Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS)

A free self-assessment for ADHD traits in adults. It is quick, your answers are private, and your score report is sent to you by email.

What the ASRS is

The Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale was developed by the World Health Organization with a research team led by Ronald Kessler at Harvard, and released in 2005. It is the most widely used ADHD screening questionnaire for adults in the world, used in primary care, research and workplace health services internationally.

It asks how often each of a set of everyday difficulties has happened over the past six months, on a scale from never to very often. It is a screener - it is designed to identify who should be assessed properly, not to establish anything on its own.

How it is structured

Part A - the six-item screener

The first six questions carry most of the predictive weight. In the original validation work these six turned out to identify adult ADHD more accurately than the full eighteen, which is why Part A is often used on its own as the short ASRS screener.

The published rule is that four or more responses in the significant range across those six items indicates symptoms highly consistent with adult ADHD, and warrants further investigation. Not more than four - four.

Part B - the remaining twelve items

The other twelve items do not have a threshold attached. They add detail about which difficulties are present and how often, which is more useful in a clinical conversation than the screening result is. They are worth answering even though they do not change the pass mark.

What ADHD actually looks like in adults

The stereotype is a boy who cannot sit still. Adult ADHD is frequently nothing like that, which is a large part of why so many people reach middle age undiagnosed. The items divide across two symptom domains.

Inattention

Difficulty finishing the last ten per cent of a task. Losing the thread in conversation. Misplacing things constantly. Putting off anything that requires a sequence of steps. Making careless errors in work you are perfectly capable of doing well. Difficulty organising a task that has several parts.

This is the presentation most often missed, and it is missed disproportionately in women and girls, who are more likely to present this way and less likely to be referred.

Hyperactivity and impulsivity

In adults this usually turns inward. Rather than visible motion it becomes restlessness, fidgeting, an inability to settle even when tired, talking over people, finishing their sentences, difficulty waiting, and acting on a decision before the reasoning has finished. The feeling most often described is being driven by a motor that cannot be switched off.

Why an ADHD screener sits on an autism assessment site

Because the two co-occur constantly. A large share of autistic adults also meet criteria for ADHD, and a large share of ADHD adults have significant autistic traits. Being both is common enough to have its own shorthand - AuDHD.

Assessing one without considering the other is how people end up with half an explanation, and it is why we offer dual assessment for autism and ADHD together rather than treating them as separate queues.

What can look like ADHD on this screener but is not

This matters particularly for the people who find this page, and it is the reason to be careful with a positive result here.

• Autistic burnout. Executive function collapse, difficulty starting tasks, losing the thread, and exhaustion all read as inattention on this questionnaire. If you are currently depleted, the burnout screener is worth taking first - a positive ASRS taken during burnout may be measuring the burnout.
• Monotropic attention. Difficulty switching tasks and losing track of everything outside the current channel can produce ASRS-positive answers by a different mechanism entirely. The monotropism questionnaire looks at that directly.
• Anxiety, depression, poor sleep, and thyroid or hormonal change, all of which impair concentration and are commonly missed in the other direction.
• Sustained masking. The cognitive load of running social performance in the background leaves less available for everything else.

None of this means a high score is wrong. It means the score identifies a question rather than an answer, which is exactly what a screener is meant to do.

A note on the version

The ASRS v1.1 was written against the DSM-IV criteria, which were current in 2005. DSM-5 has since lowered the number of symptoms required for an adult diagnosis and raised the age by which traits must have been present from seven to twelve, which widened who qualifies.

The questionnaire is still valid and still widely used, but it is worth knowing that it was built against a slightly stricter standard than the one a clinician assessing you today would apply.

What this screener is not

This assessment is for information and self-reflection only. It is not a diagnostic tool and does not replace professional medical or psychological evaluation. It cannot diagnose ADHD, and it is not a route to medication.

A proper ADHD assessment looks at developmental history, at whether difficulties appear in more than one setting, at the functional cost, and at the alternative explanations above. That is not something a questionnaire can do.

What happens after you finish

You receive your score and a report by email. Nothing is shared with anyone unless you ask us to send it somewhere. If you would like to talk the result through, or want to know what a formal assessment involves, you can tell us at the end and we will follow up.

If you want a formal assessment

We provide adult ADHD assessment, autism assessment, and dual assessment for both - which is usually the right choice if either question is genuinely open. There are also add-on evaluations for alexithymia and demand avoidance.

If what you need is documentation rather than a diagnosis - for work, or for study - our page on neuroaffirming accommodations explains that process. You can also meet the clinicians, read our frequently asked questions, or browse the rest of our free tools on the self-discovery page.

About Adult Autism Assessment

We assess and support neurodivergent adults - people seeking a first diagnosis in adulthood, people who have known for years and want documentation, and people who are still working out what fits. Our approach is neurodiversity-affirming: an assessment here is about accurate self-understanding and practical accommodation, not about finding out what is wrong with you.

Adult Autism Assessment is part of New Path Family of Therapy Centers, Inc.