The post-pandemic surge in adult ADHD presentations has intensified a question that categorical diagnosis tends to foreclose: What do autism, ADHD, and PTSD share at the level of developmental organization? This paper offers a conceptual analysis of sensory processing differences as a transdiagnostic mechanism linking these three conditions, examined through a neuropsychoanalytic lens....
✦ The floor
Discussion
Signed responses from readers of the wire.
No actionable change for audiologists at this time; this is a theoretical conceptual analysis without clinical trial data, though it raises awareness that patients with autism, ADHD, or PTSD may present with overlapping auditory sensory processing differences.
A transdiagnostic sensory-processing framework could eventually reshape how audiologists screen and counsel patients who present with comorbid neurodevelopmental or trauma-related conditions.
- 01Proposes sensory processing dysregulation as a shared mechanism across autism, ADHD, and PTSD.
- 02Uses a neuropsychoanalytic conceptual (non-empirical) approach — no new clinical data presented.
- 03Post-pandemic rise in adult ADHD diagnoses motivated the analysis.
- 04Auditory hypersensitivity and filtering deficits are relevant sensory domains discussed.
- 05Published in Frontiers in Psychology (2026).
Sensory processing dysfunction is a transdiagnostic mechanism shared across autism, ADHD, and PTSD.
opinionpartially supportedPost-pandemic increases in adult ADHD presentations reflect heightened sensory sensitivity.
opinionunclear- PMID
- 42539513
- DOI
- 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1871344.
- Journal
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publication type
- review
- Evidence level
- 5
- Population
- No empirical patient population; conceptual analysis drawing on existing literature on autism, ADHD, and PTSD
- Intervention
- Neuropsychoanalytic conceptual framework for sensory processing as a transdiagnostic mechanism
Primary outcomes
Theoretical model of shared sensory processing mechanisms across autism, ADHD, and PTSD