Mutual Masking: How ADHD and Autism Traits Conceal Each Other

This 2025 research paper investigates how ADHD and autistic traits interact to conceal each other — a phenomenon called mutual masking. The study found that affective lability (rapid mood shifts) was the strongest discriminating factor for AuDHD.

Mutual masking is one of the primary reasons people with co-occurring ADHD and Autism are missed by standard screening tools. Autistic focus and routine-building can compensate for ADHD inattention. ADHD-driven sociability can mask autistic social differences. The result: people who appear "borderline" on single-axis tools when they actually have both conditions.

This research directly informed the design of iamaudhd's 3-axis scoring model and mutual masking detection.