Adhd in a toddler?

[Starfish25]

Hi, my son is nearly 4 years old. He is on the asd pathway. He has very limited speech (says single words, very rarely) is adhd a form of autism or is it totally different? Are the symptoms the same as autism? My son shows signs of autism but I see signs of adhd in him as well. He can not sit still, he will sit down for a matter of seconds then back up again to run around. He can't even sit down for meals. His attention span is very limited, I try to play/teach with him and he just goes off to do his own thing or he will throw what ever we was doing. My son was put on the pathway in sept. Waiting on another assessment roughly in march. Thanks if anyone can help

[AladdinMum]

ADHD is different to ASD (i.e. you can have ADHD without having autism), however co-morbidity in autism is very common, I think I read somewhere that up-to 40% of children with autism also have ADHD or similar disorders. ADHD is hard to diagnose, and professionals don't try until after 5 years old, this is mainly because children (specially boys) are likely to show levels of hyperactivity and low concentration levels in early years (which is totally normal) but tend to 'slow down' after 5YRs old. If the child has ASD then it's even harder to see ADHD as some of the symptoms overlap - this is a an area where trained professionals are really needed to observe him over periods of time for them to try to pick up on the different signs.

[Starfish25]

Thank you very much, that has reassured me. My mum did say it's normal for a boy to act like that but he's my first and also first time dealing with asd, everything can be overwhelming for me and of course my son. Thank you for taking the time to write to me

[DefConOne]

I was convinced my daughter had ADHD but she was diagnosed with ASD. Lots of overlapping behaviour. As PP said possible to have both. She’s 12 now and amazing 😊

[April45]

The ASD has to be managed and understood first before ADHD can be considered because there's so much overlap of presenting difficulties.