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Originally posted by Rudey: Is this what the guy from the Rainman movie had?
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In the film
Rainman Dustin Hoffman played a character called Raymond; who was autistic.
Autism is not really related to ADHD. For example, the average college student who has ADHD does not generally display symptoms like Dustin Hoffman's character.
However, autism is related to "Asperger's Syndrome". Asperger's is not really "like" autism - they're very different conditions, just kinda technically related.
Sometimes people who feel they have (or are observed to have) ADHD symptoms are actually found to have Asperger's Syndrome rather than ADHD. There's a lot of crossover between various conditions - dyspraxia, ADHD, Asperger's etc. One can have Asperger's
and ADHD or, since some symptoms can be similar it may initially appear they have ADHD but more investigation (assessment) might show they actually have Asperger's Syndrome.
That's why when someone's having an assessment an open mind is needed to take all possibilities into account. Perhaps too one might be diagnosed with autism after initial suspicion they may have ADHD; I've no idea.
From what _Q_ said and the story of the person in the article she linked, I'd be more inclined to think that both people had Asperger's rather than ADHD on the basis of the notable impairments in two-sided social interaction and non-verbal communication ( ASPEN of America Home Page
http://www.asperger.org/ ).
All that said, I don't have a secret Ph.D I've been hiding and no mental health sector experience whatsoever so I'm sure any diagnoses were correct. Thus what I 'think' is *solely* an uninformed $0.02. To _Q_, I hope no offence was caused to you by my own thoughts in this post - let me know via PM if there was and I'll delete it.
Just thought I'd clarify though - in my own layperson's capacity - the relation/crossover between the various conditions.