Your Results
Understanding your AuDHD screening results
You finished the screener and you are looking at three scores, a set of subscales, and a few words you did not pick. This guide walks you through how to read all of it, in plain terms, and what it does and does not tell you about your brain.
Last updated
Answer-first summary
Quick answer
Read the three axes first (ADHD, autism, and their interaction), then the subscales. Your results are a pattern map for self-understanding and clinical conversation, not a diagnosis on their own.
Have not taken the screener yet? It is free, 20 questions, and you get your three scores at the end with no account required.
Take the free screenerWhat your results are, and what they are not
Your results are a structured picture of how strongly your answers line up with three trait patterns: ADHD, autism, and the way the two interact. That is genuinely useful information. It can put words to things you have felt for years, and it can give you a starting point for a conversation with a clinician who has the training to take it further.
What your results are not is a diagnosis. A screener cannot examine you, take a developmental history, or rule out the other things that can look like ADHD or autism. It reads what you told it and reflects a pattern back. A clear result is a reason to look closer, not a verdict. A quiet result does not slam any doors, especially if you spent years learning to hide the traits being measured.
So treat the numbers as a map, not a label. The map shows you where the terrain is steep and where it is flat. It does not tell you that you are one fixed thing. The rest of this guide is about reading that map well.
The three axes explained
Every result opens with three separate scores. They are calculated independently, so a high score on one tells you nothing automatic about the others. This is the part that sets the screener apart from tools that collapse everything into one “neurodivergent” number. The interesting story is usually in how the three relate to each other.
ADHD axis
How much your answers reflect the ADHD pattern: attention that wanders, internal or visible restlessness, big feelings that arrive fast, and the everyday struggle to start, plan, and finish.
Autism axis
How much your answers reflect an autism spectrum profile: differences in social communication, a pull toward routine and deep interests, and sensory experiences that run louder or quieter than other people seem to feel.
AuDHD interaction axis
How much your answers reflect the patterns that only show up when ADHD and autism are both present and pulling on each other. This axis measures the interaction itself, not either trait on its own.
That third axis is the reason a co-occurring profile is so easy to miss with single-condition tests. A tool built only for ADHD has no way to register the autism side, and the reverse is true too. The interaction axis exists precisely to catch the thing that falls through the gap between them.
How to read your score levels
Each axis lands in one of three plain levels: lower, moderate, or elevated. You will also see a color on the dial, and the color simply mirrors the level. There are no red warning flags here, only information about how strongly a pattern showed up in your answers.
Lower (sage)
The pattern showed up faintly in your answers. On its own that points away from a strong signal for this axis. Read it alongside the other two, though. A lower individual score next to an elevated interaction score can be a sign of mutual masking, which the next sections cover.
Moderate (amber)
The pattern is meaningfully present without dominating. Moderate scores are easy to wave off, and that is a mistake. Moderate readings across more than one axis often carry more weight together than a single tall bar does alone.
Elevated (terracotta)
The pattern showed up strongly. An elevated axis is the clearest signal the screener can give you that a formal assessment is worth pursuing. It is still not a diagnosis, but it is the kind of result that earns a real conversation with a clinician.
The exact thresholds behind these levels, the scoring formula, and how the screener handles questions you skipped all live on one page. If you want the mechanics, read how the scores are calculated. This guide stays on the reading side.
What the subscales add
Under each axis sits a set of subscales. If the axis score answers “how strong is this pattern overall,” the subscales answer “where inside the pattern is it concentrated.” Two people can land on the same ADHD axis score for completely different reasons, and the subscales are where that difference becomes visible.
Say your ADHD axis comes back elevated. The subscales might show that the weight is almost all in executive function and emotional intensity, while your attention sits closer to moderate. That is a far more useful picture than the single number, because it tells you which part of daily life the pattern actually lands on. The same logic runs across the autism subscales, where sensory load and the cost of masking can sit very differently from social communication.
The subscale breakdown comes with the full report rather than the free result. The free result still gives you the three real axis scores, so you are never looking at a teaser. The subscales add resolution to a picture you can already see.
Why a strong AuDHD signal can sit beside moderate individual scores
Here is the result that confuses people most, and it is one of the most important things the screener can show you. Your AuDHD interaction axis can come back elevated while your ADHD and autism axes both sit at moderate. That is not a glitch and it is not a contradiction. When the interaction is the tallest bar, the interaction is the story.
Picture it plainly. Your ADHD axis is moderate. Your autism axis is moderate. On a single-condition test, each of those alone might read as “some traits, not a clear case.” But your interaction axis is elevated. What that combination tends to mean is that the two trait sets are quietly covering for each other. Autistic routine and deep focus prop up the parts of attention that ADHD undercuts. ADHD spontaneity and sociability soften the social edges of autism. Each pattern pulls the other toward the middle, so neither one looks dramatic by itself, yet the cost of running both at once is high.
This is mutual masking, and it is exactly the pattern that older screening approaches were built to miss. A tool with only one axis has nothing to compare against, so it reads two moderate halves and shrugs. The interaction axis is the third reference point that makes the hidden thing show up. We go deeper on the mechanics of it in our piece on mutual masking.
The one thing to remember
Do not read your ADHD or autism score in isolation. The relationship between all three is the actual result. An elevated interaction axis is meaningful no matter where the other two land.
What to do next
Where you go from here depends on what your result showed and what you actually want out of the process. There is no single correct next move, so here are the common ones.
If a score is elevated and you want a formal diagnosis
Ask for a referral to a psychologist, psychiatrist, or specialist service with experience in adult ADHD and autism. Bring your full report. Frame it as structured screening data, not a self-diagnosis. Many autistic adults reach midlife without ever being identified, which is one reason a clinician-facing summary helps the conversation start on solid ground.[1] A clear, organized result tends to save appointment time and gives the clinician a concrete place to begin.
If a score is elevated but you are not chasing a diagnosis
Your result is still worth keeping. It gives you language for experiences that may have felt formless before, and a framework for the choices you make about work, rest, and relationships. Plenty of people use a result to redesign their days rather than to pursue a label, and that is a fully valid path.
If your scores came back lower than expected
A quiet result in someone who has spent years masking can reflect how good the masking got, not the absence of the traits. If the screener does not match your lived experience, it is worth revisiting your answers with the honesty that masking trains you out of. Our guide to preparing for the assessment walks through answering from how things actually feel rather than how you have learned to perform them.
If you are not sure where you land
That is a fine place to be. It can help to step back to the basics of what AuDHD actually is and sit with how much of it sounds like you. None of this replaces a real assessment, but it gives you the words to bring into the room.
Common questions
Is a high AuDHD score with moderate ADHD and autism scores a mistake?
No. It is often the most telling result on the page. When the interaction axis runs ahead of the two individual axes, it usually means your ADHD and autism traits are masking each other, so neither looks extreme alone. The combined cost is real even when the separate numbers look unremarkable.
My scores came back lower than I expected. Does that mean I am not AuDHD?
Not on its own. A screener reads what you report, and years of masking can teach you to under-report the very things it asks about. If the result clashes with your experience, revisit your answers honestly, and consider that a clinician-administered assessment can pick up what self-report misses.
Is a screening result a diagnosis?
No. A screener flags patterns worth examining. A diagnosis comes from a qualified clinician who can take a history, examine you in person, and rule out look-alikes. Your result is the thing you bring to that clinician, not a replacement for them.
References
This article is for informational purposes only. It is not medical or psychological advice and is not a substitute for professional evaluation. See our full disclaimer →