Can you explain your footnote? I do not agree. Someone I love is autistic, and it actually sounds exactly backward to me: the ability to command sustained attention is something she enjoys in remarkable surplus, for example.
That’s a hallmark of ADHD too. It’s called hyperfocus, often in both contexts. This isn’t just an idea I have though. Comorbidity of ADHD/Autism is very high regardless of diagnostic criteria. There are some academic efforts to study and unify them, and while they’re not mainstream they bear at least some consideration. Diagnostics for both are generally external (observations from affected parents, friends, teachers, colleagues) rather than symptomatic. People who are diagnosed with either report remarkably similar experiences, challenges, and emotional/psychological reactions.
Not OP, but on the spectrum and also diagnosed with ADHD and sometimes I'm not certain where one ends and one begins.
I have hyperfocus for my "special interests" (spectrum) and very little focus for anything that does not intrigue me (adhd) but to my eyes these are the same thing: I just don't have much deliberate control of my focus.
There's some other areas where it doesn't map so cleanly to thinks I am interested or disinterested in. Jigsaw puzzles don't interest me, it's incredibly mentally painful for me to focus on one, but I also can't walk away from one. I have the hyperfocus that I get with my special interest combined with the pain of ADHD where you wish you could control your focus (in this case, focus on literally anything else.)
Another area of overlap: I associate my extreme social anxiety with autism, but if I take ADHD meds it goes away almost entirely, and my social skills also improve. I think this is again a matter of focus: I stop focusing on social hypotheticals which reduces anxiety, and I also go with the flow rather than work consciously on social interactions, which makes them smoother and less awkward for the counterparty.
I had hourly episode of smacking forehead into the desk when listening to any kind of lecture 10 minutes into it, and blamed for being sloppy, as far back as I can remember. I was very focused, but was in a constant cycle of burst and brownout. So, just maybe, I think, "attention deficit" issue could rather be called "focus rationing" issue.
Spare me the snotty tone. I was asking a question in good faith and still am. Read what I wrote: I know what hyperfocus is and I chose the verb I chose deliberately.