Special Challenges for Girls and Women

ADHD in Girls: Overlooked?

Understanding Girls with ADHD

The Secret Lives of Girls

by Ellen Littman, Ph.D.

With abundant information available on ADHD, we may have a false sense that we know more about the experience of girls than we really do. At last, there is ever-increasing acknowledgement that the manifestations of ADHD differ by gender. And yet, we are only beginning to appreciate the far more crucial factor—that the impact of ADHD differs significantly by gender. In fact, much about the lives of girls with ADHD is secret in that their inner world has been virtually unknown to us. Although our ability to access windows into their experience is in its infancy, we can try to make sense of the glimpses we have.

Full article “The Secret Lives of Girls With ADHD”

Stop the Cycle of Shame for Girls with ADHD

by ADDitude Magazine

The stigma of unrecognized ADHD can lead to years of low self-confidence and psychological damage. Here’s why ADHD is so frequently missed or misdiagnosed in girls and women, and how we can help the next generation.

Full article “Stop the Cycle of Shame for Girls with ADHD”

Under-Diagnosed and Under-Treated, Girls with ADHD Face Distinct Risks

by Rodrigo Pérez Ortega

Inattentive ADHD — marked by distraction, forgetfulness and impulsivity — remains largely misunderstood by the public. In the 1990s, few girls without hyperactivity were diagnosed, but diagnosis rates have narrowed to 2.5 boys to every girl.

Stephen Hinshaw began studying girls in 1997 in the Berkeley Girls with ADHD Longitudinal Study (B-GALS). As researchers followed their subjects into womanhood, they found that girls with ADHD have many of the same problems as boys with the disorder, and some extra ones.

Escaping notice is just one of girls’ special burdens. Girls and women, in general, engage in more “internalizing” behavior than boys, Hinshaw says, meaning they tend to take their problems out on themselves rather than others. (They) had serious trouble managing their thoughts, emotions, behavior… as well as the  same kinds of academic problems as boys with the disorder.

Full article “Undiagnosed and Under-treated”

5 Things Every Doctor (and Parent) Should Know about Girls and ADD

by Ellen Littman, Ph.D.

New research suggests that to effectively diagnose ADHD symptoms in women and girls, doctors should consider hormonal fluctuations, trauma, family dynamics, self-esteem, and eating habits. Encouraging feedback about ADD treatment is also essential when treating young women for attention deficit disorder.

Today there is greater awareness of the challenges of diagnosing girls with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or ADD). Their tendencies to mask their inattentive traits and internalize their feelings make their symptoms harder to recognize. As a result, they are often diagnosed later in life, after comorbidities have begun to interfere with healthy behaviors, when unhealthy coping skills start to undermine their sense of self.

Full article “5 Things Every Doctor (and Parent) Should Know about Girls and ADD”

Decades of Failing to Recognize ADHD in
Girls Has Created a “Lost Generation”
of Women

by Jenny Anderson

Girls are closing one gender gap we don’t want: diagnoses of Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Between 2003 and 2011, parents reported an increase of ADHD diagnoses of 55% for girls, compared to 40% for boys, according to a 2015 study in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.
And yet girls continue to be misdiagnosed in spades, with alarming consequences, Dr. Ellen Littman, clinical psychologist and co-author of Understanding Girls with AD/HD, tells Quartz. “The outcomes for girls are horrendously negative compared to boys,” she says.

Full article “Decades of Failing to Recognize ADHD in Girls”

Girls and Women with ADHD:
Unique Risks, Crippling Stigma

A generation ago, ADHD was widely considered a condition for boys. Girls may have anxiety or conduct problems, but not ADHD. What’s more, even some medical professionals insisted the condition vanished after puberty.

We now know that girls and boys are at equal risk for developing ADHD, and that it can often be a lifetime condition for either gender. What’s more, girls and women with ADHD have a tougher time making it through the world than do boys and men. The stigma surrounding ADHD is oftentimes stronger for women, which may delay assessment and intervention — especially when inattentive-type symptoms are mistaken for something else. The good news is that knowledge is power, and we know much more about ADHD in women than we once did.

ADHD in Women and Girls

by Medicine Net 

Who Gets ADHD?

ADHD develops in childhood and can happen to anyone, but your genes play a strong role. It's estimated that between 5% to 11% of children have ADHD. And many of them are girls. Some kids outgrow it, but more than three-quarters of people who had ADHD in childhood will continue to have it as adults.

Stats Are Misleading

Boys are diagnosed with ADHD at least twice as often as girls are, but that doesn't necessarily mean that more boys have it. Some experts say girls don't get diagnosed as much because their symptoms can be harder to spot.

Full article “ADHD: ADHD in Women and Girls”

Ways ADHD Is Different for [Girls and] Women Compared to Men

by JR Thorpe

Girls are less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD — despite being just as prone, according to research —  because all the diagnostic criteria are based around boys. "As with all diversity issues, the danger lies in assuming that these more typical patterns characterize all children with ADHD. Therefore, while there appears to be an abundance of information available on ADHD, we may have a false sense that we know more about the experience of girls with ADHD than we really do," ADHD expert Ellen Littman PhD told the American Psychological Association.

For many women and girls with ADHD, this leads to under-diagnosis and misdiagnosis. Women with undiagnosed ADHD may be diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and have comorbid disorders — illnesses that show up at the same time as ADHD — including sensory overload, substance use disorder, borderline personality disorder, or eating disorders, according to ADDitude Magazine. Women who weren't diagnosed as children have an average diagnosis age of 36. (most interesting part of article)

A combination of factors, including diagnostic criteria that's based on observations of men, a lack of understanding of symptoms in women and the influence of female biology, mean that women and girls with ADHD often have very different experiences than boys and men with the same condition…. The division between these experiences of ADHD can be pretty stark. While 13% of adult men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with ADHD in their lifetimes, only 4.2% of women will have the same diagnosis, according to Healthline. There isn't one 'female' and one 'male' type of ADHD; there's a reason that it's identified as the same disorder in both genders. 

Full article “5 Ways ADHD Is Different For Women Compared To Men”

Women and Girls with ADHD

The disorder can present differently in girls and boys, and holds different challenges for women who live with it. In the 1990s, UC Berkeley psychologist Stephen Hinshaw and his colleagues broke new ground when they began one of the few long-term studies of girls with ADHD. Over the years, his findings have helped to change views of how often and how persistently the disorder affects girls and women, and has revealed the distinct challenges they face. In this video, we hear from Hinshaw and clinicians Kathleen Nadeau and Patricia Quinn on what we know about ADHD in girls, and listen to women living with ADHD discuss issues they face and how they cope at home, school, on the job and in relationships.

Why ADHD in Women is Routinely Dismissed

by ADDitude Magazine

ADHD is not a male disorder, but men and boys are diagnosed far more commonly than women and girls. Why? Lingering stereotypes, referral bias, internalized symptoms, gender role expectations, comorbidities, and hormonal fluctuations all complicate the ADHD presentation in women. Learn the common signs and symptoms of ADHD in women, plus roadblocks to a thorough evaluation and effective treatment.

Full article “Why ADHD in Women is Routinely Dismissed”

Women with ADHD:
No More Suffering in Silence

by ADDitude Magazine

Research shows that ADHD exacts a greater toll on women than it does on men. Clinicians need a different set of tools for diagnosing and treating the disorder across genders — and women deserve a better understanding of how the disorder affects them.

Full article “Women with ADHD”

ADHD Through A Woman's Lifecycle

by Healthy Place

Girls with ADHD are at risk for a lot of problems, yet many are undiagnosed. ADHD symptoms may appear different in girls and women, than in boys. Find out how ADHD affects girls and women and how to help.

The majority of writing and research on ADHD has traditionally focused on males, who were believed to make up 80% of all those with ADHD. Now more and more females are being identified, especially now that we are more aware of the non-hyperactive subtype of ADHD. Girls and women with ADHD struggle with a variety of issues that are different from those faced by males. This article will highlight some of those differences, and will talk about the types of struggles faced by females with ADHD.

Full article “ADHD Through A Woman's Lifecycle”

ADHD Is Different for Women 

by Maria Yagoda

The standard conception of the disorder is based on studies of "hyperactive young white boys." For females, it comes on later, and has different symptoms.  

Full article “ADHD Is Different for Women”

ADHD Looks Different in Women

by ADDitude Magazine

ADHD is still presumed to be a male disorder,” says Fred Reimherr, M.D., director of the University of Utah Mood Disorders Clinic and the lead author of a recent study that found that ADHD has a disproportionate impact on women. “The women had a much more frequent history of having been diagnosed with other emotionally based psychiatric illnesses, such as a mood disorder or anxiety.”

Teachers are often the first to identify the signs of ADHD in children. Yet because some teachers still think of ADHD as a male disorder, they tend to suspect the disorder in boys but not girls.

When you live in total squalor—cookies in your pants drawer, pants in your cookies drawer, and nickels, dresses, old New Yorkers, and apple seeds in your bed—it’s hard to know where to look when you lose your keys. The other day, after two weeks of fruitless searching, I found my keys in the refrigerator on top of the roasted garlic hummus. I can’t say I was surprised. I was surprised when my psychiatrist diagnosed me with ADHD two years ago, when I was a junior at Yale.

Full article “ADHD Looks Different in Women”

Why I Stopped Taking My Pills

by Rachel Cassandra   

At age 12, I—the perpetual space cadet who constant​​ly ​loses my jacket and backpack—am told I have Attention Deficit Disorder, ADD. I'm ​sitting with my mother and sister, lounging on pillows, and my mother pulls outa book that has an unofficial diagnostic checklist. She's a psychologist, so it's not totally out of the ordinary. Do I go off on tangents easily? Am I more prone than ​the average kid to make careless mistakes? There is something pleasurable in ​the yes​​ses. I'm winning at this game, and the questionnaire seems to know me so ​​well. But then my mother tells me there are enough answers to diagnose me withADD, and my stomach tightens. The stakes, all of a sudden, seem high, although I ​​d​​on't understand them.

Full article “Why I Stopped Taking My ADD Pills”.

Numerous Podcasts for Women

by Katy Weber

A late diagnosis turned her world upside down. Join Katy Weber each week as she interviews other women who discovered they have ADHD in adulthood and are finally feeling like they understand who they are and how to best lean into their strengths, both professionally and personally.

Podcast Women & ADHD

What Is Wrong With Me?
How Does Everyone Else Cope with Life?

by Noelle Faulkner

The session, I can say with full confidence, was a failure. I left the psychologist’s office with zero helpful tools and as much hope.

It would be another burnout, two more doctors, a blood test, a hormone test, a three-month wait to see a psychiatrist and another year-and-a-half before I had an answer. It turned out, like many women in their 30s, I had been masking severe Inattentive ADHD my entire life. And like so many others, I had no clue what that meant.

Full article “The lost girls”

Where Are All the Women with ADHD?

ADHD Is Not My Fault — But It Still Makes Me Feel Like a Failure

by Elizabeth Broadbent

“I’m so stupid, I’m so dumb,” I tell myself far too often. When I feel like an idiot because of an Inattentive ADHD screw-up, it’s important to remind myself to knock off the negative self-talk.

Full article “ADHD Is Not My Fault“

Why Are so Many Women with ADHD Only Diagnosed in Adulthood?

by Bethan Kapur (an article from Cosmopolitan Magazine in England)

“We say women are more likely to show pro-social behaviour while men are more likely to show anti-social behaviour. Women are much more worried about messing up,” says Dr. Sally Cubbin, a psychiatrist from the ADHD Clinic in Oxford. “Girls are more likely to compensate for their struggles by relentlessly working extra hours. Their teacher might get a good bit of homework but have no idea how long it took them. This means as a child they get by but often at a huge personal cost of worrying and having to put in tons of extra work

Full article “So Many Women with ADHD”

Females with ADHD
A Consensus Statement, August 2020

An expert consensus statement takes a lifespan approach providing guidance for the identification and treatment of attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder in girls and women. research study.

There is evidence to suggest that the broad discrepancy in the ratio of males to females with diagnosed ADHD is due, at least in part, to lack of recognition and/or referral bias in females. Studies suggest that females with ADHD present with differences in their profile of symptoms, comorbidity and associated functioning compared with males. This consensus aims to provide a better understanding of females with ADHD in order to improve recognition and referral. Comprehensive assessment and appropriate treatment is hoped to enhance longer-term clinical outcomes and patient wellbeing for females with ADHD.

Full research article “Females with ADHD”

Welcome to the ADHD Friendly Lifestyle Podcast 

It’s time to get rid of guilt and shame–around having ADHD, our needs, and challenges through stories, knowledge, and humor to speak up about the experience of women, moms, and being late diagnosed with ADHD.…We can build acceptance and growing our self-compassion over time, to help us take care of ourselves, ask for help when we need it, and be comfortable with who we are.

Full article “Welcome to the ADHD Friendly Lifestyle Podcast“

Study: Nearly One in Four Women with ADHD Has Attempted Suicide

by Lilly Constance

Adults with ADHD are five times more likely to attempt suicide than their neurotypical peers, according to a new Canadian study that found the greatest disparity among women. Researchers found that 23.5% of women with ADHD have attempted suicide compared to 3.3% of women without ADHD. The study did not investigate the relationship between ADHD treatment and suicidality.

Full article “Study: Nearly One in Four Women with ADHD Has Attempted Suicide”

9 Signs of Adult ADHD

ADHD is commonly considered a childhood disorder. But a number of kids with ADHD still have it when they grow up. Making matters worse, it can be harder to diagnose ADHD in adults, and many adults don’t even know they have it. Would you recognize the possible signs of ADHD in an adult?

Full article “9 Signs of Adult ADHD”