Is ADHD linked to Autism?

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I'm a mother of 2 soon to be 3 & I was diagnosed with adult ADD about 3 years ago. My daughter was also diagnosed with it at the age of 9. My son who just turned 2 was just diagnosed with Autism. Is there genetic link? I am worried that the 3rd one will have one of the two. I will still love him/her as much I possibly can but I am curious to know.

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ADHD is more closely linked with the right hemisphere of the brain vs Autism which appears to be more closely linked with the left hemisphere of the brain.

Everyone is different (even identical twins).

The fingerprints of identical twins do not match.

Everyone is unique.

People are like snowflakes.

If you are ADHD and your husband is ADHD-free, the odds of you having a child with ADHD (assuming that ADHD is genetic in all cases - which ADHD is not) is about 1/4 (1 out of 4 children or so) or so (Mendel - laws of genetics).

That's my understanding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateraliza ... n_function

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/autism/autism.htm
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/adhd/adhd.htm
http://www.sportsconcussions.org/
http://www.associatedconditionsofcerebr ... /adhd.html

http://www.nutrition.gov/ (healthy food)
http://water.epa.gov/drink/index.cfm (pure water)

Interesting article related to your question. Also, I suspect they are related. Look around at how many of us here have been diagnosed as havign ADHD as well, or benefit from stimulant medications. Of people the four people who I know that have a professional diagnosis of AS, half take stimulant medications.

http://www.aane.org/asperger_resources/ ... _adhd.html

I've read some Aspies here explaining that they had been misdiagnosed as having ADHD instead of Autism. Autist tend to have overlapping condition as well such as Learning Disorder, Giftedness (it is somehow considered as being a disorder but one you want to have XD), ADHD, bipolar, etc.

I did not find reliable studies but it seems that most of them have either NLD or Dyspraxia and ADHD.

People with learning disorders (I include dyspraxia because the list is too long) also tend to have ADHD.

All of these disorders are believes to be inherited in some ways and there are apparently families with "no history of Autism" who have Autistic children AND an history of learning disorder or ADHD and especially giftedness (probably because they tend to fit the Broad Autism Spectrum and thus carry the genes).

You cannot tell whether your child will have this problem or not though. I was recently diagnosed as having dyspraxia (highly suspected when I was younger but my parents never tested me and my teachers just called me lazy) whereas my twin brother does not have any learning disorder nor dyspraxia (and has always been considered as being more normal than I am) though it runs in my family.

Of course, having children with disorders, you know that the odds of having another one with a disorder are higher than average.

I'm a borderline Aspie/NT and I have ADD.

It's not necessarily an either-or. Many people (myself included) have been diagnosed with both, and have many distinct symptoms of each condition. I don't know if it's more likely to have one if you have the other, but there do seem to be a lot of people with both, just as a matter of personal observation.

There are definitely links. ADHD and autism are very commonly found together in the same person; I checked it on Medline just now and saw a couple of papers putting the comorbidity rate for people with autism who also have ADHD at around 50%. There are also a few twin/family studies that show they are probably genetically linked to some extent.

The actual chance of a third child having ADHD or autism can't be determined because there's not enough data; but it's probably significantly higher than the general population.

What do you do, knowing this? Well, luckily, the predictable, comfortable environment that's good for autistic and ADHD kids won't hurt a typical child, either, so it doesn't really matter for now. Once the third one is older, you'll be able to figure out whether they're ADHD or autistic, both, or neither. For now, just a good place to grow up is probably fine.