ADHD in Girls: Overlooked? [Video]

By Understood

ADHD is just as common in girls as it is in boys. So why are girls diagnosed less often? And why do signs of ADHD in girls tend to get overlooked? In this episode, hosts Amanda Morin and Bob Cunningham hear from parents who initially missed signs of ADHD in their daughters.

They also hear from a fellow Understood team member about being diagnosed with ADHD when she was 30 — and how it changed her perception of herself.

To find a transcript for this episode and more resources, visit the episode page at Understood. https://www.understood.org/podcast/in…

We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at init@understood.org.

Understood is a nonprofit and social impact organization dedicated to shaping a world where the 1 in 5 people who learn and think differently can thrive. Learn more about “In It” and all our podcasts at u.org/podcasts. Copyright © 2020 Understood for All, Inc. All rights reserved.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:04
hi I’m Amanda Morin I’m a writer with
0:07
understood.org a parent to kids who
0:09
learn differently and a former teacher
0:11
and I’m Bob Cunningham I’m a career
0:13
educator and parent as well as executive
0:15
director for learning development at
0:17
understood and we are in it this is a
0:20
podcast from understood on this show we
0:22
hear from parents caregivers and
0:24
sometimes kids and will offer support
0:26
and advice for families whose kids are
0:27
struggling with reading math focus and
0:29
other learning and thinking differences
0:32
today we’re talking about ADHD in girls
0:34
and why it can so easily get overlooked
0:37
and under-diagnosed
0:42
Bob a
0:43
asks say a random person with a picture
0:45
when they think of a kid with ADHD what
0:48
do you think they’d say
0:49
I think they’d tell you a hyperactive
0:51
boy can’t sit still disruptive those
0:54
kinds of things
0:55
yeah that’s definitely the perception of
0:58
ADHD that most people have but there’s a
1:01
few things wrong with that picture first
1:03
of all girls have ADHD too it’s more
1:06
commonly diagnosed in boys but girls
1:08
also have it and second while some girls
1:10
do have that hyperactive kind of ADHD
1:13
most of the time it presents differently
1:16
here’s how one mom describes it
1:18
so she can be in class and be totally
1:21
out to lunch you know her mind can be
1:23
elsewhere and she can look like she’s
1:25
completely obedient and sitting there
1:28
and polite and all that stuff but her
1:31
mind can just wander that’s Christine
1:34
talking about her daughter Siobhan who
1:36
is 11. for a long time Christine thought
1:38
Siobhan was just you know a Daydreamer
1:41
and maybe a bit defiant since trying to
1:43
get her to do something so often went
1:45
like this Siobhan can you please set the
1:47
table I’ve just asked you 10 times to
1:50
stop doing what you’re doing and you’re
1:52
sitting there staring into a book on
1:54
your bed homework same thing you know
1:57
redirect redirect redirect redirect it
1:59
took some time before Christine
2:01
considered that maybe this wasn’t a
2:02
matter of Siobhan being stubborn or of
2:04
bad behavior maybe it was something else
2:07
she wishes it hadn’t taken her so long
2:09
to get there and she hopes other parents
2:11
can learn from her experience
2:14
[Music]
2:18
can you tell us a little bit about
2:19
Siobhan and what she’s like sure so she
2:22
is 11 years old she’s in sixth grade
2:25
she’s very social she’s into art and
2:28
drawing and stuff like that she has
2:30
always been a bookworm
2:33
um she’ll reread the same book a million
2:36
times Harry Potter the whole series has
2:38
been read probably I I have lost track
2:40
and she likes to make up stories too you
2:43
know she can sometimes writes them down
2:45
but writing is not a strength
2:47
um and so she’ll tell them to me and
2:49
when we go for a walk or something in
2:51
the park she can start talking and it
2:53
almost sounds like she’s reading the
2:55
pages of a book because the story is
2:56
just spinning in her head what about
2:58
that said to you oh ADHD or did it
3:03
um it really comes from the daydreamy
3:06
aspect of her that can really be a
3:10
problem in a school setting
3:12
um in a trying to get homework done
3:13
setting in a trying to keep the
3:16
household running setting
3:18
um you know she said to me once
3:20
after her math teacher I think in fourth
3:23
or fifth grade was complaining that you
3:25
know she’s always zoning out this
3:27
teacher said I’m a seasoned professional
3:30
I’ve been doing this for decades and I’m
3:32
I’ve tried all my tricks on her and
3:33
nothing’s working to get her to pay
3:36
attention and so I asked Siobhan you
3:38
know what’s going on and she’s like well
3:40
whenever I’m bored or whatever I can
3:43
just like watch a movie in my head
3:46
and so it’s not like what I thought of
3:49
as typical ADHD which is one reason I
3:51
think that went undiagnosed for longer
3:53
than it should have
3:55
before the math teacher said that to you
3:58
was ADHD even like on your radar
4:01
no I knew that something was up because
4:04
her grades were very uneven despite that
4:08
she’s a bright kid and I think the
4:11
previous conference to that one I had
4:13
asked her teachers do you think she
4:15
needs a tutor and they said to me no she
4:18
gets this material she doesn’t need
4:19
extra help it’s not that it’s
4:21
conceptually challenging for her she’s
4:23
just not focusing it was almost like a
4:26
personality flaw you know she’s lazy
4:29
she’s not applying herself and so there
4:31
was a lot of
4:32
in retrospect wasted time and no ADHD
4:35
was not on my radar and now I have so
4:37
much regret about that because I just
4:39
was not informed
4:42
we asked other parents who have girls
4:43
with ADHD if it took them a long time to
4:46
arrive at the diagnosis here’s what
4:48
Margie told us
4:49
yes the thing is when she was 10 we took
4:54
her to an educational psychologist
4:55
because we knew she was having learning
4:57
issues we knew something was wrong she
5:00
was coming home in tears and insistent
5:02
that she was trying as hard as she could
5:04
and and actually vocalized that she felt
5:07
that some of the other children had some
5:08
kind of magic that she didn’t have that
5:11
the teacher would say what to do explain
5:13
a project explain the next steps and
5:16
they all seem to get on with it and she
5:19
didn’t know where to start
5:21
the teacher had said she was daydreaming
5:24
Spacey you know Etc
5:26
I told the Ed psych after doing research
5:29
of my own I thought she had auditory
5:31
processing issues and that she had add
5:33
inactive which was what they called ADHD
5:37
without the eight six years ago before
5:39
they started looking at it as
5:41
presenting differently than the typical
5:44
hyperactive boy diagnosis
5:47
and the Ed site came out and said no it
5:50
wasn’t ADHD everybody kept saying she’s
5:53
just not trying hard enough
5:55
she was trying so hard and she would
5:58
force herself to try and focus and
6:01
because she was bright because she was
6:04
trying so hard she was succeeding just
6:07
enough for them to say no she didn’t
6:09
have it
6:11
[Music]
6:18
so you said that you noticed things
6:21
about Siobhan and the way she was
6:22
participating in school and what she was
6:24
doing at home that kind of you know made
6:26
you think I wonder what’s going on here
6:28
how about for Siobhan did she seem to
6:30
recognize anything did she know that
6:33
things weren’t going for her the way
6:34
they might
6:36
yes I think for a while she has not had
6:40
a great sense of self-esteem around
6:43
schoolwork around homework
6:46
um and I think for a long time she also
6:48
was confused about exactly what was
6:51
going on and probably frustrated
6:54
by all the negative feedback coming her
6:57
way both from her teachers and from us
7:00
at home honestly because I too thought
7:02
it had a lot to do with her not working
7:05
hard enough not applying herself we
7:09
often think of ADHD as sort of a boy
7:11
thing
7:12
did that have anything to do with ADHD
7:15
not necessarily being on your radar I
7:17
think so I think that’s what’s in the
7:19
public perception right that it’s a boy
7:22
who’s kind of bouncing off the walls
7:23
when it is a girl it usually stands out
7:27
a lot when they have that hyperactivity
7:30
or the impulsivity that sort of stuff
7:32
because it’s so counter to sort of what
7:35
we stereotypically expect from girls but
7:38
what you described is so much more
7:41
frequently what girls experience in
7:45
school when they have ADHD I want to
7:48
pause here for a second just to note
7:49
that even when a girl does have what
7:51
people think of a more typically boy
7:53
kind of ADHD she may not get the support
7:56
she needs this is something we heard
7:58
about from Rob his daughter whose
8:00
College age now had a lot of
8:01
difficulties in school that only later
8:03
were attributed to ADHD
8:06
you know particularly when she went to
8:09
Catholic School the first and second
8:11
grade teachers that we had seemed to
8:14
have this expectation that little girls
8:17
are all like a b and c and my daughter
8:21
was doing d e and f and like the second
8:24
grade teacher was told me flat out in my
8:27
25 years the teaching I’ve never
8:29
encountered it a little bit like that
8:31
and I was like well gee that’s really
8:35
sad
8:37
you know that your experience has been
8:39
so limited
8:41
foreign
8:41
[Music]
8:51
have you had teachers talk to you about
8:54
ADHD and girls and kind of how they look
8:57
at it no not at all I don’t feel like
9:01
any of her teachers
9:03
really have expertise in this area it’s
9:07
more
9:09
me and my husband
9:12
telling them what we have figured out
9:14
right along the way
9:16
Christine told us that figuring this all
9:18
out has been a slow and sometimes
9:20
frustrating process partly that’s just
9:23
the reality of being a working parent
9:24
raising young kids Siobhan has two
9:26
younger siblings one time I was very
9:29
proud of myself because I had carved out
9:31
this time to spend with her on homework
9:34
it’s very hard at home because we have
9:35
so much going on so I had kind of left
9:38
work early or something the babysitter
9:40
was going to be with our other kids and
9:41
we were going to sit down in a coffee
9:42
shop so I could focus on homework with
9:44
her and there weren’t going to be all
9:45
these millionaire interruptions
9:47
and she couldn’t focus and I was so
9:50
frustrated that even despite having you
9:53
know done all these things to set the
9:55
stage her mind kept wandering and I was
9:59
later telling the learning specialist at
10:00
her school about that
10:02
and the learning specialist said to me
10:04
well you may not realize it but in a
10:06
coffee shop setting there’s all kinds of
10:07
other stimulus coming at her people
10:10
talking the you know cappuccino machine
10:12
what all these other things going on and
10:15
they’re taking her attention away and
10:18
that was kind of an aha moment for me
10:19
like oh right even those little things
10:22
an even bigger aha moment came when
10:25
Christine took Siobhan to be evaluated
10:27
by a neurologist first he went over the
10:29
school’s reports and assessments on her
10:31
and then he did one of those
10:33
computerized tests where she sits in
10:35
front of a computer and it’s an
10:37
attention test and she had to press the
10:38
space bar when one of two stars came up
10:41
and that was the only thing that was
10:42
happening on the screen two stars and I
10:44
was sitting behind her and she totally
10:48
bombed it no that was that was another
10:49
really telling moment for me where it
10:51
was like wow there’s
10:52
there’s no effort that goes into this
10:56
Beyond attention there’s nothing to
10:57
figure out there’s you know nothing
11:00
challenging to me about this and yet she
11:02
really could not sustain her attention
11:04
so from that evaluation Siobhan got an
11:07
ADHD diagnosis and now she gets some
11:10
extra support at school but having a
11:12
name and a language for what makes some
11:13
things hard for her hasn’t meant that
11:15
Siobhan’s insecurities just went away
11:18
yes and now that she’s a couple years
11:20
older what I was talking about before
11:22
where she doesn’t have a great sense of
11:25
self-esteem around schoolwork
11:27
I think that’s only gotten more
11:30
pronounced and now she can articulate
11:32
things a little bit better and so she’ll
11:35
actually say to me well there’s not
11:37
really anything about school that I’m
11:39
really good at you know and then she’ll
11:40
list the things that she’s
11:42
not good at
11:44
and she’ll describe to me instances
11:47
where she’s experiencing symptoms like
11:50
she was in band the other day and the
11:53
other clarinet players were nudging her
11:55
because she had spaced out when it was
11:56
her attempt to come in or she took a
11:58
test and she realized that she couldn’t
12:01
concentrate because other students were
12:03
whispering and she was sitting near the
12:05
door to the hallway which was open and
12:06
there was noise going back and forth
12:09
Bob while we were working on this
12:11
episode we talked a lot with our
12:13
colleague Laura about what it’s like to
12:15
be a girl with ADHD that’s right Laura
12:18
didn’t figure out that she had ADHD
12:20
until she was 30 and that delay in the
12:23
diagnosis led to a lot of pain and
12:26
anxiety that perhaps could have been
12:28
avoided
12:30
growing up I didn’t know that I had ADHD
12:33
it was something that I had heard of but
12:36
it wasn’t something that we talked about
12:39
a lot especially not
12:41
in the midwest I don’t know the attitude
12:43
was just you know work harder
12:45
play sports
12:47
study more that kind of thing and I
12:49
definitely latched on to that growing up
12:52
I
12:53
um I really busted my butt to get
12:56
perfect grades and
12:58
to be a student athlete and a leader at
13:01
school
13:03
but all the while I was really suffering
13:06
because it it was just so hard to focus
13:10
and it’s funny I look back now at my
13:12
journals from when I was in middle
13:14
school and high school and I would I see
13:16
that I would scribble the word Focus all
13:18
over them and yet it still didn’t really
13:21
you know click for me that
13:23
something like that was going on and I
13:26
just developed these really
13:27
perfectionistic uh ways of doing things
13:30
you know I would like give myself fake
13:33
deadlines so that
13:35
um I would work extra hard and give
13:36
myself extra time to do things to the
13:40
best of my ability and it worked like on
13:42
paper I was very successful if you like
13:46
looked at my grades if you looked at how
13:48
I did in sports and how I was with
13:50
friends
13:51
but deep down I was really sad and
13:54
stressed out and anxious all the time
13:57
and it wasn’t until I got diagnosed when
13:59
I was 30 that I finally realized what
14:01
was happening and it really clicked for
14:03
me I was like wow this is what was
14:05
happening the entire time
14:09
foreign
14:17
teachers to know about your daughter or
14:20
what do you want them to do
14:22
for your daughter in their classes
14:25
um so my daughter has a tutor who comes
14:28
from a company that focuses on Executive
14:30
functioning
14:32
and I wish that those skills were taught
14:35
in school
14:36
tell us what those skills are that she’s
14:38
working on with that tutor Focus
14:41
organization
14:42
being able to sustain a task being able
14:46
to switch from one task to another
14:49
being able to organize materials like a
14:52
backpack things like that we are keeping
14:55
you as the person who now describes
14:57
executive functioning skills that’s
14:58
perfect like that was spot on
15:01
how has knowing that Siobhan has ADHD
15:05
affected how you interact with her and
15:07
parent her
15:09
I do try to dig extra deep to find that
15:13
patience I definitely do not always find
15:15
it but I try
15:18
um it affects how I analyze a situation
15:22
afterwards and see the different factors
15:25
that were at play do you ever talk to
15:27
her about those different factors or do
15:29
I guess what I’m asking is do you ever
15:31
go back and have those conversations
15:33
after you have been impatient yes
15:36
absolutely what do they sound like in
15:38
your house
15:40
um look I’m really sorry that I was so
15:43
angry with you for X Y and Z you
15:46
shouldn’t have done X Y and Z but I
15:48
shouldn’t have reacted in that way I say
15:50
that a lot I say that a lot too yeah
15:53
I feel like it’s the next best thing if
15:55
you can’t muster the 100 patience that
15:57
you want to in this situation then five
16:00
minutes later when you’ve cooled off a
16:01
little bit you can that’s a great advice
16:03
that’s really good advice
16:06
thank you
16:13
you’ve been listening to in it a podcast
16:16
from understood if you want to learn
16:18
more about ADHD go back and listen to
16:20
some of our other episodes like the one
16:22
that answers the question is ADHD real
16:24
or our interview with tumani Coker a
16:27
researcher who looks into ADHD in
16:29
communities of color we’d like to hear
16:31
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16:37
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16:41
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16:42
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16:45
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16:49
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17:14
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17:21
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[Music]

—

This post was previously published on YouTube.

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