this is my understanding of the autism and adhd spectrum so far, with neurotypical on one hand and neuronontypical on the other hand:
autism spectrum has 2 aspects, the social interaction part and the repetitive/narrow focus part.
part 1 is a spectrum going from Being able to intuitively navigate social situations with great ease to Seeing human as just another object in the room.
part 2 goes from Being able to easily switch between different contexts of actions and thoughts to Being unable to change context without external influence.
i haven’t read enough on adhd so for now i will think of it as having 2 parts based on what i remember of the main types of symptoms, the inattention part and the impulsiveness part.
the inattention part has quite some overlap with the context switching in the autism spectrum that i can’t help feeling it might be one single large spectrum at play here, going from constantly switching context (out of control) to absolutely cannot switch at all (out of control). the neurotypical range (some control) would fall in the middle of this spectrum.
part 1 of the adhd spectrum goes from Being able to easily direct and maintain attention on an activity or topic to Having no conscious control over attention and mental focus.
part 2 goes from Being able to consciously control actions and thoughts with ease to Doing whatever the unconscious brain picks up and suggests.
the impulsiveness part becomes a bit clearer when considering how system 2 in TFAS works. in fact most of adhd seems to relate to system 2’s ability to regulate and control system 1, while most of autism is on system 1. it fits in nicely… but maybe a bit too nicely.