ADHD, Autism, or Something Else?
When Adult Psychological Assessment Can Clarify Overlapping SymptomsADHD and autism assessment can be useful when attention, executive functioning, sensory experiences, social differences, emotional patterns, learning difficulties, and everyday functioning overlap in ways that make a single explanation hard to find. A comprehensive psychological assessment can bring developmental history, testing, and real-world experience together to help clarify the broader pattern.
- New Mexico
- Tele-assessment
- Adults & older adolescents
- Self-pay & authorized DVR
Similar experiences can have different explanations
Adults often arrive for assessment after years of trying to make sense of experiences that do not fit neatly into one category. Difficulty concentrating may raise the question of ADHD. Social exhaustion, sensory differences, or a lifelong sense of being out of step may raise the question of autism. Anxiety, learning differences, mood, sleep, life circumstances, or several factors together can add another layer.
ADHD and autism can also occur together. Current assessment guidance emphasizes looking across development, functioning, coexisting conditions, and alternative explanations because the same outward difficulty can arise from different underlying patterns.
You do not need to determine the diagnosis before you seek an evaluation. A useful place to begin is the question you are trying to answer: What has been happening, how long has it been happening, where does it interfere with life, and what explanation best fits the whole picture?
This is the role of diagnostic clarification. The goal is not to force every experience into a label. It is to examine the available evidence carefully enough to understand which explanation, combination of explanations, or alternative framework is most consistent with your history and current functioning.
When a single-condition evaluation may be too narrow
Sometimes the referral question is straightforward. At other times, beginning with the assumption that everything must be ADHD, autism, anxiety, or another single diagnosis can leave important parts of the story unexplored.
A broader assessment may be worth considering when several domains of life appear connected, when a previous explanation has never completely fit, or when you are trying to understand both diagnosis and everyday functioning.
You have an ADHD diagnosis, and questions remain
Attention may be part of the picture while sensory, social, learning, developmental, or other lifelong patterns remain unexplained. An integrated evaluation can examine whether one explanation is sufficient.
You wonder about both ADHD and autism
The two conditions can co-occur, and some experiences can appear similar on the surface. Developmental history and broader assessment help place those experiences in context.
Anxiety or mood has explained only part of your experience
Emotional symptoms can affect attention, energy, organization, and social functioning. A broader evaluation considers timing, developmental course, functional patterns, and other possible contributors.
Work and education
Attention, learning, organization, processing, or adaptation are affecting work or school, and you need a clearer understanding of both diagnosis and functional implications. If documentation for college, workplace, or testing accommodations is also part of the question, learn more about psychological evaluation for college, work, and testing accommodations in New Mexico .
What ADHD and autism assessment can clarify
Differential assessment means considering more than one plausible explanation and asking which account best fits the evidence. It also means recognizing that more than one condition or functional pattern may be present at the same time.
Depending on the questions bringing you to assessment, I may consider attention and executive functioning, developmental history, learning and achievement, cognitive patterns, emotional functioning, identity, occupational experience, and the ways these areas interact in everyday life.
- When did the difficulties first become apparent?
- Have they been present across different periods and settings?
- How have school, work, relationships, and daily demands been affected?
- What strengths or compensatory strategies may have made difficulties less visible?
- Do attention, social, sensory, learning, emotional, or cognitive patterns occur together?
- Does another explanation account for the experiences more coherently?
Standardized measures are useful pieces of this process, although no single questionnaire or test provides the entire answer. Interpretation comes from integrating test findings with history, observation, functional information, and the specific questions the evaluation is intended to address.
A positive screening result is a starting point
Online screeners and symptom questionnaires can help people recognize patterns worth exploring. They can also produce similar elevations across different conditions, especially when experiences such as attention problems, social difficulty, overwhelm, anxiety, or executive-function challenges overlap.
Comprehensive assessment asks the next set of questions. It looks at whether symptoms have the developmental course, context, severity, and functional impact expected for a particular diagnosis, while also considering other explanations and coexisting concerns.
The purpose is clarification, not confirmation. An assessment should be open to the possibility that the answer is ADHD, autism, both, another explanation, or a more complex combination than the question that first brought you in.
How an integrated evaluation proceeds
The assessment begins with your questions rather than a predetermined battery. The scope is developed around what you are trying to understand and which information will be useful in answering that question.
- Clarify the referral question We begin with what has led you to seek assessment and what you hope to understand. You do not need to arrive knowing which diagnosis or evaluation category applies.
- Review your history and current functioning Developmental, educational, occupational, psychological, medical, identity, relationship, and other relevant history may be considered in relation to the referral question.
- Select appropriate assessment measures Measures are chosen for the questions being evaluated and their appropriateness for tele-assessment. The evaluation may examine several domains when doing so is necessary to understand the broader pattern.
- Integrate the findings I interpret test results alongside history and everyday functioning, considering both diagnostic criteria and alternative explanations rather than treating individual scores in isolation.
- Review the results together We meet to discuss what the findings mean, what they do and do not support, and how the conclusions relate to the questions that brought you to assessment.
- Receive a written report and recommendations Your report summarizes the findings and provides recommendations connected to your circumstances. Depending on the evaluation, these may address education, work, accommodations, care planning, or additional resources.
You may be looking for an explanation that holds more of your story
People seek diagnostic clarification for many reasons. Some have wondered for years whether a neurodevelopmental difference explains their experience, while others reach a point in work, education, relationships, or adult life when longstanding strategies no longer work as well.
Late questions
You have reached adulthood without a clear explanation for patterns that may have been present since childhood or adolescence, and you want to understand them in context.
Previous diagnoses
You already have a diagnosis and recognize that it explains some of your experience while leaving other longstanding difficulties or differences unresolved.
Work and education
Attention, learning, organization, processing, or adaptation are affecting work or school, and you need a clearer understanding of both diagnosis and functional implications.
Identity and lived experience
You want an assessment that considers identity, culture, strengths, relationships, and lived experience as part of understanding the whole person rather than separating them from the evaluation.
Assessment designed around the person and the question
I have worked in psychological assessment in New Mexico for approximately three decades. Much of that work has involved questions that cross traditional categories, including cognitive, academic, developmental, psychological, identity-related, vocational, and functional concerns.
My approach is integrative. Test findings are considered alongside history, context, strengths, identity, and real-world functioning so that the final interpretation explains more than whether a set of diagnostic criteria has been met.
Psychological assessment from wherever you are in New Mexico
Assessment services are provided by secure tele-assessment to adults and older adolescents age 16 and above who are physically located in New Mexico. The procedures used depend on the referral question and whether appropriate methods are available for remote administration.
I have provided psychological services in New Mexico since 1996. My current credential is Licensed Psychologist Associate, PA9601, under which I provide psychological services with required professional supervision. This is an assessment-only practice and does not provide psychotherapy.
Both appropriate self-pay evaluations and evaluations authorized directly by the New Mexico Division of Vocational Rehabilitation are available. You can review fees, assessment types, insurance information, and the complete process on the Psychological Assessment in New Mexico page.
Questions people often have before an evaluation
Can someone have both ADHD and autism?
Yes. ADHD and autism are distinct neurodevelopmental conditions and can occur together. Because some experiences may overlap while others differ, a comprehensive evaluation looks at developmental history, current functioning, and the broader pattern rather than assuming one diagnosis excludes the other.
How can assessment distinguish ADHD from autism or anxiety?
The process considers when difficulties began, how they developed, where they occur, how they affect functioning, and which pattern best accounts for the available evidence. Standardized measures can contribute useful information, and they are interpreted together with history and functional context rather than used alone.
Do I need to know which diagnosis I am seeking before I contact you?
No. Many people contact me because they are uncertain whether ADHD, autism, a learning difference, another condition, or several overlapping factors explain what they have experienced. We begin with the questions you want the evaluation to answer.
What if I already have an ADHD or another diagnosis?
A previous diagnosis can be important information in a new assessment. If significant questions remain, the evaluation can consider whether the previous explanation still fits, whether another condition may also be present, and whether a broader formulation better explains current functioning.
Can psychological assessment be completed entirely online?
My practice provides tele-assessment to clients physically located in New Mexico. Whether a particular question can be addressed entirely through remote methods depends on the procedures needed for that evaluation. If available tele-assessment methods are not appropriate for your question, we will discuss that before proceeding.
Do I need childhood records or a parent to participate?
Developmental information can be especially useful when evaluating neurodevelopmental questions, and the available sources differ from person to person. School records, previous evaluations, family information, or other historical material may be useful when available. The absence of a particular record does not automatically determine whether an evaluation can proceed.
Does an assessment guarantee that I will receive a diagnosis?
No. The purpose of evaluation is to determine what the evidence supports. The findings may support the diagnosis you initially wondered about, a different diagnosis, more than one condition, or another explanation for the pattern you have experienced.
Do you work with LGBTQIA+ and gender-diverse clients?
Yes. My assessment practice is explicitly LGBTQIA+ and gender-affirming. Identity, relationships, family, culture, strengths, and lived experience are considered respectfully as part of understanding the person, and gender diversity is not treated as pathology.
Assessment context: The approach described here is consistent with published guidance emphasizing comprehensive developmental and functional assessment, consideration of coexisting conditions and differential diagnoses, and the use of multiple sources of information rather than reliance on a single instrument. See Assessments for adult ADHD: what makes them good enough? , NICE guidance for autism spectrum disorder in adults: diagnosis and management , and expert consensus guidance on co-occurring ADHD and autism .
You can begin with the question, not the diagnosis
If you are wondering whether ADHD, autism, a learning difference, another explanation, or several overlapping factors may be part of your experience, tell us what you are trying to understand. We can help determine whether psychological assessment is an appropriate next step.