“It felt like the final piece in the puzzle that explains my life”: A retrospective exploration of the school experiences of women diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has long been characterised as a male condition and stereotyped as the ‘hyperactive boy’. As a result, difficulties experienced by females are often overlooked and misattributed in childhood, delaying diagnosis until adulthood. Despite growing awareness of female ADHD, research into the experiences of school and support for women diagnosed in adulthood remains limited, leaving their retrospective insights largely absent from the literature. Committed to foregrounding women’s voices, this research explored how women diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood retrospectively make sense of their experiences of school and support. In doing so, this research aimed to inform educational professionals and enable them to better recognise and support females with ADHD, irrespective of formal diagnosis. Semi-structured interviews and participant drawings were conducted with ten women and analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis. The findings revealed that during their school years, the women’s invisible internal battles, social struggles and learning difficulties were overlooked, misattributed and consistently missed due to masking, gendered expectations and stereotypical constructs of ADHD. The women were only able to reframe their school experiences in light of their adulthood diagnosis. Their experiences pointed to fragmented, inconsistent and diagnostic-dependant support shaped by systemic barriers and limited professional understanding of female ADHD, with relational support emerging as a rare but meaningful exception. The women’s insights informed the development of a practice framework, incorporating evidence-based strategies to guide educational professionals toward inclusive, needs-based support. The framework is grounded in relational practice, enhanced awareness of female ADHD presentation and a commitment to systemic change underpinned by a neurodiversity paradigm. In centring the voices of women whose ADHD was overlooked in childhood, this research offers insight into a population long unseen and seeks to support future generations of girls in receiving the early identification and support they deserve.