Build Your Interactive AuDHD Trait Wheel

AuDHD is the shorthand for being both autistic and ADHD. This is a free guided self-discovery exercise built for that combination specifically. It asks sixteen questions - one for the support side and one for the strength side of eight traits - and draws a wheel from your answers. You can adjust any section afterwards by clicking directly on the wheel, and download a six-page printable worksheet to take into a therapy session.

Nothing you enter is sent anywhere. Your answers are saved in your own browser so you can come back and finish later.

Why AuDHD needs its own wheel

An autism wheel and an ADHD wheel each describe one profile cleanly. Neither describes what happens when both are present at once, because the two profiles do not simply add together. In several places they pull in opposite directions inside the same person.

The autistic side often wants routine, predictability and sameness. The ADHD side often needs novelty, stimulation and change, and goes flat without it. Both are real, both are yours, and neither one wins permanently. That is why an AuDHD profile can look inconsistent from the outside and feel like an argument from the inside.

This wheel deliberately holds traits from both profiles side by side - routine and focus, sensory sensitivity and impulse, masking and social effort - so the tension is visible rather than something you have to explain from scratch every time.

What a spiky profile is

Neurodivergent people often have uneven profiles. Someone can be extraordinarily capable in one area and need real support in another, and the gap can be wide enough that other people read the difficulty as effort or attitude. For AuDHD people the unevenness tends to be more pronounced still, because two sets of peaks and troughs are overlaid on each other.

The point of the wheel is to make that pattern visible in a way that is balanced rather than deficit-focused. Every one of the eight traits is scored twice: once for what makes it harder, and once for what it gives you.

How it works

• Sixteen questions, answered on a scale from 0 to 10. Two questions per trait.
• The wheel draws itself as you go, so you can watch the shape emerge.
• Red sections are support needs. Green sections are strengths. Both are measured from the centre outwards, so a longer wedge means a stronger rating either way.
• Once all sixteen are answered you can click any section of the wheel directly to change its rating.
• A printable six-page worksheet is available at the end, including the wheel itself, a full table of your ratings, and reflection questions.

The eight traits

Each trait is presented as a pair. Neither half is the whole picture, and a high score on one side does not cancel out the other.

Routine

The support side: Dislikes sudden change, and feels the cost when a routine is disrupted.

The strength side: Thrives on routine, and builds systems that hold when everything else does not.

The questions ask how hard sudden change is, and how much predictability helps you function well.

Social

The support side: Struggles to connect in social situations - to join in, or to know what is expected.

The strength side: Authentic and selective in relationships, rather than widely and shallowly connected.

The questions ask how often social situations feel hard to read, and how much your relationship style helps you build connections that are genuinely yours.

Planning

The support side: Struggles to plan or stay organised - the running cost of holding next steps, sequences and details.

The strength side: A creative, unique thinker who finds routes other people do not.

The questions ask how much extra effort planning takes, and how much your way of thinking helps you solve problems and see possibilities.

Emotions

The support side: Can feel emotionally overwhelmed, with feelings arriving intensely in the body as well as the mind.

The strength side: In touch with emotions, in yourself and in the people around you.

The questions ask how intense emotions can get, and how much that sensitivity helps you understand yourself and connect with others.

Focus

The support side: Struggles to stay focused, particularly when the task is not engaging.

The strength side: Excels at interest-based tasks, sometimes far past what is typical.

The questions ask how often attention goes where you did not send it, and how strongly interest drives your focus and follow-through.

Impulses

The support side: Acts without fully considering consequences or impact.

The strength side: Acts mindfully, weighing outcomes before moving.

The questions ask how often you act before thinking it through, and how much pausing or reflection helps you consider outcomes first.

Sensory

The support side: Can be overwhelmed by sensory input - sound, smell, texture, light, touch.

The strength side: Highly in touch with the environment, noticing detail and subtle change that others miss entirely.

The questions ask how much sensory input can overwhelm you, and how much that same awareness works in your favour.

Masking

The support side: Experiences burnout from constant masking - the exhaustion that follows long stretches of performing normal.

The strength side: Masks when needed while staying authentic to yourself, choosing when to adapt rather than doing it automatically.

The questions ask how much sustained masking costs you, and how much intentional adapting helps you navigate situations without losing yourself.

How to read your wheel

The centre of the wheel is 0 and the outer ring is 10. Each of the eight traits gets two wedges - a red one for the support side and a green one for the strength side - so the finished wheel has sixteen sections.

Three things are worth sitting with once you see the shape.

Uneven does not mean inconsistent. Being highly capable in one area and needing real support in another is not a contradiction, and it is not evidence that either rating is wrong.

Strengths and challenges often share a root. The same nervous system that supports honesty, depth of focus, sensitivity, creativity and the willingness to move without a complete plan is the one that makes change, sensory input, planning, social interpretation and masking more costly. They are not separate systems, which is why strategies aimed at removing a difficulty often take the capability with it.

Two high red scores can be in conflict with each other. This is the part specific to AuDHD. A high score on routine alongside a high score on focus is not noise - it is a description of needing structure and being unable to stay inside it. The same is true of sensory sensitivity next to a drive for stimulation. Where two red spokes contradict each other, that is usually the most useful thing on the whole wheel to bring into a session.

The printable worksheet

The download is a six-page letter-size worksheet: an instruction page, your wheel at full size, two pages listing all sixteen trait statements with your ratings and space for notes, a page of reflection questions, and a closing page on spiky profiles. It is designed to be filled in by hand and brought into a session.

Reflection questions

The worksheet asks four, and they are worth thinking about even if you never print it:

• Which part of your wheel feels most familiar, most validating, or most surprising?
• Which green strengths do you want other people to recognise, respect, or protect?
• Which red challenges create the most stress, misunderstanding, or exhaustion?
• What would change if the people close to you understood both sides of this pattern?

Important note

This wheel is a self-reflection and conversation tool. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not a substitute for professional care. It cannot tell you whether you are autistic, whether you have ADHD, or whether you are both. For diagnosis, treatment, or personalised clinical guidance, please consult a member of our team or another qualified health professional.

Next steps

If you would like to talk your wheel through and do not have a therapist, you can get started with us or meet the therapists first. Our Client Care Coordinator can match you with someone.

If you are already working with a therapist, download the worksheet and send it over before your next session. It gives you both a shared starting point that does not depend on explaining everything out loud - which matters more than usual when the profile you are describing contains a contradiction.

If you want to keep exploring on your own, our self-discovery page collects our free screeners and trait wheels, including the rejection sensitivity screener for couples. You can also read our frequently asked questions, or see how we use language on our words matter page.

About Neurodiverse Couples Counseling

We work with neurodiverse couples and individuals - people who are autistic, have ADHD, are both, or are otherwise neurodivergent, and the relationships they are in. Our approach is neurodiversity-affirming: we do not treat neurodivergence as a defect to be corrected, and we do not build support plans that quietly ask someone to mask harder.

Neurodiverse Couples Counseling is part of New Path Family of Therapy Centers, Inc.