Poverty and the Growth of Emotional and Conduct Problems in Children with Autism With and Without Comorbid ADHD.

Flouri et al. (2015) tracked 209 UK children with autism from age 3 to 7. They split the kids into two groups: ASD only and ASD plus ADHD. Each year they asked parents about emotional and conduct problems. They also recorded family income and neighborhood hardship.

The team wanted to know if poverty makes behavior problems grow faster in the ASD+ADHD group.

Kids with both ASD and ADHD kept high conduct problems every year. When families were poor, emotional problems rose steeply in this same group. Children with ASD alone showed flatter, lower curves.

In short, poverty plus ADHD doubled the speed of new emotional symptoms.

McGonigle et al. (2014) first showed that high ADHD symptoms boost internalizing scores in preschoolers with ASD. Eirini adds poverty as a second booster, building a staircase of risk.

Berenguer et al. (2018) looked at the same ASD+ADHD group but tested older kids on executive function and theory-of-mind. They found a "double-hit" skill deficit. Eirini links those same two diagnoses to rising emotional problems, hinting that weak self-control may feed both skill and mood troubles.

Gray et al. (2012) tracked behavior problems for 18 years and saw slow, mild improvement across all ASD cases. Eirini narrows the lens and finds worsening within a small, poor, ADHD-plus slice, showing the earlier study’s average hid a troubled subgroup.

If you serve young children with ASD, always screen for ADHD and ask about money stress. When both are present, plan extra emotional-regulation teaching, parent coping skills, and community resource referrals right away. Early, layered support may flatten that steep curve before school entry.