This video brings you into my home, where I show you some ways that I have been improving our home better to suit our needs as autistic/ADHD humans. Hope you enjoy and get some ideas on how to set your home up for success.
A new study has provided insight into how experiences and features of neurodiversity vary amongst adults.
There is variation in people’s attributes and experiences across all populations. Neurodivergent people, such as people with a diagnosis of ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, or autism, may experience the world in distinctive ways. But, we are only beginning to appreciate how traits and experiences associated with neurodivergence differ across the whole population.
New research from the University of Birmingham has provided a more detailed picture of what neurodiversity looks like amongst adults in the UK.
Ian Apperly, Professor of Cognition and Development and Director of the Centre for Developmental Science at the University of Birmingham, who led the study said: “People’s experiences of neurodevelopmental conditions are highly variable, and it is common for people to have more than one condition. Previous research has found, for example, that the prevalence of ADHD among autistic people is around 40%.
“We also know that people show traits associated with neurodiversity to varying extents across the entire population; it’s not just people with a diagnosed neurodevelopmental condition whose experience is influenced by these traits. What we don’t have, is a detailed understanding of what this looks like. This raises important questions that can inform our understanding of the complexity of neurodiversity across the general population.”
Professor Apperly and his team asked 1000 people representative of the UK population aged 18-70 to report on their experiences of characteristics commonly associated with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other conditions. For example:
Although characteristics associated with different neurodevelopmental conditions are often considered separately, the research found that when examined at the same time there were high levels of overlap, so people reporting high characteristics for one condition, also tended to report experiences associated with other conditions.
However, the research also found evidence of distinctive characteristics associated with specific conditions, above and beyond this general shared neurodiversity.
Professor Apperly explained: “We found that there is considerable overlap in the broader characteristics associated with different neurodevelopmental conditions so that people with higher levels of characteristics associated with one condition (e.g., ADHD) are also more likely to have higher levels of characteristics associated with other neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g., autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, tic disorders). But we also discovered that the same traits can be explained by different underlying causes. For example, some people reported high levels of several traits associated with autism, even though they did not report high levels of neurodivergent characteristics overall, while other people reported high levels of autistic traits alongside high levels of traits associated with other conditions. And some combinations were particularly unusual. For example, people showing high levels of traits associated with dyslexia and dyspraxia tended not to show high interest in numbers and patterns.”
This study is the largest examination to date to explore the diversity in how characteristics relating to neurodevelopmental conditions are expressed amongst adults in the UK. The researchers say that it has provided critical benchmark data and a framework approach for examining neurodiversity in the whole population, including people with one or more diagnoses.
Professor Apperly concluded: “Our findings help make sense of the complexity of neurodiversity. They help us understand characteristics and experiences that might be common across neurodevelopmental conditions, as well as those that are distinctive. The study also helps us understand how two people with the same diagnosis might nonetheless have rather different characteristics and experiences. By providing a picture of how neurodiversity appears across the whole population, this research can go on to inform improvements for future studies in this area. The more we know about other people’s experiences, the better we can understand each other.”
A team led by Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan has investigated screen time in autistic and ADHD children. Screen time refers to a person’s time on a device with a screen, such as a smartphone, computer, television, or video game system. The researchers found that children with a genetic predisposition to autism were likelier to use screens for longer periods. Meanwhile, children with ADHD gradually increased their screen time as they grew older, even if their initial screen use time was short. They published their results in the journal Psychiatry Research.
People are increasingly spending time looking at their digital devices’ screens. This is especially true for children with neurodevelopmental disorders who use screens for longer periods.
Recognizing this issue, researchers from Nagoya University and Hamamatsu University examined 6.5 million polymorphisms in 437 children’s DNA to determine the genetic tendency to autism and ADHD. Next, they calculated a genetic risk index that considers the number and size of the effects of changes in genes associated with autism/ADHD. This is known as a “polygenic risk score”. The researchers then compared the amount of time spent using screen devices among a sample of children aged 18, 32, and 40 months.
They found that children with a higher genetic susceptibility to autism used devices with screens longer (3 hours or 4+ hours a day) from early childhood. They also found that kids with a high genetic risk of ADHD gradually increased their screen time as they grew older.
The lead researcher, Dr Nagahide Takahashi of Nagoya University, explained: “Overall, those with a genetic risk of autism were 1.5 times more likely to be in the group with about three hours of screen time per day, and 2.1 times more likely to be in the group with more than four hours of screen time.”
“While long periods of screen time in childhood have been suggested to be a cause of autism/ADHD, the results of this study suggest that some people may have a genetic disposition to use screens because of autsm,” he said. “Screen time may be an early sign of autism , rather than a cause, as children with autismare often more attracted to objects than people. Physicians should know that it is not fair to conclude that prolonged screen time is a risk factor for the development of autism .”
Takahashi also cautions against overexposing children with ADHD to device screens. “Our results suggest that children at risk of ADHD are at risk of having too much screen time, especially since gaming addiction is common. As screen time tends to be longer for children who are particularly susceptible to ADHD, parents and caregivers should be cautious about it and commit before it becomes a problem.”
These results may also help parents devise better child-rearing strategies. “Parents of children with neurodevelopmental disorders may feel guilty or be criticized by others for allowing their children screen time,” Takahashi said. “However, we would recommend offering help to caregivers including offering alternative behavioral management strategies.”
Adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are nearly three times more likely to develop dementia than adults without ADHD, according to a Rutgers study.
The study, coauthored by Michal Schnaider Beeri, director of the Herbert and Jacqueline Krieger Klein Alzheimer’s Research Center at Rutgers Brain Health Institute (BHI) was published in JAMA Network Open. It followed more than 100,000 older adults in Israel over 17 years to examine if adults with ADHD are at increased risk for dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.
Although more than 3 percent of the adult population in the United States has ADHD, there is limited research on this group.
“By determining if adults with ADHD are at higher risk for dementia and if medications and/or lifestyle changes can affect risks, the outcomes of this research can be used to better inform caregivers and clinicians,” said Beeri, the Krieger Klein Endowed Chair in Neurodegeneration Research at BHI and a faculty member of the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research.
Using data from a national cohort study of more than 100,000 people who were followed from 2003 to 2020, researchers analyzed those with and without ADHD and the occurrence of dementia among the groups as they aged. Researchers found the presence of adult ADHD was associated with a significantly higher risk of dementia even when other risk factors for dementia were taken into account, such as cardiovascular conditions.
ADHD in adults may materialize as a neurological process that reduces the ability for them to compensate for the effects of cognitive decline later in life, researchers said.
“Physicians, clinicians and caregivers who work with older adults should monitor ADHD symptoms and associated medications,” said Abraham Reichenberg, a professor at the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and senior author of the study.
“Symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity in old age shouldn’t be ignored and should be discussed with physicians,” said Stephen Levine, a professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Haifa.
Additionally, the research suggests ADHD treatment incorporating psychostimulants may help reduce the risk of dementia in adults with ADHD as psychostimulants are known to modify the trajectory of cognitive impairment. But researchers said future studies should examine in more detail the impact of medications in patients with ADHD and how they could affect risk.
