AuDHD Screener

What this screener measures

Twenty-five questions, eight areas and a total out of 100. It measures how strongly you recognise yourself in the combined presentation, where ADHD traits and autistic traits are both present and pull against each other.

Seven of the eight areas are wanting order and making chaos, masking on two levels, hyperfocus and not being able to start, sensory load meeting impulse, bursts and collapses, intensity in relationships, time and day-to-day variability. The eighth is the pattern of one condition being spotted while the other was missed.

Most screeners ask about ADHD or about autism. This one asks about the interaction, which is a different question. Wanting routine and breaking your own routine is not a contradiction to be resolved. It is a described feature of the combined presentation, and it needs an item set that allows both answers to be true at once.

It is a NeurAtip instrument and it is in validation. The bands are first-pass clinical anchors rather than tested cut scores, so there is no published cutoff and no reference group here. Your answers are anonymous and are kept for twelve months to help validate the instrument.

Who it is designed for

People who read an ADHD description and recognise most of it, then read an autism description and recognise most of that too. Working out which of the two is theirs is the part that never resolves.

It fits people who already have one diagnosis and a remainder that the diagnosis never explained. That is common. Someone is assessed for ADHD in their twenties and medication helps with the attention. The sensory overload, the need for sameness and the collapse after a full social day carry on exactly as before. Or an autism diagnosis lands and the sensory picture finally makes sense. The impulsivity, the half-finished projects and the lost time do not.

Contradiction is the third group. Craving novelty and feeling safer with sameness in the same afternoon. A home that is either spotless or overrun and rarely in between. Long stretches of high output followed by weeks where basic tasks stop happening.

It fits people who have been asked which of the two feels more like them and could not answer, because in their experience the two have never been separate things.

Two of the questions ask directly about the diagnostic history, because a sequence of one condition first and the other much later is part of the pattern this screener is looking at.

Why screening one condition at a time misses the overlap

A single-condition instrument asks you to describe yourself as one thing. When both are present, your answers pull in opposite directions and the instrument reads that as noise rather than as signal. You endorse the item about needing routine. You endorse the item about seeking novelty. Each one looks like a mistake in the light of the other.

The traits also mask each other in a way neither instrument is written to catch. Outward sociability can cover autistic social effort. Rigid systems and elaborate lists can cover ADHD disorganisation so well that the disorganisation never shows up in an interview. What a clinician sees is a person coping, which is the least informative version of the truth.

Then there is the sequence problem. Whichever set of traits is more visible tends to be assessed first, and once one label is in place the remaining difficulty often gets attributed to it. Years pass. People describe this as feeling like a partial answer, and that experience is what the last two questions in this screener are about.

Masking on two levels adds the cost. Switching between one presentation and another, in different rooms and with different people, takes more out of you than carrying a single presentation does. The recovery time afterwards is longer too. Neither an ADHD screener nor an autism screener asks about that switching, because from inside a single-condition item set it does not exist.

We are not claiming this instrument performs better than an ADHD screener plus an autism screener. It is designed for the combined presentation, which single-condition item sets were not written to describe. It is in validation.

The eight areas, and what each one is asking about

Wanting order and making chaos is the contradiction area. Building a routine and breaking it. Two opposite impulses running at the same time, one orderly and one chaotic. An environment that reports your internal state accurately and is rarely steady.

Masking on two levels covers not being sure which parts of you are you and which are coping layers built early and never put down, masking differently in different settings and what the switching costs.

Hyperfocus and not being able to start covers both ends. Hours disappearing into something that has your attention, and days where you cannot begin the thing you most need to do. It also asks about coming out of hyperfocus, which many people find harder than going in.

Sensory load meeting impulse asks about the point where overload tips into leaving early, blurting or breaking a plan. It also asks about a sensory threshold that shifts unpredictably between seeking and avoiding.

Bursts and collapses covers cycling between productive stretches and periods where eating, replying and getting dressed stop being manageable. It also covers burnout that arrives bigger than the recent workload alone would predict.

Intensity in relationships asks about reading other people's emotions early, the cost of that, staying too long in situations that were harmful and connections that ended sharply.

Time and day-to-day variability asks about an uneven sense of time and about the day-to-day range: holding a complex system in your head one day and losing a single appointment the next.

One spotted, the other missed is the diagnostic-history area. Whether you think one of the two would have been found first and the other left for years, and whether looking at both together makes more of your history make sense.

How to read your result

Read the eight areas first. On a combined presentation the shape across areas carries far more information than the single total does, because the interaction is what you are looking at.

Each area gives you a score out of its own maximum, a percentage and a plain description on a five-step scale from little sign, through a light pattern, a clear pattern and a strong pattern, up to a very strong pattern. The total out of 100 is described the same way. Any area that reaches the middle step of the scale is named in your summary as one that stood out.

A high total is not a diagnosis of two conditions, and a low total does not mean the combined presentation is absent. It means these particular questions did not recognise it. Some people with both diagnoses answer moderately here because their traits do not conflict much in daily life, and that is a real result rather than an error.

If the contradiction areas came back high while the rest sat low, that is still worth taking seriously. It is the interaction, not the volume, that this screener is about.

The bands are first-pass clinical anchors from an instrument in validation. Read them as a description of your answers, never as a probability.

What to do next

If both sets of traits are present in your answers, the useful next step is one assessment that looks at both rather than two assessments that each look at half.

We run a combined ADHD and autism assessment for exactly this reason. It covers both diagnostic pathways in one coordinated process and produces a single report covering ADHD, autism and how they interact for you, with a management plan built around the combined profile. It costs €1,000 or £1,000 depending on where you are. The report is NICE-compliant and both the HSE and the NHS accept it.

The practical details are the same as our other assessments. Online, no GP referral needed, appointments available immediately and your report within 6 weeks of your first appointment. A team of two to three practitioners reviews your case. If you want to look at medication, our psychiatrist approves that route. Your EchoMind AI profile comes with the booking at no cost, worth €97 or £97 depending on your region.

If you would rather look at one side at a time first, the female-presentation ADHD screener covers the internalised ADHD pattern and MASC covers masking on its own. NEXA describes eleven areas of how your neurodivergence expresses itself without trying to sort it into categories at all.

Common questions

What does AuDHD mean?

AuDHD is the shorthand people use for having both ADHD and autism. It is not a separate diagnosis in DSM-5-TR or ICD-11. It describes the situation where both sets of traits are present in the same person, which is common enough that we run a combined assessment for it.

I already have an ADHD diagnosis. Is this screener still relevant?

Yes, and that is one of the situations it was written for. Two of the questions ask directly about one condition being identified while the other was missed. If your ADHD diagnosis explained part of your experience and left a remainder, this screener asks about the remainder.

Can this screener tell me which one I have?

No. It cannot separate the two and it does not try to. It describes how strongly you recognise yourself in the combined presentation, area by area. Separating the strands is assessment work, which needs a clinical interview and your history.

Why do some questions seem to contradict each other?

That is deliberate. Wanting routine and breaking routine, seeking sensory input and avoiding it, hyperfocus and being unable to start: on a combined presentation both halves are often true, and the tension between them is part of what the screener measures. Answer each question for how things usually are and let both answers stand.

Is the screener validated?

Not yet. It is a NeurAtip instrument in validation. The items and the eight areas come from clinical practice, and the bands are first-pass clinical anchors rather than tested cut scores. There is no published cutoff, so read the pattern across the areas rather than the number.

Do I need a GP referral for a combined assessment?

No. Our assessments are private and online, no GP referral is needed and appointments are available immediately. Your written report arrives within 6 weeks of your first appointment.