Beckies Mental Mess this week has been doing a great job of raising awareness about (ADHD) Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. I’ve just read Rory’s words which explain so well what it’s like to live with ADHD.

From here in this quiet part of Yorkshire ADHD is very much part of our life. It’s now officially part of our sons diagnosis. But it feels very much like a junior version. During the long and ever so frustrating diagnostic process which he went through ADHD was an after thought. It was missed. Never mentioned. Everything was lumped into Aspergers and Dyspraxia.

Then our Paediatrician changed. In his first meeting with our Son he genuinely seemed surprised that he could find no mention of ADHD on the records. A few weeks later it was added to the diagnosis. Why was it missed?

We where made aware that Aspergers in most cases goes hand in hand with other conditions. Everything seems to merge together to give a unique set of symptoms and personality traits. It is often difficult to unpick the individual conditions. Generally Aspergers and Autism are just used as overriding terms to cover a wide and complex set of interrelated issues. In our sons case ADHD was just missed. A specialist went through the original symptoms list. Of the 16 original listed symptoms which were defined as Aspergers related 7 were later changed to ADHD.

As soon as ADHD was on the medical record we were offered medication. Interestingly although our Sons the symptoms had not changed at all suddenly the addition of four letters prompted the option of drugs. We declined. Or should I say Son declined. In his words

ADHD hasn’t changed me. I’m still the same person with Aspergers. It’s just who I am.

Since we declined medication ADHD has never been specifically mentioned again by our Doctors. They have continued to offer behavioural therapy to try and ease the young Aspergers kid into this strange old world. Due to Government cut backs the therapy is becoming increasingly sporadic. Once someone gets past a certain age the health support basically dries up. But at least something happened. From an Education point of view basically no school interventions have occurred. No assessment of educational impact has been carried out. It’s the standard education package for all regardless of any specific needs. It’s so much easier to bracket individual kids as low attainment.

This is the shocking fact in education today. Certainly here in England. Specific educational help to those with a learning disability – some prefer to call it a learning disadvantage – is denied to too many kids in our society. Effectively they are seen as an expensive drain on resources. So much easier to write them off. How do we explain that to our kids. How as a society have we got education so wrong. We need to keep shouting as one day those in charge will listen.

54 thoughts on “ADHD and Aspergers”

  2. It IS very hard to separate ADHD “symptoms” from ASD. Ben got both dx at the same time.
    He’s been bouncing off the walls with this high pressure, heat (97F today) and Santa Ana winds. Is the weather affecting his autism or his ADHD? Is he more hyper or having sensory problems?

    He takes meds but not the typical ADHD meds. Even on some pretty heavyweight meds he’s extremely energetic.

    I’m glad for you that son can express his feelings about the meds. The schools definitely need to step up!

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  3. Having a child with medical/emotional issues is so hard. You grieve for them because they’re different and other kids are mean. You grieve for yourself, because you can’t protect them or fix what’s wrong. My daughter has ADHD, and though an adult now, she still struggles. Hang in there, the love and support at home is their touchstone.

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  4. Oh my goodness, reading this is heartbreaking that a child with a learning disability (ADHD) is treated like any other child equally. Your poor son must go through hell, daily.
    I’m curious, (I don’t know how old your son is, I apologize for not knowing it), but why did he not want to take medication that was offered him in order to help him?
    I can understand you as a parent want to do the best for your child and protect him, why doesn’t the school system want to help him? I just find this so harsh.
    I am so grateful for you sharing your story and experience with us. I must say, I just happened to catch this post just in time. I was about to shut down for the evening. But at least I can still reblog as well as have your story seen on tomorrows “Working on Us” Series.
    God Bless you and your beloved son. 🙏💚

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  6. Advocating for your child in the school system can be an exhausting and infuriating experience. The challenges are big in the U.S., too — I hate that parents have to fight so hard to get appropriate interventions for their kids. EVERY student in a district deserves an appropriate education.

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      1. That production line description is perfect. When my kids were in 3rd/4th grade the U.S. did a big push on math/reading scores and so much stuff dropped by the wayside. They stopped teaching cursive, arts programs were hit or miss, sometimes recess got taken if they were too far behind in benchmark testing. I was NOT a happy mama.

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  7. I have bad dislexys so i know what it’s like to be pushed aside by the school’s as a wast of time so it burns my ass to hear schools are still doing that crap to kids this days 😒.
    My heart goes out to you and your son. 🌹

    ❤️✌️
    BY FOR NOW

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  8. Very interesting. Looking closely at all the facts you give I think our dyslexic girl just has dyslexia, no additional conditions. I hope. I think the school’s additional support has developed her reading to a good level, as she now reads books for pleasure. But she still gets exhausted after several weeks of term have passed. But the problem I picked up, a difficulty in reading and writing maths can cause her problems at times. I continue to do maths with her after school one afternoon a week and her main difficulty seems to be problems requiring complex processes. Also memorising multiplication problems. She is doing OK at school maths now but I worry about what will happen further up, especially at secondary school.

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  11. Similar issues here. My husband is diagnosed with ADD. I was actually going to write about this today! He didn’t get his diagnosis until he was a senior in high school back in 1991 – just when ADD was becoming recognized. Autism was not as clearly defined then as it is now but we both firmly believe he would pick up that diagnosis these days. They are so connected.

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      1. I agree with you about the medics. I totally think it is perception and gets me upset to think someone doing the assessment will excuse a behavior off that another would use to apply towards a diagnosis. I also get thrown off when someone only has Sensory Processing Disorder. I always want to apply that into an autism diagnosis.

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      1. It’s still a crap graphic. Every single point on the autism column is plain wrong. And the ADHD side is not much better. It’s hard to find a good graphic comparing the two but I can try if you like? Just I know you can do better than sharing misinformation like that.

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      3. No problem. Maybe just replace with one of your beautiful nature photos? Your post reads well enough no graphic needed. I admit I was lost for words when I saw it. Not like you to share crap. But a half asleep you could!

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  16. Medication can be such a tricky thing. For some kids they’re a legit help, but then for others they’re just a blanket between them and the world, making it impossible to truly interact. Just got to keep doing what we can, when we can, because no one else will.

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