Why is ADHD underdiagnosed in girls and women?

Dear Anonymous,

For a long time, the rhetoric about ADHD was centered around hyper little boys.I think that's slowly starting to change. But there’s a huge generation of women who got skipped, in part because their ADHD was more consistent with the inattentive constellation of symptoms rather than the hyperactive, which typically is seen in boys. And so, because they weren't disrupting the class, they would go undiagnosed. 

Some of the signs of inattentive ADHD include having difficulty…

• Paying attention 

• Organizing 

• Keeping track of belongings 

• Starting or completing tasks

• Remembering daily routine things (like walking out of the house and wondering, ‘Did I brush my teeth?’) 

Those are all pretty strong diagnostic factors of ADHD inattentive type. But identifying symptoms in adulthood can be tricky because you learn ways to hide them.For example: as someone with ADHD myself, in board meetings, I will sit on my hands or cross my legs so that I’m not bouncing around.