Ending the Silence: Recognizing the Overlooked and Misdiagnosed in ADHD

by Cynthia Hammer, MSW, Author of the book, Living with Inattentive ADHD

When I first wrote this post three years ago, I was only aware of that males and females with the inattentive type of ADHD went undiagnosed and misdiagnosed. But this past year, after interviewing 25 women with combined type of ADHD, I learned that they, too, went undiagnosed and misdiagnosed. It shouldn’t be surprising that most people think of ADHD as hyperactive, little boys as it seems, for many years, they have been the only ones getting diagnosed and treated. We have work to do.

In 2005 Adele Diamond wrote an article about her research on Attention Deficit Disorder, which we now awkwardly call Inattentive ADHD or ADHD-Primarily Inattentive.  After reading the excerpts of her research, with which I totally agree, I wonder why 20 years have passed with little additional research on Inattentive ADHD.

“Most studies of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have focused on the combined type and emphasized a core problem in response inhibition. It is proposed here that the core problem in the truly inattentive type of ADHD …is in working memory… Children with the truly inattentive type of ADHD, rather than being distractible, may instead be easily bored, their problem being more in motivation (under-arousal) than in inhibitory control.”

She further writes,

“I join the growing chorus of those who argue that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) of the “truly” inattentive subtype (what I will call “attention-deficit disorder” [ADD]) is a different disorder from ADHD where hyperactivity is present. Not only is “ADHD without hyperactivity” (ADHD of the predominantly inattentive type) an awkward locution, but it also tries to squeeze ADD into a box in which it does not belong. The term ADHD should be reserved for when hyperactivity is present (as the term implies), regardless of whether inattention is also present.”

We can be thankful, that in the past few years, women have stepped forward demanding more research on ADHD in females as we know enough to know there are differences from males.

Let’s move forward with increased focused on those with ADHD who have gone unnoticed and undiagnosed or misdiagnosed for too long.

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Learn how to give girls with ADHD a fair start in life at www.FINDtheADHDgirls.org