Glossary of adult ADHD and screening terms

A clinical interview is a conversation in which a trained clinician asks about your symptoms, history, daily life and health to understand what is going on. For adult ADHD, it usually covers childhood, school, work, relationships and other possible explanations. It is central to evaluation in a way no questionnaire can be, because it lets the clinician follow up, clarify and weigh context.

Co-occurring conditions, also called coexisting conditions or comorbidities, are two or more health conditions present in the same person at the same time. Health agencies say ADHD often co-occurs with conditions such as anxiety, depression, sleep problems and learning disorders. Because some of these can also look like ADHD, evaluations try to identify what explains what.

The DSM-5 is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, published by the American Psychiatric Association. Its current version, DSM-5-TR, is the standard classification used by mental health professionals in the United States, and ADHD is one of the conditions it covers. Reading it is not the same as being evaluated by a trained clinician.

Emotional regulation means managing the strength, timing and expression of your feelings, such as calming down after frustration or pausing before reacting. NIMH notes that adults with ADHD may be irritable, have a low tolerance for frustration and stress, or experience frequent or intense mood changes. Those experiences have many causes and are not evidence of ADHD on their own.

Executive function is an umbrella term for the mental skills that let you plan, hold information in mind, resist distractions and switch approaches when needed. CHADD describes it as the brain's ability to prioritize and manage thoughts and actions. Difficulties with it are discussed often in ADHD, but they also come with stress, poor sleep and many other conditions.

Functional impairment is the degree to which difficulties interfere with everyday roles such as work, study, household tasks and relationships. It matters in ADHD evaluations because clinicians ask how difficulties affect your life, not only whether they happen. A screener cannot measure impairment; a clinician asks about it directly as part of a fuller assessment.

Hyperactivity means having more energy, movement or talk than a situation calls for, or feeling restless. In daily life everyone has restless spells: after a long flight, too much coffee or a day at a desk. NIMH uses hyperactivity as one of three broad areas in describing ADHD. Restlessness has many ordinary causes, so the word on its own does not point to ADHD.

Impulsivity means acting on the spur of the moment, before you have weighed things up. Everyone does it: an unplanned purchase, a reply sent too fast. NIMH uses impulsivity as one of three broad areas in its description of ADHD and defines it as acting without thinking or having difficulty with self-control. The word on its own proves nothing about any person.

Inattention means not paying attention to something that needs it, because your mind has drifted or something else pulled it away. Everyone does this: rereading a page, missing a turn, forgetting why you walked into a room. NIMH uses inattention as one of three broad areas in describing ADHD. Inattentive moments are universal and, on their own, say nothing about ADHD.

An informant report is information about you provided by someone who knows you well, such as a partner, parent, sibling or close friend. In adult ADHD evaluations, clinicians may ask permission to talk with such people or to have them fill in a questionnaire. It adds an outside view and childhood memories that self-report cannot supply, though it has its own blind spots.

A rating scale is a standardized questionnaire where answers are given on a fixed range, such as Never to Very Often, so they can be counted and compared. Clinicians often use ADHD rating scales or symptom checklists during evaluations. Guidance from NICE says a diagnosis should not be made on rating scale data alone; scales are helpful added tools.

A screening threshold, or cutoff, is the point at which a screener's result switches from negative to positive. The ASRS v1.1 Screener's own published rule is four or more answers in the shaded boxes. Crossing it suggests a fuller evaluation may help; falling short does not rule anything out. Where any line is drawn involves a choice about who gets flagged.

Selective attention is the ability to focus on what you choose while tuning out competing sights, sounds and thoughts, like following one voice in a noisy room. Researchers group it with inhibitory control, one of the core executive functions. Being easily distracted is listed among adult ADHD signs, but distraction is universal and has many causes.

A self-report questionnaire is a set of questions you answer about your own experiences, rather than having a clinician or another person rate you. The ASRS v1.1 Screener is one, designed for adults to complete themselves. Self-report captures what only you know, but it depends on memory and self-perception, which is why evaluations add history and other viewpoints.

Sensitivity describes how well a screening test identifies people who truly have a condition. Specificity describes how well it identifies people who truly do not. Both are measured in studies against a reference standard, and there is often a trade-off between them. Neither tells you what your own individual result means, and ADHDFalcon quotes no figures for any test.

Sustained attention means keeping your focus on one activity over a stretch of time, such as reading a long report or listening through a whole meeting. Everyone's focus fades eventually, especially on dull tasks. Difficulty keeping on task is one of the inattentive features health agencies describe in ADHD, but on its own it does not show that anyone has the condition.

Task switching is moving your attention from one activity, rule or goal to another, such as stopping a report to answer a call and then returning. Researchers treat it as part of cognitive flexibility, a core executive function. Trouble with multitasking appears in NIMH's list of adult ADHD signs, but frequent switching tires almost everyone and is not a sign of ADHD on its own.

Working memory is the ability to hold information in mind for a short time while you use it, such as keeping a phone number in your head while you dial or rearranging a to-do list mentally. It is one of the core executive functions. Trouble with it is common in discussions of ADHD, but it has many possible causes and does not indicate ADHD by itself.