Is A.D.H.D. Different for Women and Men? David Maxwell for The New York TimesRobert Cimera, a professor of special education at Kent State University, learned he had A.D.H.D. while he was working on his master’s degree. He says the condition has helped him be a better teacher. He is among those featured in the Times multimedia series Patient Voices: A.D.H.D. Do men and women exhibit different symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D.? What about boys and girls? Can you talk about the way A.D.H.D. manifests in adult women as opposed to men? Dr. First, it is important to note that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder does not present all that much differently in women from the way it does in men. In childhood, boys are three times as likely as girls to have A.D.H.D. By adulthood, the proportion of men to women with the disorder is nearly even, and there are few differences in the symptoms.
In the general population, men and women may be more likely to have certain problems. Is A.D.H.D. a Real Disease? Suzanne DeChillo/The New York TimesMelinda Koss, a mother of three, suspected that her youngest daughter, Jadyn, had A.D.H.D. long before she received a formal diagnosis. Hear her story at “Patient Voices: A.D.H.D.” Millions of children, adults and families are affected by attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., a troubling condition that can cause problems with work, school and relationships.
But when is it time to seek professional help? And is the diagnosis of A.D.H.D. handed out too often? Here, Dr. Is A.D.H.D. Why must we insist that every quirk of human nature and behavior, every feature beyond two standard deviations from the mean, must be named officially as an illness and then, too often, medicated? Dr. We label things all the time in daily life to create concepts and categories of things in the material world, which allows us to begin to identify how some things in one category or label are different from things in another category. A Husband With A.D.H.D. Adult-Onset A.D.H.D.? If you have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., as a child, do symptoms ease with age? Can you have adult-onset A.D.H.D.? These are among the questions recently posed by readers of the Consults blog.
Dr. Russell A. Barkley, clinical professor of psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina, responds. Do A.D.H.D. Does A.D.H.D. generally improve with age? Dr. Research studies following children with A.D.H.D. to adulthood, including my own 20-year follow-up of children in Wisconsin, show that the symptoms of A.D.H.D. do decline with age, both in people with A.D.H.D. and in the general population.
My own research showed that 14 percent to 35 percent of children who had A.D.H.D. could be considered to have recovered or moved to within the normal range by the time they were 27. So, yes, some people do outgrow A.D.H.D. Severe symptoms in childhood. In short, A.D.H.D. seems to persist in most — but not all — cases. Can You Have Adult-Onset A.D.H.D.? A.D.H.D. Drugs: Help or Hindrance?