For me, eating in a canteen is like eating in a nightclub for a neurotypical person,” says Jill Corbyn, who is autistic and the director of support organisation Neurodiverse Connection. “It’s unpleasantly loud, it’s going to distract you from your food, it’s anxiety-inducing.” Additionally, some autistic people may find social situations exhausting or overwhelming, or feel incompetent when they’re unable to decipher the subtleties of interpersonal communication, 60% of which is non-verbal. Charli Clement, 23, explains that while a non-autistic person may rehearse parts of a conversation before a date or a job interview, her autism leads her to “script significantly” before even ordering a drink at a bar.

Hace poco más de una década, el TDAH y el autismo se consideraban mutuamente excluyentes. Desde 2013, sin embargo, se está extendiendo la idea de que ambos diagnósticos coexisten con mucha más frecuencia de la que se cree. Más o menos la mitad de las personas diagnosticadas en el espectro autista muestran síntomas de TDAH, y las características del autismo están presentes en dos tercios de las personas con TDAH (Davis y Kollins, 2012).

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