusing, because I block out the awareness of all "useless" sensations and movements, and there is nothing for me to process except what I am hyperfocusing on. I don't get mentally stuck on one thing. Instead, my mind withdraws into itself and becomes more flexible than if it had to interact with the outside world. It basically replicates the world inside itself and plays with it there, where everything is smooth and flexible, and there are no annoying noises/lights/people, etc. Most of its problems appear when it has to interact with the outside and disappear when it is left alone to be inside. Hyperfocus is like a runaway train, the "Autistic Inertia Unlimited", and I love driving it.


So this is what hyperfocusing is. Yeah, describes me a lot when I'm not in a hyper-distractable mood, I can get lost within my own thoughts for hours.

It sounds familiar to me, too. Personally, I like it and would consider it to be a strength of mine. I can work for hours and get a lot accomplished.

That said, it does cause some problems. If I'm stuck on one track, it means other things aren't gonna get done. For example, doing daily chores, remembering to eat, make it to appointments etc. I've learned the hard way that there are certain activities that I simply shouldn't start if I don't have hours and hours of time to devote to them.


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03 Dec 2011, 6:57 pm

syrella wrote:
Honestly, the difference between perseveration and hyperfocus confuses me. What I've heard other people with ADHD talk about, though, is that they get trapped into one activity for awhile and have trouble switching. For me, that means entering a state of high focus where I tune out the rest of the world. I think it could be compared with being in "the zone" or "the flow", but I'm not sure. Is there something that I'm missing in my understanding? :?



It is a "Superpower" if it is needed or can be directed for a certain type of secular work. The Kryptonite: Put me working at Ronald McDonald's and the loony bin wouldn't be that far off for me. :lol:

It has an Achilles heel.



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03 Dec 2011, 7:10 pm

Ever since I heard of "perseveration", I have thought of it as simply repetition, or a vague verbal label for all kinds of repetitive behaviors that an autistic person may exhibit. Personally, it's hard for me to do any simple thing, e.g. hand gesture, spoken phrase, thought that I keep to myself, just once. I have to do it several times in a row, if I'm going to do it at all. When speaking, I often repeat the same phrase five times in a row. When gesturing, I make the same gesture more times in a row. When thinking, I replay the same movie several times in a row. Everything comes in multiples for me.

For things that don't come from me, I like them in sets, series, collections.

I don't know if this is perseveration more common to autistic people, or if this kind of perseveration is also common for people with ADHD, or if when talking about ADHD, the perseveration that I think of as repetition has gotten mixed up with the hyperfocus that I think of as extreme concentration that may be about one subject but is not nearly as repetitive as perseveration.



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03 Dec 2011, 7:22 pm

Hmmmmmmm, now that I think about it, the best kind of conversation I could have with anyone is one in which I talked my normal perseverative way and the other person did too. Then, I could process and understand all of what they were saying. The words that I could missed the first time around could be picked up the second time around and the words that I missed the second time around could be picked up the third time around.



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03 Dec 2011, 7:54 pm

One thing I was wondering was, why don't aspies/auties reciprocate in socially approved ways?

I think ADHD people may not reciprocate because they got too distracted by something to remember to respond.


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03 Dec 2011, 8:17 pm

Moog wrote:
One thing I was wondering was, why don't aspies/auties reciprocate in socially approved ways?

I think ADHD people may not reciprocate because they got too distracted by something to remember to respond.


I don't know that some specific social act requires some other specific social act in reciprocation. My guess is that other people feel something in response to something else, like an emotional signal that tells them to do something elselse, and these mysterious socially-oriented feelings can also push them towards the socially approved thing to do. I don't have any of these signals or impulses to aide me in social settings, so I can't recognize that there is something to reciprocate (no signal), and if I do recognize, I don't know how to reciprocate (no knowledge), and if I do know, I can't execute the reciprocation correctly (no impulse). These are the social fails that I can come up with right now. I'm not trying to be vague with "some" and "something". I really don't know what to put in their places.



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03 Dec 2011, 8:32 pm

btbnnyr wrote:
Moog wrote:
One thing I was wondering was, why don't aspies/auties reciprocate in socially approved ways?

I think ADHD people may not reciprocate because they got too distracted by something to remember to respond.


I don't know that some specific social act requires some other specific social act in reciprocation. My guess is that other people feel something in response to something else, like an emotional signal that tells them to do something elselse, and these mysterious socially-oriented feelings can also push them towards the socially approved thing to do. I don't have any of these signals or impulses to aide me in social settings, so I can't recognize that there is something to reciprocate (no signal), and if I do recognize, I don't know how to reciprocate (no knowledge), and if I do know, I can't execute the reciprocation correctly (no impulse). These are the social fails that I can come up with right now. I'm not trying to be vague with "some" and "something". I really don't know what to put in their places.


No, that's a good answer, it sounds very plausible. There's something in the brain not going ding which does go ding for NTs


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