Does ADHD Go Away? Answers to Whether You Can Grow Out of ADHD

What is ADHD?

ADHD is a neurological condition that involves difficulty staying focused and sitting still.² ADHD is primarily related to differences in brain functioning, making it a neurodivergent disorder. ADHD is composed of three types, inattentive ADHD, hyperactive-impulsive ADHD, and combined ADHD.

Inattentive ADHD used to be called ADD, which referred to ADHD without hyperactive symptoms. Today, the term ADD is no longer used because ADHD is considered the same neurological condition across all types, but how the neurological impact is displayed differs.

Does ADHD Go Away?

Does ADHD go away? In short, the answer to that question is “No”. ADHD is considered a lifelong condition, which means that the symptoms exist in some manner throughout a person’s life.³ These symptoms can change as a person ages, which can be mistakenly seen as evidence that a person could grow out of ADHD.

People with ADHD can improve in controlling the impact of their symptoms and learn skills that help them do better, even if they have problems associated with ADHD. This can reduce their need for ADHD medications as they age, making people think the ADHD has been cured.⁴ But saying a person got better at managing their ADHD symptoms is not the same as saying it was cured.

Growing Out of Other Disorders

If a condition like ADHD is thought to have “gone away,” this may be a strong indicator that it was not ADHD. ADHD-like symptoms can appear in several other psychiatric conditions, such as anxiety and oppositional defiant disorder.^{5, 6} Both conditions are related to a person’s psychological functioning rather than their brain functioning, which when treated may go away over time.

How Does ADHD Change with Age?

When a person has ADHD and their symptoms change over time, it is because they learn more effective skills for managing their ADHD symptoms. Medication often helps keep ADHD symptoms from interfering with a person’s functioning, and therapeutic intervention can help the person learn better skills they can use to focus and keep restlessness from interfering with their functioning.

When a person learns new things and handles things differently, there are related changes in the brain, leading to ADHD improvement over time. Research shows that neurological changes associated with psychotherapy are most evident in improvements to executive functions of the brain, including organizing and self-monitoring during tasks.⁷

Childhood ADHD

ADHD in children can be diagnosed in preschool or kindergarten, but ADHD symptoms become more noticeable in the early parts of elementary school, where there are more expectations on the child to stay focused. During elementary school, a child’s inability to stay focused will begin to impact their academic functioning directly.

When considering ADHD as a diagnosis, it is important to recognize that the symptoms of ADHD have to be evident across different settings. ADHD is not considered a diagnosis if an individual only has problems at school, home, or community.

Common symptoms of childhood ADHD include:

• Difficulty listening to others: This can be one of the more difficult symptoms to distinguish between ADHD and other conditions. Children often do not want to hear what they are told to do, especially if it does not interest them. It is important to remember that the ADHD symptom is the child being unable to pay attention and follow the rules rather than being unwilling to pay attention and follow the rules.
• Disruptive behaviors: Due to hyperactivity, children with ADHD are frequently disruptive and have difficulties sitting still. Again, it is important to distinguish if the child is being disruptive because of an inability to sit still or whether it is a problem related to the child being unwilling to sit still and wanting to cause disruptions.
• Comprehension difficulties: Understanding things, whether it is things a parent tells a child or things a teacher tries to teach a child, requires that the person focuses on what the other person is saying. ADHD interferes with this process as the child has problems focusing on what people are trying to get the child to understand.
• Memory difficulties: Similar to comprehension, children with ADHD often have problems recalling what others say. Recall issues occur because remembering something means paying attention to it in the first place.
• Disciplinary problems: Children with ADHD often get into trouble because they do not pay attention to their actions and often inadvertently break things or break the rules. It is important here to distinguish that when this is a problem directly related to ADHD, it is not that the child causes problems on purpose but does not pay attention to where their behavior leads.

Teen & Adolescent ADHD

Symptoms of ADHD in teenagers often relate to getting along with others at school, in the community, or extracurricular activities.⁸ There is also more concern expressed in later teenage years about the degree to which ADHD symptoms might impact the child being prepared for college or other training programs.

Common symptoms of teen & adolescent ADHD include:

• Impulsivity and poor decision-making: Hyperactivity and poor focus often lead teenagers with ADHD to be more impulsive. Most teenagers struggle with impulsivity, but teens with ADHD may have an even more difficult time considering how their actions will impact both their short and long term future.
• Risky behaviors: Teenagers are naturally drawn to more risky behaviors, but they can typically think through the potential consequences of these behaviors and weigh out whether they should take risks they are considering. Teenagers with ADHD often do not think through behaviors before engaging in them and, as a result, usually take risks that show they did not fully recognize beforehand problems likely associated with the behaviors.
• Social issues: Teenagers with ADHD are not necessarily better or worse at making friends. However, their difficulties with impulsive behaviors and restlessness can interfere with how peers relate to them. Engaging in unnecessarily risky behaviors, being unable to focus on what peers are trying to talk about, or being unable to sit still for more than very short amounts of time are all behaviors that might cause other teens to expect and encourage reckless behavior or clowning around from teens who have ADHD.
• Academic difficulties: Paying attention in class, getting work done on time, and quality of academic work are all factors that are more important in middle and high school than in elementary school. There are also expectations that students in those grades will get work done independently and focus on more complex academic tasks.

Adult ADHD

ADHD in adulthood can be challenging because the symptoms can cause problems at work, home, and in relationships.¹⁰ Many adults with ADHD go through their childhood without getting a formal diagnosis or receiving treatment.⁹ This can cause childhood trauma, because their disruptive behaviors were attributed to being “dumb” or “bad” kids rather than having a neurological condition.

Common symptoms of adult ADHD include:

• Low frustration tolerance: When a person has gone through childhood and teenage years, frequently getting in trouble with not paying attention and getting bad grades for not being able to follow the material, they can develop a pattern of getting frustrated very quickly. Adults who live through these experiences might have a tendency to get frustrated easily and handle frustration poorly.
• Racing thoughts: Hyperactive behaviors can also translate to racing thoughts. Adults with ADHD often develop a pattern of thinking quickly, from one thought to another and not focusing on thoughts.
• Negative moods: Whether it is anger, depression, or anxiety, growing up with difficulties associated with ADHD can often lead adults to develop negative self-talk about themselves and their lives. These negative thinking patterns often then translate into negative moods.
• Relationship difficulties: Similar to teenagers with ADHD, adults with ADHD do not necessarily have more problems developing relationships. Where ADHD symptoms often cause problems for adults in maintaining relationships, as friends and romantic partners can often become frustrated with the individual’s difficulties staying focused on things and having to be constantly active.
• Work problems: Most jobs require attention to detail and staying focused on tasks and things the boss tells a worker to do. These can all be problems for someone with ADHD, especially for an adult who grew up with ADHD symptoms but did not receive formal treatment.
• Social anxiety: Growing up with ADHD and getting negative responses to the symptoms associated with ADHD frequently leads to negative reactions from other people. This often leads to adults growing up strongly doubting their abilities to effectively connect with others and developing social anxiety.

Can You Develop ADHD As an Adult?

As a lifelong neurological condition, ADHD does not develop in adulthood. They may have a form of high functioning ADHD that has allowed them to have less severe problems, and those problems may only become frequently noticeable in adulthood. Another possibility is that the person developed good skills at compensating for ADHD symptoms, allowing them to mask their ADHD.

How is ADHD Treated?

There are a variety of treatments that have been found effective for addressing ADHD. Behavioral therapy has been found particularly effective, as have a variety of medications. Treatment for children and teenagers often looks different than treatment for adults because treatment for children and teenagers often involves other people in the individual’s life, and treatment for adults tends to be more individualized.

Starting treatment for ADHD at a younger age tends to increase the likelihood that the treatment will lessen the severity of ADHD symptoms over time. It may even result in symptoms not having a noticeable impact on the person.

Treating ADHD in Children & Teens

Because children and teenagers with ADHD do not differ much in the symptoms they experience, treatment for ADHD tends to be similar for children and teenagers.¹¹ Treatment often involves working with the individual, the family, and the institutions that play major roles in their lives. Having adults involved in the child’s treatment can help ensure they use interventions consistently and effectively.

Treatments options for ADHD in children & teens include:

• Behavioral Therapy: This therapy approach focuses on helping the individual learn new skills to keep ADHD symptoms from interfering with their functioning. Interventions could focus on learning behaviors for helping to decrease the impact of ADHD and on thinking patterns to lessen how much they impact a person. Cognitive behavioral therapy for ADHD helps individuals shift behaviors and thinking patterns that are harming them.
• Parental Training: Helping parents learn skills to increase the help they can provide in getting their child or teenager to use better skills for handling challenging situations is a useful approach for maximizing interventions focused on ADHD symptoms.
• Medication: ADHD medication can be helpful for children and teenagers with ADHD, although there are often serious concerns about side effects. Common medications for children and teenagers with ADHD include Adderall, Concerta, Focalin, Ritalin, and Strattera.
• Physical Activity: Regular and vigorous physical activity may have a small effect on the severity of ADHD symptoms for children and teenagers.¹²
• Music Therapy: Music therapy for ADHD can lessen the severity of ADHD symptoms and help increase stress management skills that can also help the person lessen the ADHD severity when facing challenges.¹³

Treating ADHD in Adults

Treating ADHD in adulthood requires a comprehensive treatment plan that often includes a combination of psychotherapy and medication. Treatment plans for adults will look different than that provided for children and teens because intensive services available in schools or community treatment services for children and teenagers are unavailable for adults.

Treatments for ADHD in adults include:

• Behavioral Therapy: This is a form of psychotherapy where an individual learns better skills for handling situations that cause them challenges. In adults, the focus can be more individualized than for children as the person is helped to use behaviors and to think patterns on their own that help reduce the impact of challenges.
• Natural remedies: Some studies show some natural remedies for ADHD might be helpful for adults. Conclusions from these studies are somewhat limited as the groups involved were typically relatively small, and there is a need for more studies with larger groups before more definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of natural remedies for ADHD can be made.¹⁴
• Medication: Common medications for ADHD in adults include Vyvanse, Daytrana, Concerta, Strattera, and Adderall.
• Lifestyle Changes: Research shows that lifestyle changes like getting enough sleep, eating healthy, and managing stress can all help reduce the severity of ADHD symptoms in adults.¹⁵
• Neurofeedback: Neurofeedback involves using specialized computer equipment that allows a person to see how their brain waves are working on a screen. What happens here is that a trained professional helps the person with ADHD learn ways of controlling their brain wave patterns, which they can see happen on the computer screen, to help lessen the severity of ADHD symptoms.¹⁶
• Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS): This is a medical procedure where a trained neurologist uses EEG equipment to help stimulate specific brain activity. TMS has been proven to help reduce the severity of ADHD symptoms.¹⁷
• Aerobic Exercise: Daily aerobic exercise can help lessen the intensity of ADHD symptoms in adults. Specifically, the research focused on the daily use of stationary cycles for at least thirty minutes per day.¹⁸

How Does Medication Treatment for ADHD Change with Age?

ADHD medication treatment for adults is mainly the same as for children, although the doses differ. One medication, Ritalin, is typically seen as effective primarily for children and is not used often with adults. There is a shift in decision-making; unlike children who are largely reliant on caregivers to make decisions about medication, if adults decide that their symptoms do not interfere much with their functioning, they can stop taking medication.

How to Find Professional Support

Finding treatment for ADHD involves finding someone with experience in treating the condition. If you are seeking a neurodiverse-affirming therapist, you want to find someone who will not just focus on your ADHD symptoms but also on how emotional or other factors may be impacting your life. You want to find a therapist who will focus on your strengths and difficulties.

If time and travel is an issue you may want to find an online therapist through an online therapist directory or an online therapy platform. Typically it is best to consider trying a therapist first to help you learn better skills for handling ADHD difficulties but then to seek out psychiatric treatment for medications if therapy doesn’t work independently. If time and travel are also a concern when considering a psychiatrist, you could consider online psychiatrist options.

In My Experience

The best first step when seeking help for ADHD is finding a therapist who has experience with ADHD. I think it is best to determine if symptoms can be reduced without relying on medications. Keep in mind that symptoms of ADHD can be problematic but can be managed and helped. If someone has an ADHD diagnosis, it is helpful to remember that ADHD does not go away. Still, a person can make sufficient progress in learning how to better deal with challenges, even with ADHD, so that the symptoms do not become very noticeable.