Autism and ADHD symptoms in patients with OCD: are they associated with specific OC symptom dimensions or OC symptom severity?

Researchers asked the adults with OCD to fill out three short checklists. One measured autism traits, one measured ADHD traits, and one broke down their OCD symptoms into five types.

The team then used stats to see which traits predicted which OCD types.

Adults with OCD scored high on both autism and ADHD checklists.

The biggest link was attention-switching problems. When people struggled to shift focus, they showed more severe OCD in four of the five types. The only exception was hoarding.

Van Hees et al. (2018) extends this finding to kids. They found one in three children with ASD plus anxiety or OCD shows shows hoarding. This matches the adult pattern where hoarding stands apart from other OCD types.

Reus et al. (2013) is a predecessor. Three years earlier they showed that kids with both ASD and ADHD score higher on parent-report ASD scales. This foreshadows the adult finding finding that attention problems inflate symptom counts.

Green et al. (2015) conceptually replicates the overlap. In a community sample of 5- to young learners, children with ADHD showed medium-level autism traits. The same cross-talk between ADHD and ASD appears across age groups.

McGonigle et al. (2014) extends the idea further down in age. They found that high ADHD symptoms amplify internalizing problems in preschoolers with ASD. The theme is consistent: when ADHD and ASD traits travel together, overall symptom load rises.

If you assess an adult with OCD OCD, screen for autism and ADHD traits. Pay special attention to attention-switching deficits. These may drive most OCD symptoms except hoarding. Adjust treatment plans to target executive skills when these traits are present.