Learning disability, autism and ADHD

ADHD is a condition where someone displays a range of behaviours including inattentiveness, hyperactivity and impulsiveness.  

While everybody occasionally has trouble sitting still, paying attention, or controlling impulsive behaviour, people with ADHD find it disrupts their daily lives to a considerable and sometimes incapacitating degree. 

These characteristics present in a more extreme form in those with ADHD and will have done since childhood. ADHD is a lifelong condition and how it affects individuals can change over time.  

What are the features of ADHD? 

People who describe themselves as neurodivergent, meaning a person's brain processes information in a different way to most people, often display signs of ADHD. They can include: 

• Starting many new tasks before finishing old ones. 
• Doing just one thing and ignoring every other important task (hyper-focusing). 
• Frequently losing things (e.g. phone, keys) and forgetting appointments. 
• Drifting off in conversation, unable to focus. 
• Being unable to stay sitting when, for example, in a cinema. 
• People with ADHD often also have problems with being impulsive (doing and saying things without thinking them through) or with controlling their temper; they often feel trapped and guilty about these things, feeling like it is not what they are really like inside. 
• Rejection sensitivity 'dysphoria' (RSD). This is when people are extremely sensitive to criticism, rejection or the sense that they have fallen below their own expectations of themselves. 

ADHD, menstruation and menopause

Women who menstruate or have reached menopause also experience additional problems because falling estrogen levels result in an additional decrease of dopamine. 

Watch a webinar entitled Women, ADHD, and Hormones Webinar.

ADHD and rejection sensitive dysphoria

ADHD and rejection sensitive dysphoria is a term used to describe the extreme emotional sensitivity and emotional pain for people with ADHD. It may imitate mood disorders with suicidal ideation and manifest as instantaneous rage at the person responsible for causing the pain. It is triggered by the perception of rejection or criticism from important people in your life, or by a sense of fall short of expectations. The video contains information and strategies to help deal with RSD.  

ADHD masking

ADHD masking is when someone with ADHD hides their symptoms from others. It is often a coping mechanism to fit in and avoid negative judgments. Common ways people mask can be supressing their emotions, focusing intently and copying others so they fit in more. The websites below contain a range of information and resources about ADHD Masking.

ADHD Masking: Examples, Impact, and Coping

ADHD Personality Traits and the Masks We Use to Hide Them

In the video below, Jessica McCabe describes what it's really like to live with ADHD.

Autism is a lifelong developmental neurodivergence and disability which affects how people communicate and interact with the world. More than one in 100 people are on the autism spectrum and there are around 700,000 autistic adults and children in the UK. 

Autism influences how people experience and interact with the world. Autistic people are different from each other, but for a diagnosis they must share differences from non-autistic people in how they think, feel and communicate. 

Being autistic means you may feel things and react to them differently to non-autistic people. This can include:

• finding socialising confusing or tiring
• you may become overwhelmed in loud or busy places
• you may have intense interests
• you may prefer order and routine
• you may use repeated movements or actions to calm yourself or express joy
• you might mask your discomfort to fit in, which can lead to mental illness

Autism is a spectrum, meaning each autistic person has a unique combination of characteristics. Autistic people can be very different to each other, with different sets of strengths and challenges. 

Find out why autism is a difference, not a deficit, by watching the video.

A learning disability is a reduced intellectual ability and difficulty with everyday activities - for example household tasks, socialising or managing money - which affects someone for their whole life.

People with a learning disability tend to take longer to learn and may need support to develop new skills, understand complicated information and interact with other people.

Watch Mencap's video that asked people what it means to them to have a learning disability.

This page is under development. We are working with people with lived experience to update and improve the content continuously. 

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