I was diagnosed with ADD a month ago, after finally finding a doctor who would take me seriously. I’ve had symptoms ever since I was a little girl. I'm 38 years old and have always been disorganized and forgetful. But doctors always told me it was either depression or hormones. Now I have medication, and I feel like a totally different person. Do you think it’s harder for women to get diagnosed? Most doctors seem to think that you can’t focus because you’re “hormonal” or just overwhelmed with parenting.

Though traditionally women have had more difficulty receiving diagnoses of ADHD, over the past five years the rates of diagnoses of ADHD in women has increased faster than for any other group.  Because the condition was originally thought to affect boys almost exclusively, most of our knowledge about it up until the last few years has focused primarily on boys. Male behavior was used to formulate the diagnostic description of ADHD.

The idea that ADHD has different symptoms in males and females has also gained widespread popularity. Some data suggests that girls and women with ADHD might be misdiagnosed because they do not show as much aggression and disruptive behavior as males with ADHD, but other differences in the disorder between genders are merely speculation.

For now, there isn’t enough evidence to say that ADHD is a gender-specific disorder or even that females with ADHD show different core symptoms. Males and females who seek medical care for ADHD are similar in the onset and nature of their symptoms, but may have different patterns of impairments or co-existing conditions. So females do not have a special type of ADHD. As researchers expand their theories and collect additional data, we will gain a better understanding of ADHD in girls and women.

Learn more in the Everyday Health ADD/ADHD Center.