AuDHD is an unofficial term for co-occurring Autism and ADHD. It’s most often used as a term that people use to describe themselves with, and is a shorthand that can refer to:
- having been diagnosed with both ADHD and Autism
- having been told during a formal assessment of ADHD or Autism that traits from the other condition are also present, just not to an extent that would qualify for its own medical threshold
- having been formally diagnosed with either ADHD or Autism, but recognising extra neurodivergent traits that formally belong to the other group
Why is the AuDHD distinction important?
AuDHD people might prefer the term simply because it’s less of a mouthful than to say “I’m Autistic and ADHD”, “I’m ADHD and also have Autistic traits”, and so on.
Also, AuDHD people might prefer the term AuDHD because the coexistence of the two conditions often present their own difficulties.
- In AuDHD, the unique makeup of one’s Autistic and ADHD traits can mean that some traits might exacerbate or weaken the presentation of each other. For example, the impulsivity of ADHD might be held back by the Autistic need to familiarise oneself fully with a situation or a context before engaging with it.
- Other times, having traits from both conditions can make it harder to get diagnosed. More dominant traits from one condition might ‘cancel out’ the trait hiding under it and being looked for. Diagnosticians’ knowledge of the ability of ADHD and Autism to coexist often helps recognise when one trait masks another, getting more precise diagnostic results.
- Based on environmental effects, the ability to unmask, hormonal changes, and age can all shift how traits can interact in AuDHD.
- In other cases, traits from one condition might be hiding under a corresponding trait from the other, and presenting based on how ‘strong’ the overlapping trait is.
Because of all this, living as an autistic ADHDer can sometimes feel like a walking contradiction. It can also be confusing to friends, family, co-workers, managers and medical professionals.
If someone prefers the safety and predictability of a routine but also randomly craves spontaneity and unexpected adventures, they will have a harder time being acknowledged as ADHD or Autistic. The person observing them can go ‘But you do X, therefore you can’t be Autistic/ADHD‘.
This is another reason why conversations about how traits work and show up for each individual are so much better than making assumptions based on surface-level behaviour.
Is AuDHD really a thing?
Yes. Among the many reasons it’s rarely known just how much more related ADHD and Autism are than what was previously thought is that, before the publication of the DSM-5, getting an ADHD diagnosis ruled out an Autism diagnosis, and getting an Autism diagnosis ruled out an ADHD diagnosis.
At the time of writing, it’s only been barely a decade since both conditions were even allowed to be diagnosed in the same person. In medical establishment years, a decade is not a lot; therefore, the amount of overlap and co-occurrence is still not well known.
A history of diagnostics
Until 2013, the DSM-IV didn’t allow someone to be diagnosed with both autism and ADHD at the same time — if you had one diagnosis, you were excluded from receiving the other. This meant that for decades, the medical establishment didn’t even acknowledge that AuDHD existed.
The DSM-5, published in 2013, finally removed this exclusion, allowing both diagnoses to co-exist. Since then, research has confirmed what many neurodivergent people already knew from lived experience: autism and ADHD overlap significantly, both in individuals and across families, and understanding both is essential for understanding yourself.
Ironically, because of the overlaps, it is still easier to group traits in with other traits, for example, disregarding Autistic traits during an ADHD diagnosis and simply categorising them as part of ADHD. Or vice versa.
The situation is slowly improving, thankfully. Swathes of adults have been (rightly) getting their previously missing diagnosis, filling out the picture. As usual, adults with decades of lived experience of themselves and their neurodivergence are leading the charge in raising awareness of AuDHD. That said, the goal is not to have AuDHD entered into the medical lexicon, but rather to spread the word that people with one neurodivergent diagnosis can and should look outside their diagnosis if they are experiencing traits that don’t neatly fit the condition they were diagnosed with.
The science behind AuDHD
A large Swedish study of nearly 2 million people found that autistic individuals had a dramatically increased likelihood of also having ADHD.1 When looking at identical twins, if one twin was autistic, their co-twin had a 17.77 times higher chance of having ADHD compared to the general population. The study also found that this overlap was most prominent in autistic people without intellectual disability, suggesting that AuDHD is particularly common in this group.
More recent genetic research confirms that autism and ADHD share substantial genetic overlap, to the point where researchers noted that “genomic studies might have underestimated the genetic link between ASD and ADHD”. 12
How AuDHD is used in language
The term AuDHD is most often used colloquially in casual settings, although in recent years the phrase could also be heard from medical professionals and researchers. (Not surprisingly, often from those who themselves have both ADHD and Autistic traits).
Both person-first and identity-first usage of the phrase exists, so someone might say “I’m AuDHD“, “I’m an AuDHD person“, “I am an AuDHDer“, or they might say “I’m a person with AuDHD“, though the latter is less frequent as AuDHD is not a recognised medical condition. As usual, how exactly someone prefers to phrase this will be personal, so when wanting to refer to someone else, it’s best to ask whether they prefer person-first or identity-first language.
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