ADHD Chatter
5 Signs You Have Autism AND ADHD + how to spot it EARLY in children | Dr Becky Quicke
Mon, 31 Mar 2025
What are the common signs of AuDHD? How to spot AuDHD in kids and babies? Why AuDHD women have been missed for so long? Dr Becky Quicke is an experienced Clinical Psychologist who has been assessing children and adults' mental health since she qualified in 2005. She worked in the NHS for 10 years until she set up her own private assessment and therapy practice for children, adults and families in 2015. Dr Becky set up Autistic Girls, a private autism and ADHD assessment service for girls aged 8-18yrs so they can understand their differences and feel good about who they are. 00:00 Trailer 01:41 What is it about AuDHD that even you still can't get your head around 03:35 Signs of AuDHD to look out for 04:52 How has the diagnosis for AuDHD changed since you've been practicing medicine 06:51 How to spot AuDHD in kids 11:22 Can the two conditions (both ADHD and Autism) mask each other? 14:49 Why is it important for a person to receive a diagnosis as quickly as possible? 17:14 Tiimo advert 25:00 How women react after you diagnose them with AuDHD 30:27 Why have women been missed for so long 34:02 How does trauma interlink with AuDHD 41:01 Why a healthy family dynamic is vital for an AuDHD child 47:47 ADHD item segment Visit the Autistic Girls website 👉 https://autisticgirls.co.uk Visit the Autistic Women website 👉 https://autisticwomen.co.uk Get 30% off an annual Tiimo subscription 👉 https://www.tiimoapp.com/adhdchatter Buy Alex's book entitled 'Now It All Makes Sense' 👉 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Now-All-Makes-Sense-Diagnosis/dp/1399817817 Producer: Timon Woodward Recorded by: Hamlin Studios Trailer Editor: Ryan Faber DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Dr Becky Quicke and what is AuDHD?
What is it about the dual diagnosis or DHD that someone like yourself who's worked so closely with it still doesn't make sense to you? Um...
I think in my professional life, so as a clinical psychologist assessing people, I hope this doesn't sound arrogant, but I don't ever feel like, oh, that doesn't make sense. Like, that's my thing that actually, it does always make sense. So we do a screening call with people and... They'll start to describe their experiences. And I'm always thinking, oh, yeah, that makes sense.
So, yeah, I think I get that. Yeah, that makes sense. So there isn't anything I think when I'm working professionally. But personally, there are oftentimes where I mean, because I'm obviously in a different mode in my personal life. And sometimes I kind of think, so my partner is autistic, and it's only recently that we're kind of like, oh, actually, you're also inattentive ADHD.
It's not hyperactive impulsive, but it's inattentive. So until we made that realization, and now that's really helpful, but until then... A lot of stuff didn't make sense because he likes things to be really kind of quite exact and quite precise. And then he would make a lot of careless errors and my brain would be like, what's going on? So, yeah, I guess.
Chapter 2: What are common signs of AuDHD to look out for?
But that's how it is, isn't it, in our personal lives? Like in my professional life as a clinical psychologist, I'm focused, I'm thinking, I'm making sense, helping people to make sense of things. I'm trying to understand things. And so it kind of does make sense. But then, yeah, in my personal life, I sometimes might. It might be different.
Is there anything that you might see in an assessment? Like someone comes to you, you're going through the assessment for, say, autism or ADHD, and they'll say that they do a particular thing and that rings all ADHD bells to you?
Yeah, so that will quite often come up in, obviously, in the screening assessments. So there's a few things that ring bells, but not necessarily about the actual diagnostic criteria. Let me explain. So they might say, they might say, Or you might say something that like, oh, I kind of, I do like to have things predictable. I really have that preference predictability in routines.
But then actually sometimes I really don't. And so I don't understand like, which is it? So that happens. That's a very, very common one. Or sometimes I really love, you know, going out and social, you know, being with people. Then sometimes actually I can't see anybody for a long period of time. So, you know, those kind of things come up and I'm like, oh, okay, what's kind of going on here?
Very much like that internal conflict, like a tug of war, one pulling them in a different direction. Yeah. Through your career, has the diagnostic criteria process changed for autism and ADHD?
In the past, well, I've got a few things that I think that have changed quite a lot. In the past, first of all, with adults, people who had autism diagnoses were seen within learning disability services. Yeah. So I've worked in learning disability services and that's where people would be referred to. But a lot of those people with autism didn't have a cognitive learning disability at all.
So and I don't think that's happening. That's I think that's shifted. That's changed. And I think that this is quite a big shift. I think this is sort of building. and building is that a lot of diagnostic assessments in the past have been based primarily on observation. So observing how somebody behaves rather than actually getting to understand their internal experience.
So I do think in the past sort of few years, we're starting to, thank goodness, starting to, understand that actually how someone behaves doesn't necessarily indicate how they're experiencing the world and so I think there's been a real shift from kind of observational assessments and it just makes me feel really uncomfortable the thought of just observing someone.
Yeah, it doesn't sit with me, but also I just don't think it's that helpful. So moving towards more collaborative discussions where we are, and this is absolutely our ethos at Autistic Girls and Autistic Women, where we're trying to...
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Chapter 3: How has the diagnosis process for AuDHD changed over time?
Managing that and letting there to be a little bit of stimulation, but actually making sure that's not very much and creating an environment where then you drop the stimulation so that the body doesn't become totally dysregulated. Because an autistic and ADHD body and ADHD to a certain extent as well is a very permeable in terms of sensory, the sensory stimulation process.
just kind of comes in from the outside world. And like I say, the body's very permeable and it feels it really intensely. And so obviously until a baby child is able to develop their own ways of regulating, then they become, yeah.
very dysregulated and then it can be um expressed similarly you know toddlers this is really is i think this is really interesting thing about toddler tantrums versus meltdowns and you know overwhelm um and they are different they really are different i think that's and it's really i guess it's tricky for parents to know and a lot of parents feel like oh this is
you know, toddler tantrums, it's a terrible twos and things like that. But actually what parents have described to me is it's different. It's really quite, it's quite extreme. And it's really, really distressing for some parents. And obviously for the child themselves to be feeling such extreme kind of overwhelm.
Is it possible for the two conditions, the ADHD and the autism, to mask each other? They almost cancel each other out and therefore you get missed, you don't get picked up, you don't get diagnosed until you're an adult? Yeah, that definitely happens a lot.
Yeah, they can kind of, I mean, that happens, we get women who come in for screening call and assessment and absolutely that's been their experiences. They kind of, oh, I'm not one and I'm not the other, but actually quite often they're both.
But there is quite a lot of talk of them kind of almost cancelling each other out and it not being shown, but also I think it's really important to say that they intensify each other as well.
Mm-hmm.
So I always think that like ADHD almost like can really intensify the autistic experience and it can be, you know, it can really kind of almost put a rocket underneath things and intensify the emotional experiences or, and it can make it very, very difficult, or they can, it can actually, they can work beautifully together. I mean, some people have said that, that it works really well.
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Chapter 4: How can parents spot AuDHD symptoms early in babies and children?
There can be difficulties, but actually we do get some women who come through and have an assessment and they're not experiencing a lot of distress because they've created a life that really works for them and actually they've kind of worked the two together.
Someone like that historically would not receive a diagnosis, even though we can see, you know, we've done the assessment, we can see actually having that collaborative assessment with them that that's how their brain works, that's how they experience the world, and actually they do reach criteria for autism and ADHD.
I suppose it must be quite hard if you've got these sort of predisposed stereotypes of what ADHD and autism are or is to be those two. Because you might think, well, my opinion of ADHD is like the naughty boy, very energetic, very chaotic, impulsive, disorganized. If you're also ordered and organized, but you are impulsive sometimes.
You might think, well, I don't relate to the stereotypical view that I have of ADHD, or I don't relate to the stereotypical view that I have of autism. Therefore, I can't be both. And that must just compound this feeling of confusion and not belonging. Yes. I mean, it comes up so many times on this podcast, this feeling of being broken and feeling misunderstood. Mm-hmm.
And I suppose it all comes back to years and years and years of not understanding why and not having that context and reason for your behaviors that to you just seemed such in contrast to what you've been taught is normal. So I suppose how important is it for someone to get diagnosed with all DHD? as early as possible.
And what are the sort of consequential effects on the developing brain of someone who is made to feel broken and confused or misunderstood in their early years?
What comes to mind for me is the kind of overwhelming thing is shame. With shame being, I am wrong, rather than, you know, guilt is I have done something wrong. Shame is I am wrong because there are so many, um, like you say, messages from, from people, from school, from family members. And so, yeah, it has a massive impact.
Um, I've worked with a lot of children and obviously adults who are children who've experienced that. And the shame is very, very toxic when, when a child, um, comes to understand themselves and actually even just giving the diagnosis, it can actually change things really significantly.
You know, if our parents say that we haven't had any meltdowns after that diagnosis, doesn't mean I'm not saying like you get a diagnosis and everything's absolutely perfect. But to know that there's a reason and you can understand and explain these experiences, there's nothing wrong. You're not wrong. You are absolutely right. Because that's the message we give to these girls.
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Chapter 5: Can autism and ADHD mask each other and delay diagnosis?
you know, kind of working back and helping women to kind of work things out from where they're at, but also really trying to kind of help girls early on.
You said something a moment ago that really made me think. You said you avoid uncomfortable feelings. And I think so many people in the community spend too long doing that. Like you're so terrified of getting triggered by a rejection or a criticism or not being perfect. And that means that you don't know how to put boundaries in place. You say yes to everything. You people please.
You put everyone else's needs ahead of yours because you're so fearful of somebody looking at you as less than perfect because you intrinsically feel that you're not. Therefore, you put so much effort into appearing so. And the thought of someone seeing through that camouflage is so terrifying that you just, you don't know how to say no to things.
You don't know how to, you can get into vulnerable situations, particularly as a woman, I imagine.
Yeah. Yeah. That's really nice summary, actually, of a really important, important issue around when people struggle and, yeah, are kind of coping, developing ways to cope rather than actually, I talk quite a lot about how understanding ourselves means that we can create a life where we don't need to cope.
It's such a brilliant moment. I remember when I got my diagnosis age 34, you know, lots of emotion. You must have been in front of lots of women when you've told them, I imagine in some cases, finally, you know, after so many years that they are all DHD and the emotional reactions that you might see in those moments. Do any stand out? Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and the women and girls and parents. Yeah, it really varies. So for some people, I mean, the word that comes to mind is relief. And that is predominantly what we experience, I think, for girls and women. Although I'm just thinking as a piece of... research with people who have had a diagnosis and they talked about feeling relief, so grief and relief.
So there is the relief, but then there's the grief. This is, I'm talking about women here. Actually, parents can experience that as well, even with young girls, actually, because there's been a period of time of not understanding. But yeah, absolutely the relief. And, um, uh, what's coming to my mind actually is, um, some of the girls are, and this is just, um, I just think it's amazing.
And it's really quite exciting that they, um, I remember one parent saying, um, cause they told their, their daughter that, that, you know, we diagnosed autism on ADHD and they said that she squealed with joy and And I was just, yeah, we get that. So sometimes it's actual real excitement. This is who I am. And it just makes sense.
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Chapter 6: Why is early diagnosis of AuDHD important for emotional health?
I mean, the injustice of it all is massive, isn't it? Do you think that there is a contributing factor behind why so many women have been missed for so long?
There's a number of things, I guess, that impact how women, and we've been talking about masking, but kind of present themselves. And I think a significant factor is is about social conditioning. And there are, but I think it really impacts, well, it definitely really impacts boys and men as well, but the gender sort of stereotypes, which... which happened so early on.
I mean, it's, it's blown my mind as a parent to see other parents who I really like and respect as even with babies and young children talking about, oh, that sort of typical, typical boys always moving is always running around and, oh yeah, she's a girl. She's sat, yeah, sat, you know, drawing. I wish my, I wish my boy would do that. And,
so girls from a really young age i'll just focus on on girls because that's my my personal experience and obviously professional experience um learn that that that's apparently not okay and and there are low obviously girls well just girls generally we don't have to even talk about adhd and but um very very active girls but you kind of learn that that's you're not meant to do that um
And so, yeah, definitely the kind of social conditioning of girls being good and be honest, like obedient, doing what you're told, all that kind of good girl programming has a massive impact. Yeah. And and actually, you know, so a lot of girls kind of become, you know, very, very good girls and sort of switch everything off or kind of learn how to not show their true selves.
I can just imagine, you know, the sort of young girl, say, who might feel that need to move, want to move, desire to be more active, but stop fidgeting, sit still. And so they keep it inside and that hyperactivity quite quickly works its way to their head, to the thinking, to the brain. Those highly caffeinated squirrels come back and the anxiety comes back.
And then you get misdiagnosed with an anxiety disorder when you're 15, 16, because you were told that moving is wrong and impolite. And that's not how young girls should behave.
And also with all DHD. Moving, you know, it's just, yeah, I'm just thinking about how the education system requires children to just sit still and it's just bizarre. But yeah, so moving and being potentially told off because you're ADHD is...
the worst thing for an autistic child who doesn't want that attention doesn't want that that you know doesn't want the the teacher pulling attention to them people looking at them like it's that combination of like oh so really really make sure you kind of develop strategies to to not um move sort of fidget slightly but like you say or kind of internally and kind of keep yourself stimulated keep your brain stimulated
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