Many adults with ADHD use coping strategies that help them hide their symptoms. This practice is known as ADHD masking and is especially common in women with ADHD. One type of ADHD masking — known as mirroring — involves intentionally or unintentionally mimicking the speech, movements, or behaviors of someone else.
Masking can take on many forms
Suppressing stimming behaviors. Mimicking or copying accents (usually unintentionally) Scripting conversations.
Perception/observation/curiosity
It sees and tolerates/appreciates new ideas, new movements, new visualizations, new concepts. Individuals with ADHD often perceive (intuitively) connections or “flows” that are not appreciated by others.
Many of the traits associated with ADHD — disorganization, procrastination, forgetfulness — are often considered by others to be traits of "immature adults". It's hard not to feel like you're failing at adulthood when everyone else seems to manage just fine.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is very common — according to the most recent statistics, one in 10 children between the ages of 4 and 17 has been diagnosed with this problem.
ADHD can make completing tasks such as school work, homework, or work projects much more difficult. However, there is no clear link between ADHD and IQ. A person may have a high, average, or low IQ score and also have ADHD. ADHD may cause a person to interrupt in class or perform poorly on tests.
Executive functions have other roles which affect how someone thinks. In people with ADHD, these executive dysfunctions impact thinking in numerous ways. People with ADHD don't really think faster than people without it, but it can sometimes seem like they do. People with ADHD do think differently though, in a sense.
Mood swings are common in people with ADHD. People with this disorder can be hypersensitive, too. That means sensations, like touch, that may feel normal to another person can feel too intense for someone with ADHD.
High IQ may “mask” the diagnosis of ADHD by compensating for deficits in executive functions in treatment-naïve adults with ADHD.
“One common fawning tactic among Autistics is mirroring: lightly mimicking the actions and emotions of another person, trying to meet the energy they are giving off so that they view us as normal and similar to themselves.”
“Opposites Attract”: People with ADHD are attracted to “organized” and joyless workers bees who can keep the trains running for the both of them and who in turn are drawn to their free-spirited ADHD partner's spontaneity and sense of fun.
Reading is a struggle for adults and children with ADHD alike. Many children with ADHD have difficulty with reading comprehension,8 while both adults and kids with ADHD tend to lose interest, miss details and connections, lose track of where they are on the page, and become easily distracted.
Falling in love can be an emotional roller coaster for most teens. But for teenagers with ADHD, symptoms like impulsivity or trouble managing emotions can make falling in love or starting a relationship an even bumpier ride. That said, not all kids with ADHD struggle in the same way, or to the same degree.
People with autism, engineers, and those with ADHD tend to say they think in pictures; teachers, in words, and when a word-thinker hears that there are those who think not in words, but pictures, they often are flabbergasted, taken aback, and have a hard time bending their mind around this alien thought form.
Processing slowly whether it's in conversation or reading is a common challenge for ADHD adults. While it's not related to your intelligence, it could be related to your ADHD. Hear about the possible connections between processing speed and ADHD as well as the workarounds you can use to still reach your goals.
Leonardo da Vinci
His scientific and engineering inventions were equally influential and ahead of his time. According to research, Leonardo da Vinci was reported to have had many symptoms of ADHD.
For instance, among the 18 studies under scrutiny that did not explicitly state an IQ cut-off point the mean range of IQ among individuals with ADHD reported in the studies is from 102 to 110. Given that lower IQ is associated with ADHD this suggests that individuals with ADHD may be inaccurately represented.
The average IQ for a 13-year-old is roughly between 90 and 109, with 100 being the average. The highest score is 145, and the lowest score is 61.
Social media has also propelled ADHD into popular awareness, as it has taken over platforms like TikTok and Twitter. As of May 2022, the hashtag #adhd has 11.4 billion views on TikTok. Many people credit these platforms with helping them realize they had the diagnosis and subsequently seeking treatment for it.
Today many sociologists and neuroscientists believe that regardless of A.D.H.D.'s biological basis, the explosion in rates of diagnosis is caused by sociological factors — especially ones related to education and the changing expectations we have for kids.
And four out of 10 teachers report more difficulty in recognizing ADHD symptoms in girls than in boys. Polled parents and teachers also said that, among children with ADHD, boys are more likely than girls to exhibit behavioral problems, while girls are more often inattentive or struggling with a mood disorder.