The Middletown Centre for Autism Podcast
The Middletown Podcast features interviews with leading thinkers and practitioners across the autistic and autism community. Conversations are autism-affirming and neurodiversity-informed with a focus on the lived experience and knowledge of our community. Episodes highlight issues impacting autistic people and we share ideas for family members and school staff who are providing support.
The Middletown Centre for Autism Podcast
Understanding ADHD with Ken Kilbride from ADHD Ireland
Research suggests that between 50 and 70% of autistic people may also have ADHD. On our latest podcast we chat to Ken Kilbride, CEO of ADHD Ireland to learn more about life with ADHD.
For more information on ADHD Ireland, please visit:
https://adhdireland.ie/
Welcome to the Middletown Podcast. I'm Pat Hughes, I'm a researcher at Middletown and I'm also autistic and I have ADHD. That's a slight change to our usual opening, because in this episode we're talking all things ADHD. Adhd is the most common co-occurring form of neurodivergence for autistic people. Many people who just have one diagnosis will have characteristics of the other, even if they don't have a second diagnosis. I chat to Ken Kilbride, the CEO of ADHD Ireland, to find out more. Okay, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast, and I suppose the first thing I wanted to ask you is kind of the biggest question is what exactly is ADHD?
Speaker 2:Well, obviously, kat thanks very much for having us on. We really appreciate the opportunity and not saying it's a long answer, this one, I'm afraid, just to start off the podcast and help people stay with us. And so ADHD, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, and the first challenge we have with the name is nobody likes it. And again, who wants to go to the clinician and come out saying not only is it a deficit, it's a disorder as well? And actually it's incorrect on both counts and from a medical perspective as well. And but in terms of the autism sector as well, there is, you know, nobody likes to name autism disorder. And there is, you know, talk about coming up with something new. There isn't any agreement in the 80s, not agreement. But you know, no one's come up with something everybody agrees on at this stage, so we still call it ADHD, and so as I say it stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Speaker 2:So it's that's where attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, so it's a condition that you're born with. It's primarily genetic and it affects you across your entire lifespan.
Speaker 2:Now we've moved away from looking at a set of behaviors as a way of describing the condition and to more looking at the neural pathways, but it's just a shorthand way of describing it. So first one is attention deficit. Now, it's not attention deficit, and it's just a shorthand way of describing it. So first one is attention deficit. Now it's not attention deficit. It's the inability to retain attention as the key driver behind ADHD. So what you find is, for people with ADHD, when they're doing a task or whatever and they're not finding it interesting, the brain says go and find me something else. That is Then the second one that comes with it is the impulsivity. So that's around what we call executive function, and so executive function is like the controller in the brain.
Speaker 2:And so again, there's someone there regulating things, regulating thoughts and emotions, actions. People with ADHD have very poor executive function. And then the third behavior you're looking at is hyperactivity, which is simply on the go, driven by a motor, all day.
Speaker 2:And then there is subsets but they're very small percentage wise. What's the main percent presentation of adhd is what we call the combined, where people will have an equal amount of attention deficit, impulsivity and hyperactivity. Now this is where adhd people tend to get really, really annoyed. People coming into work in the morning and go I forgot my keys I think I might have adhd now. Everybody can forget things, everybody can be a little bit impulsive, everybody can be a little bit hyperactive. But when you have them across your entire lifespan and they're an impairment in your life, then you can get the diagnosis of what we call adhd that's really helpful, and are there reasons why a person might sort of look to to get a adhd diagnosis, maybe at sort of different stages?
Speaker 1:would there be sort of common factors that you'd see?
Speaker 2:what you find is that you know, like a lot of literature and a lot of things in the medical um assessment area, is that you?
Speaker 2:know that all the literature is based around children, because that's when the presentation first begins to appear. And so, again, what you find is you know, this is one of the misconceptions that's out there. So we find that the prime age for getting a diagnosis for adhd is the ages of 8 to 12. But in that age range we're finding that it's approximately four times more often boys than girls. Now, why is that? Because we mentioned just a minute ago that ADHD is genetic, so it's 50% boys, 50% girls. It's because, still in that common conception that you know, adhd is 10 year old boys bouncing off the walls. So if a girl sitting down the back of the class, being quiet, internalizing her ADHD, couldn't possibly have it. So again, we need to move beyond that sort of conception what ADHD looks like, and particularly for children. So, again, what we do find is that you know, as you go through the lifespan and the symptoms do change, because you know how you present with age six, for ADHD is not how you present age 66. People will learn to manage various aspects of their ADHD, particularly around impulsivity, particularly around hyperactivity. What we say is it's the A, not the H, that tends to cause the challenge across the lifespan. But what you find is, and particularly what we'll find, is people come to our support groups and this is, as I say, if we got a euro for everybody that said this to us at a support group, we wouldn't need funding from the HSE. Is that? You know I'm 40, 40, 45, mainly female a lot of male coming through as well and I've been on anxiety or depression medication for the last 20 years and I've done a bit of research. I've now found out I have ADHD and so that's really really fast. So what you're saying is you know there is different stages that people get the diagnosis, but certainly what you're finding is particularly for adults is that you know that they get the diagnosis, but certainly what you find is particularly for adults is that you know that they have this condition.
Speaker 2:And we will always say about ADHD that the biggest challenge with ADHD is not the ADHD itself, it's the stigma and the low self-esteem that comes with the condition and that's the thing that causes the challenge and that's the thing we look to remove as a society. And just to say, our mission in life is to make life better for people with adhd and you know, the prime thing we would look to do in that is to remove that stigma and so that will improve the low self-esteem, and but that's really what drives an awful lot of people in. That was to get the diagnosis going. There's something going on in my life. There's something different than my peers, my co-workers, my family, whatever happens to be. And then they go and do research and they find out yeah, I have anxiety, I have depression, but yeah, there's underlying adhd. That's been driving it all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And definitely what you say about sort of girls in school I very much relate to because I I sort of would have what has been described. I don't know if I necessarily describe what has been described as maladaptive daydreaming, where I just was in my own world for my time in school and I still would be very much a daydreamer now. But yeah, definitely I was. I was the, the quiet, pleasant student who was just off in their little fantasy world very much well, maybe that is sorry for cutting the question.
Speaker 2:That's one of the challenges, you know, in schools and you know teachers don't get training and support to identify people. And again what we will say you know the prevalence rate for adhd is about five percent in children. So five percent is one in twenty and the average class size now is 25, 30, which means they're always going to have a child with ADHD classroom across their entire career. And you know they're not getting that support and they're not getting that training. That was something we would really support for teachers Because you know, I'd often said you know, if I wasn't doing this job, I'd love to be a teacher, but I can't understand how you could, you know, educate in doing this job.
Speaker 2:I'd love to be a teacher but I can't understand how you could, you know, educate and control 26 at the same time, and if this child with adhd who wants it done and you don't know why.
Speaker 1:And so again, there is that thing that really, really needs to be brought into the system and to make life better for people with adhd and other conditions like autism, dyslexia and spraxia, and where, particularly I think it all starts, is teacher training yeah, I agree absolutely, and I think it makes the teacher's lives much easier as well, I know, because, you know, if they understand the student's experience and can sort of put themselves in the student's shoes, it I think it's much easier for them to then think about that classroom management, isn't it? It's yeah, it sort of works better for everyone, I think, if that training is available for people. And then are there some myths around ADHD. So obviously you kind of mentioned that sort of everyone thinks of the young boy who's sort of constantly on the go. Are there other myths around ADHD?
Speaker 2:Oh, certainly there's several myths around ADHD. You know the first one I mentioned there. You know girls don't have ADHD and you know there's an old saying, you know, girls internalize, boys externalize, and certainly girls, we know, will internalize even their hyperactivity. And so, like I say, they, you know, not say maladaptive, but you know, sitting down the back of the glass, being dreamy, shy, staring at window, not causing a problem, unlike, you know, the boy who's moving around the class, bouncing off the walls, and you can see that behavior. So, just to bear in mind, girls have ADHD. And the second thing we want to you know, is that, as Mr Olman would have mentioned earlier around it's attention deficit. It's not attention deficit. People with ADHD have the same level of focus as anyone else. The challenge with the condition is simply maintaining attention on an activity.
Speaker 1:And then the other side of that is when people with ADHD are engaged in tasks that they find interesting.
Speaker 2:they can hyper-focus and so again those myths about that that it's a lack of focus. It's not a lack of focus, it's not a lack of focus, it's just the inability to retain attention. And when people are interested, they can do that. And certainly the third myth around ADHD that you know we've, certainly when we're doing any talks is that you know it suddenly clears up on your 18th birthday Adults don't have it. No, that's completely gone out the window. And you know there's tons of research now. And if you're referring back to DSM-5, now it says you can get a diagnosis of an adult. And just in Ireland, you know we mentioned that there's 60,000 children with ADHD, but there's probably 170,000 adults. And now again, going back, you know, to 60,000 children, you know how many are actually assessed and getting treated? We don't know.
Speaker 2:So again, I would have phoned anybody who thought might have an answer on that. We're working off the range of 20 to 50%. So in Ireland today you're looking at, maybe 20 to 30,000 of the 60,000 are getting support and treatment for their ADHD, but more than likely 30 to 40,000 aren't. So again this thing you see in the media that every second person has ADHD. It's been over-diagnosed. There's an epidemic about it. Incorrect, it's still under-diagnosed. But then when you start to look at adults, when people were my age it was the class clown or the class choker.
Speaker 2:Nobody thought you got an assessment this is why I'm saying you know, we can guarantee that we'll be so uncommon to our next adult support group saying hi, I'm 40s, 50s, I've just found out I have ADHD, and so again, looking at those same figures and an estimate for adults, you know, we reckon maybe 10,000, the 170,000 that haven't have a diagnosis.
Speaker 2:So there's just that huge cohort and population in Ireland and of people or adults that have gone through their lives with unmanaged, untreated adult ADHD and, to be honest, for those that you know, it has caused problems for some of them, to be honest, of course, yeah, and like I know for myself, I got my sort of dyslexia, then autism diagnosis first, and then it was much later that I got my ADHD diagnosis.
Speaker 1:But suddenly having that access to diagnosis and sort of understanding why things have been a challenge and that you don't have to blame yourself for those challenges it's, it's life-changing. So the idea that there's that many people out there who don't know that about themselves and are potentially sort of thinking negatively about themselves is really frustrating, just generally.
Speaker 2:I mean, this comes up so often, particularly, you know, when I am speaking to adults and people. You know you're saying there that getting diagnosis later in life and a lot of things people say to me I thought I was stupid, my entire life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know they didn't have to. You know they got the support and the treatment and whatever they required for their life. And Dan is just saying, going back to what you said, we look to change, you know, the emphasis around ADHD, to remove that stigma, to remove that, because people are going. You know I really thought I was mad or I thought I was stupid, but they didn't know it was underlying ADHD all the time.
Speaker 1:It's heartbreaking to think really. And then is there a sort of a. I know there's not an easy route to diagnosis, that much I know. But what would the route to diagnosis be for most people?
Speaker 2:Well, just to begin with, you know I'm not saying it's an in-joke, but one of the things about it in the DSM-5, it lists out the list of criteria and it says finds it difficult to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort.
Speaker 2:Getting a diagnosis for either adults or children or not, requires sustained mental effort. Let's be on no doubt about that. And so, just in terms of getting the diagnosis, there's a system. You know we have the public system here at HSE and so you get a diagnosis for adults and for children, and the first thing you need to do in both systems is to get a referral from your gp. And again, there's a lack of understanding in gps, particularly for girls, which is why the girls aren't getting you know and mother brings you know child's having a problem in school. We don't know what it is. And, however, the girl's internalizing their ADHD, sitting in the GP surgery, being quiet and not saying a word, not a boy, not moving around, couldn't have ADHD. And so, again, we need to push forward. You know things like GP training and just a whole load of things out there to do it. And then again for adults. You know the HSE when I started five, six years ago, do it. And then again for adults. You know the HSE when I started five, six years ago didn't have any services for adults, but they now do, but we don't have full coverage around the country and so, again, half the country has access to a service, half the country doesn't, and it depends on where you live. And now there is commitment from government, from the department of health, from the HSE, to roll out the and you know one thing to say about the HSE we launched, with Minister Mary Butler and the HSE in January 2021, a model of care for adults with ADHD and you know here's the clinics, where they're going to go, here's how many people they're going to treat. Then we sort of COVID hit and what you found is that, you know, a load of adults at this stage were going.
Speaker 2:I found my life was pretty structured. You know. I had to go to work, I knew what I needed to do, I was structuring my life and now I have to be at home, I have to manage my own day and manage my own workload and homeschool the children. So a lot of people went. You know I'm having struggles here that I did that, particularly on executive functioning, and then started researching and other things have happened in the last three, four years. And now one of the challenges you know, if you're taking tiktok as an example, and there's 20 billion tags on adhd with the word adhd. Now, not all the information is correct, which is one of the problems. And if you don't know and you know, research is showing that you know just over half of it is correct. But unless you've done your research, you're not going to know which half is correct, which isn't. And then you're finding sort of not.
Speaker 2:You know, a lot of celebrities are now coming out saying, oh, you have ADHD, are now coming out saying I have ADHD, and you know the work that ADHD Ireland has done. So with all that, we've had a perfect storm in terms of being a huge increase of people coming into the services. And you know we've talked to GPs and the GP, the Irish Council of GPs here in Ireland, the ICGP, and they all say that you know GPs are seeing a huge increase of people coming through looking for ADHD assessment. And we also talked to the HSE and they're telling us you know that 30 to 50 percent of all your referrals into the mental health services offer ADHD assessment treatment. So again, there's that huge increase of people coming through, both with the children's service and for the adults. And you know the CAMHS, which is the children's service, remains underfunded. The adult service it's a fledgling service that's getting up and running but, as we're saying, it's not meeting the needs of all adults across Ireland. There's a challenge there in getting an assessment.
Speaker 2:The other side of the coin is that you can get a private assessment done. The first caveat we always talk to anybody about that is because we have a list on adhd ireland and it's probably the most looked at page on our website the adult list and but on the show we have a list of psychologists. We have a list of psychiatrists. Now we're pretty agnostic when it comes to medication and it's up to the personal choice of the person whether they want to take medication or not, and but we find an awful lot of people you know we have this in black and white on our website is they go to the first name, they can find it's a psychologist and they go through the list and the psychologist you know absolutely can do the assessment for adhd, but what they can't do is prescribe the medication and then they go back to the psychologist and say, look, okay, I'd like to try medication and go, I don't have anyone to send you to.
Speaker 2:And and if they do find someone, they have to get reassessed because the psychiatrist then needs to say, look, I'm prescribing the medication, I need to be sure your diagnosis, so they need to basically do the assessment again. So it's twice the cost, twice the time, and so just people need to bear that in mind. You know, and there is challenges when you go through the public system time-wise and it can be a little bit quicker. But you know, and there is some psychiatrists particularly out there, because people you know, have seen the advice around that and say, look, I don't want to consider medication as an option and go straight to the psychiatrist. So certainly there's two or three psychiatrists out there who have very, very long wait lists.
Speaker 2:So, again, as we say, you know at the very start there, you know, looking to get an ADHD assessment for a child or for an adult requires a certain mental effort and that's where the challenge comes with the system. But you know what we would always say to people and you know we have mentioned a little bit about the challenges of having ADHD across the entire lifespan. But all the research shows that when you get the assessment and get forgiven with the words right treatment, life outcomes generally improve. So we'd always say you know whether you're 6, 16 or 66, and if you think it's ADHD, certainly go and get the assessment and can they get in touch with you?
Speaker 1:And are your support groups open to people who are sort of maybe not further down the line of getting a diagnosis, but they're exploring that.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. And again, we will always say, because you know we get about six, seven thousand calls a year and you know half of them will be from adults and primarily around how do we get an assessment? And one of the things we'd always say is you know, if you can and we run an adult support group every week, you know we run different varieties, different types, but there's generally one every week come along and what we say is you're going to be in a room with, you know, 10, 20 other adults who do have adhd and when they start talking about their experience and what they did during the day, how it impacts them during their lives, a lot of people go. You know, oh, I've just heard my life story here tonight, light bulbs have been switched on. We'd often say that you know our support groups and it's not a diagnosis, but it's nearly as good as a diagnosis.
Speaker 2:And again for going back to, we're saying that you know around adults, about 170 000 adults, possibly 150 are undiagnosed or untreated. So we don't say to anyone you know you need to have an assessment to come along to any of our activities. You know, if you think you're ADHD and you'd like to find out more so. Whether you're diagnosed or undiagnosed, you're more than welcome, brilliant.
Speaker 1:And do you have groups for parents and for young people as well?
Speaker 2:Brilliant, so again when I started, you know, six, seven years ago, the charity would have been entirely focused on children, and that's just the way things were at the time. And I noticed, just when I started, you know, half the phone calls are coming in from adults. You know there's something happening here and so we, very quickly, you know, would have pivoted, you know, to providing adult services as well, and certainly at the minute, you know, I'd say 50% focus on parents and children and 50% focused on adults.
Speaker 1:Thinking in particular sort of about the ADHD community. So people who are autistic and have ADHD as well, would that typically manifest in a different way?
Speaker 2:well, again we're seeing that ourselves and again we would have started off, you know, primarily. You know we're an ADHD support service and but you know when we started doing our support groups, you know people coming along, you know we talked about, you know what's the topic for tonight, you know what else is going on in your life and a high percentage of people were saying I have autism or autism traits in my life as well, and it actually got to the point. You know, where we started doing, particularly with our online online support group, is what we then do is we have, you know, 40-50 people come along on the night and we'll have three or four facilitators and so, and then we break them out and what we say to people is and we're going to have a couple of types of groups within that, we're going to have a quieter rooms and we're going to have chatting rooms. So you know if you're awesome and adhd, this is going to be pretty structured.
Speaker 2:You're going to go around the group one by one. We'll ask you to turn off your microphones, not interrupt, and again we get around the group and we do the topic that way and in the chatty room it's a bit full on ADHD and we say to them probably this is not the place to start.
Speaker 2:You know, a couple of people come out just a little bit of a shout. Is this what, like ADHD is like all the time? Yes, it is. It's great for people to want to get in and have this 80s conversation, balancing ideas off each other, having a full-on conversation, and it's the chatty group, and so, again, we now always break it out. But the interesting thing we find is that, in terms of the ratio, and so for every two quiet rooms we have, and so for every two quiet rooms we have, we go to one chatty room, so we're finding an awful lot more people want to go into the quieter rooms than the chatty rooms, and this is the people coming through with the AUD and ADHDs combined.
Speaker 1:I think that's where I would be, or I would be silent in the chatty room. I'd love to watch everyone go, but I'm silent within that, I think, would be my approach. And do you find that there's sort of a an internal struggle then that people have, if they have those, that sort of combined diagnosis? Do you find that there is that sort of tricky balance for a lot of people?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, that's it. And again, this is something that you know because it's been coming up. You know we would always say about adhd and adhd rarely travels alone and and again. There is lots of figures out there. Now for the figure I'm using for today's um, I think it's a pretty safe figure to use and there is higher and lower essence.
Speaker 2:But I think when we say that 40 of people with autism also have co-existing ADHD and 40% of people with ADHD have co-existing autism, and so there is always that and you know I've been trying to work out this conundrum in my brain myself and for a number of years and I would have done a talk in the UK a couple years years ago and someone was saying that the way they were looking at it and I liked the way they expressed it with that. And autism and ADHD are just opposite ends of the same spectrum and obviously there's a point where they meet in the middle and so what you?
Speaker 2:find is that people have an awful lot of awesome traits and you know, like someone like yourself, there's also those adhd ones as well, and sometimes they can work together. You know they push you out the door, get things done. Other times they cause this conflict. So, for people with autism, you know they're looking for, not to say repetition but, um, familiarity, things like. But then you have the impulse and the lust and the gun I want to do this and the brain's gone. Let's go off and do something else instead. So, again, this conflict is happening all the time and people with ADR sorry, might require you know, not might, but some people might, you know lower environments and lower stimulus when you know you mentioned there, we have the chatty room and the support group where it's full on and you only go. Where do I go? Which one am I happiest in? Which one works best for me? So it is one of those huge conundrums that are out there.
Speaker 2:And again, one of the challenges that we would face or not we would face, but I think the sector faces is that there isn't that lack of knowledge and understanding out there in the medical profession, and you know the research behind it as well. And again. Just you know a small story. You know I was at the ADHD Europe AGM in Malta about five years ago and I ended up in a car with four psychiatrists driving around Malta looking at the sights. So we were having a conversation. I said look, I mean, when someone comes into you and and you're going, I can see the ADHD here. There'd be a lot of criteria for that. I can see the ADHD. There's a lot of criteria for that. How do you decide?
Speaker 1:what the need condition is we don't know.
Speaker 2:You know there isn't that. You know guidelines and information like that at the minute. So Again, going back to GPs here in Ireland psychiatrists, consultants, psychologists there is those challenges around. What am I looking at here, what am I diagnosing and how do I apply criteria? It can't be straightforward enough to people to get, just say, an ADHD assessment. But if you take the example you know for children, the child goes into the CAM service. They're sent up to look for ADHD, because you know 30 to 50% of people going through the CAM service here in Ireland for ADHD child assessment and treatment and they go. You might have autism as well, but you've got to go somewhere else. And you know you might have autism as well, but you've got to go somewhere else and you know it's much the same for adults and vice versa.
Speaker 2:When you go into the community service and they think you've autism, they go you might have ADHD. Oh, you've got to a different wait list for that. You know it's not joined up, to be honest, and that causes for problems. You know that people would have those conditions and you know how they overlap between the two and getting the right assessment and getting the right treatment is a challenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and well then, I suppose that's my next question for you then is are there particular supports? I think particularly in relation to young people, because a lot of the people that are listening to the podcast will be kind of focused on supporting young people. Are there supports that would be particularly beneficial for young people who are maybe dealing with both autism and ADHD?
Speaker 2:Well, there is a range of things that can now again. Forgive me, I'm not a medical, I'm not a doctor. If you say that one more time, I'm not a doctor. But, like I said, if you say that one more time, not a doctor.
Speaker 2:But in terms of providing supports, there is a range of things. Just in terms of looking at it, if someone was particularly ADHD, it would also run to the vice versa, and so, again, we know for ADHD when you get the right treatment, life outcomes improve. And so ADHD itself is on the spectrum of mild, moderate or severe, and so if your moderate or severe medication may well be indicated but we always say that the clinicians agree with us on this ADHD medication will never solve ADHD by itself. There's an old saying pills don't build skills, so you always need what's called a multimodal treatment, which is a combination of medication with other treatments as well.
Speaker 1:Now these other treatments.
Speaker 2:Now there is research to show that some of them work well with children, things like OT or speech and language therapy as well, and so when you get that in combination with medication, well then that starts to to bring the best things. Now there's there is little research on, you know, I say we all see the starting childhood and on how these would work with adults, but it's not saying intuitive, but you know if they're working already for adults with adhd. In terms of the ot, you know good ot is worth that weight in gold and things like CBT works well for adults. So, again, but when you get them, they need to be focused, or, you know, and because you can't just use a standard CBT model and apply it for being great at autism, you need to make sure it's customized. And so, again, when you have that understanding and you're applying those treatments together and as part of a comprehensive package that's based on you know, know what's facing in front of you.
Speaker 2:And one thing we will always say that you know parents would come to us and add on something with these challenges that say, look, you know, I don't want my child to have a label and you go. I understand that. But we would always say and you know particularly where the complexity will come in between having, you know, combined autism, adhd or AU ADHD is that you know, it's not a label, it's a signpost, and when you get the signpost and impacts you, it sends you to the right place Because you know we were just, you know, talking about ADHD. We're talking in general about ADHD. You know there is that overlap with autism, but there's also an overlap with dyslexia and there's an overlap with dyspraxia and other conditions as well, but some people have all four of them, you know. So you need to get the right diagnosis to get the right supports, which is why we say it's a signpost rather than a landing.
Speaker 2:And then getting the right assessment, says look I mean, okay, maybe dyspra signpost rather than allowing and then getting the right assessment of me. Okay, maybe the spraxia and his ADHD is as well, or it's dyslexia with, or whatever. But getting the right diagnosis is really, really important to signpost you to the right services.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree completely and I think that that idea that like knowledge is power, and I think if someone understands themselves and has that knowledge of themselves, it frees them so much in terms of sort of barriers that that they might be putting in front of themselves or that society is putting in front of them and they can figure out sort of workarounds or just cut themselves some slack. So I agree completely. I think I'd be less worried about the label and more concerned about someone just knowing who they are and embracing that. And so I think that sort of leads us on to, I think, a nice final question what are some of the best things about ADHD?
Speaker 2:Well, one of the generally that we're seeing about ADHD. You know, we can start with a couple of things, you know, and people with ADHD tend to be very creative, tend to be very imaginative, and that goes to the Ferrari brain part. And so what you find is that the creative industries tend to be massively overpopulated with people from ADHD, and we also know that gold medal winners at the Olympics tend to be over-indexing for people with ADHD, and so there is a lot of strengths that people can bring in, you know when we talk to particularly the corporate sector.
Speaker 2:You know we'll say anything. You know you're looking at an employee who's going to be very imaginative, very creative.
Speaker 2:You're going to have an employee who's very good at multitasking, because that's the way the ADHD brain is working on three different things linking them all together and with impulsivity they're happy to take a risk. We know that also entrepreneurs also over index for ADHD and they're going to have a little bit of hyperactivity. They're going to be able to have lots of energy and when they are engaged in the task they're going to have that hyper focus. So you're looking at someone who's creative, good at multitasking, happy to take a risk, lots of energy and resilience. Why wouldn't you want them in the workplace?
Speaker 2:So there's lots of positives. That goes with ADHD and what we'd also say just in terms of reframing ADHD, because there is a lot of public perception which goes back to the point we're saying about the stigma and the low self-esteem. But you know there's no negatives and that are particularly seen with adhd. Or you know, to talk about adhd, that cannot be found into a positive and again, so when we start looking at, you know, from a more neurofibrative practice, on neurofibrative foot place, you know and we're giving the people the supports that they need to be the best that they can at what they do and when you work to their strengths. Then it works better for everybody.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. This is a conversation-based interview designed to stimulate thinking and hopefully, support the development of practice. It's not intended to be medical or psychological advice. The views expressed in these chats may not always be the view of Middletown Centre. If you'd like to know more about Middletown, you can find us on X at Autism Centre and Facebook and Instagram at Middletown Centre for Autism. Go easy until next time.