Diane M. Kennedy - The ADHD-Autism Connection: A Step Toward More Accurate Diagnoses and Effective Treatment

The numbers are skyrocketingand so is the confusion. Most parentsand even many professionalsare perplexed by the overlapping syndromes, diagnostic categories, and classification schemes that are used to describe the rapidly growing population of behaviorally disordered children. In The ADHD-Autism Connection, Diane Kennedy provides a long-needed and very welcome guided tour of what has come to be called the autistic spectrum. A valuable contribution.

B ERNARD R IMLAND , P H .D., founder of the Autism Society of America and director of the Autism Research Institute

As the father of a young man with autism and the president of the largest publishing company devoted to the field, I am very sensitive to new ideas that further illuminate the bounds of our challenge. Dianes book does exactly that. She clearly defines what many of us have only thought about: the link and the many similarities between ADHD and autism. Good job, Diane!

R. W AYNE G ILPIN , president, Future Horizons, Inc.

T HE ADHD-A UTISM C ONNECTION
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
2375 Telstar Drive, Suite 160
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920
A division of Random House Inc.

This book is intended as a resource to provide a summary of current autism and ADHD research and treatments and to point the reader to the source materials that contain a more thorough treatment of the subject. None of the information presented in this book is meant to be a prescription for any kind of treatment, medical or otherwise, and reference to other organizations and materials is for convenience only and is not intended as an endorsement. No therapy should be initiated unless recommended and supervised by a qualified professional. The medical professional and the parent or guardian of the child needing treatment are responsible for weighing the risks before beginning any of the therapies described in this book. The authors assume no responsibility for inaccuracies, omissions, or errors contained in the source materials. The author and publisher are not liable for the use or misuse of information provided. The author and publisher are neither liable nor responsible to any person or entity for any loss, damage, or injury caused or alleged to be caused by the information in this book.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Details in some anecdotes and stories have been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved.

Copyright 2002 by Diane Kennedy

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

W ATER B ROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kennedy, Diane.
The ADHD-autism connection : a step toward more accurate diagnosis and effective treatment / Diane Kennedy, with Rebecca Banks.1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-56495-5
1. Autism. 2. Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. I. Banks, Rebecca. II. Title.

RC553.A88 K46 2002
616.8982dc21

2001055754

v3.1_r1

For my sons,
Jeff, Ben, and Sam

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD,
plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11

As I talked with parents at autism conferences, it became obvious that many symptoms of ADHD overlapped with autism. When I discussed family history, I discovered that in many families there was a history of learning problems, ADHD, depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. There was no question in my mind that many of these diagnostic categories have an overlap of symptoms. Diane Kennedy makes a good point that ADHD and mild autism/Aspergers may differ mainly by the degree of severity.

ADHD, dyslexia, and autism share similar problems with sensory oversensitivity. The ADHD and dyslexia cases are usually milder than the cases labeled autistic, but the sensory problems are similar. Sensitivity to sound is one of the most common problems. When I was a child, the ringing school bell hurt my ears like a dentists drill hitting a nerve. I have difficulty screening out background noise. My ears pick up everything, and if there is too much background noise, I cannot hear whats happening in the foreground. Constant noise is very tiring for people with sensory oversensitivity. A sound that would be small to a normal person may sound like a blast to a person with autism. I know many people who cannot tolerate the sound of rain falling on a tin roof.

Sound sensitivity will often show up in the family history of people with autism. My grandmother hated fireworks and loud noises. When she was little, the sound of coal sliding down the coal chute was painful to her. An office or school environment that would not bother a normal person bombards the ADHD, autistic, or Aspergers person with sounds equivalent to a boiler factory. This very quickly causes fatigue and makes concentration impossible. I know one college student who is driven to distraction because she can see the sixty-cycle flicker of the fluorescent lights and can hear the electric wiring humming in the walls.

Tactile oversensitivity is another problem that is shared by people with autism and ADHD. Scratchy petticoats rubbed my nerve endings raw. It was like having coarse sandpaper in my underwear. As a child I could not understand why the other children and adults tolerated the scratchy wool that I could not stand.

Another trait that many people with autism share with an ADHD person is visual thinking. I think in pictures rather than in words. When I think about a new topic, pictures pop into my imagination like a series of color slides. For example, if I think about Volkswagen Beetles, I see five or six images of specific cars in rapid succession. I see the Beetle that a high school teacher owned, and I see an orange Beetle I saw in Mexico City. I can also easily get off the subject and see various beetle insects. Visual thinking is very specific because words are paired with photo-realistic pictures retrieved from memory.