The instrument, explained
How scoring works
Spectrum HD is a non-diagnostic pattern map.
It does not tell you what condition you have. It shows how your answers cluster across attention, activation, sensory load, social effort, routine, recovery, and compensation.
This is not a test you pass or fail. It is a mirror with better lighting.
Methods · 01
What Spectrum HD measures
Spectrum HD measures 11 dimensions. Each one describes a part of how your system tends to operate.
- Attention variability
- How steady, slippery, or all-or-nothing your attention feels.
- Task initiation
- How easily you can make contact with a task before momentum exists.
- Task transition
- How much it costs to switch, stop, restart, or move between modes.
- Novelty and stimulation
- How much your system needs interest, variety, urgency, or input to wake up.
- Routine and predictability
- How much structure, sameness, and known conditions help you stay oriented.
- Sensory processing
- How strongly sound, light, texture, clutter, movement, or physical sensation affect your capacity.
- Social processing
- How much effort it takes to read people, track expectations, manage ambiguity, or stay present socially.
- Masking and compensation
- How much energy goes into appearing fine, translating yourself, suppressing reactions, or performing expected normalcy.
- Emotional intensity
- How quickly and strongly emotion appears in your answers.
- Overwhelm and recovery
- How quickly capacity becomes unavailable, and how much recovery you report afterward.
- Deep focus
- How strongly your attention locks onto certain interests, problems, ideas, or patterns.
Methods · 02
What it does not measure
Spectrum HD does not diagnose ADHD, autism, anxiety, depression, trauma, OCD, bipolar disorder, or any medical condition.
It does not measure clinical impairment. It can show friction, load, and pattern resemblance, but it cannot determine whether that friction meets clinical thresholds.
It does not verify childhood history with corroboration. Formal evaluations often look at long-term history, school patterns, family reports, and cross-setting evidence. Spectrum HD only knows what you answer here.
It does not answer medication questions. It cannot tell you whether medication is appropriate, which medication would help, or whether a current medication is affecting your result.
It does not rule out medical causes. Sleep, hormones, thyroid issues, substances, medication changes, pain, grief, stress, and environment can all change attention, mood, energy, and recovery.
The result is useful. It is not a verdict.
Methods · 03
How your results are generated
Your answers first map to the 11 dimensions.
Each answer adds weight to one or more dimensions. Some items are direct. Some items help separate nearby patterns. For example, difficulty starting a task is not the same as difficulty switching tasks. Sensory overload is not the same as social exhaustion. The scoring tries to keep those differences visible.
The dimensions then map to broader pattern scores.
Spectrum HD includes ADHD-like and autism-like scores because those are the patterns many people are trying to understand. These numbers are Spectrum HD’s own scoring model, from 0 to 100. They are not clinical probabilities. An ADHD-like score of 82 does not mean you are 82 percent ADHD. It means your answers strongly resemble the trait cluster Spectrum HD maps as ADHD-like: attention variability, activation friction, novelty dependence, urgency response, emotional intensity, and related patterns.
The same is true for autism-like scoring. A high autism-like score means your answers resemble the trait cluster Spectrum HD maps as autism-like: sensory load, routine need, transition friction, social-processing effort, deep focus, masking, and related patterns.
These scores are anchors. They help translate the result into language people already understand. They are not diagnoses.
The pattern scores then enter explicit profile rules.
A profile is shorthand for a scoring rule, not a discovered identity. It gives the answer distribution a memorable name when the rule matches. If the answers do not fit cleanly, Spectrum HD is allowed to say that.
Mixed, split, unresolved, and quiet results are allowed on purpose. Forcing a neat label would make the result feel cleaner and less honest.
Timeline and load answers compare long-standing reports with recent strain.
Some patterns look long-standing. They show up across settings, across years, and across different parts of life. Other patterns look louder lately. They may reflect stress, burnout, sleep debt, grief, anxiety, depression, trauma activation, or a bad-fit environment.
Spectrum HD can compare those two groups of answers. It cannot determine whether a pattern comes from wiring, stress, health, environment, or another cause. The result says what appeared across time and what appeared recently.
Methods · 04
Why we use ADHD and autism language
People do not arrive with blank vocabulary.
They arrive wondering if their patterns are ADHD-like, autism-like, AuDHD-like, burnout-related, masking-related, or something else. Avoiding those words would make the product less honest, not more careful.
Spectrum HD uses ADHD and autism language as anchors for patterns. Not as claims about conditions.
That means the result may say your answers show a high ADHD-like pattern or a moderate autism-like pattern. It will not say you have ADHD or autism. It will not tell you a label has been confirmed.
The useful question is not “which label wins.”
The useful question is: what pattern did you report, what does it cost, where does it collide, and which conditions are worth testing.
Methods · 05
The animals
The animals are field-guide mnemonics.
They are not scientific categories. They are not personality types in disguise. They are memorable symbols for operating patterns.
A dashboard can show the scores. A field-guide animal helps you remember the shape.
That matters because a result is only useful if you can carry it into normal life. Into the meeting. Into the grocery store. Into the text you have avoided. Into the moment where you realize the task is not hard, but the transition is.
The animal gives the pattern a handle.
The scoring gives it structure.