10 ms·

Reverse engineering my ADHD test

318 points by hazebooth 21d ago

megagpt5 15d ago
I don't think this is a real way to test for ADHD.
izzylan 20d ago
I took a similar ADHD test. It seemed so easy and simple that I always wondered how it was actually supposed to catch me. Good to know that neurotypical people mostly likely test differently than I did.
- hellweaver666 16d ago
  This was part of how my ADHD was diagnosed. I did a full day of testing at a specialist center. First I had a conversation with a nurse, then a psychologist, then they had me do a similar test (but in a controlled environment and I also had face tracking and a motion sensor monitoring my movement). After the test, I was given lunch and a dose of adhd medication and about an hour break, then they had me do the test again. After that I met with a psychiatrist who walked me through the test results. Then I had another break while the three specialists met to discuss my case and make a diagnosis. Finally I met with the three to hear the outcome (I was also given a full write-up of my results from the day). My one surprise from this article is that "play a web game for 18 minutes" in an uncontrolled environment was considered enough testing for a diagnosis!
  - thirdtruck 16d ago
    It's been a trip hearing how much testing others have gone through. IIRC, we had all of one conversation with our psychiatrist (albeit one we had already been seeing for a while) and got our diagnosis. But then it wasn't exactly subtle ADHD. For our autism assessment a couple months ago, our therapist (whom we've been seeing for about a year at that point?) had us take one or two relatively short multiple choice assessments or the like and that was enough to diagnose us as on the spectrum. Did you know: Not all autistics struggle with eye contact? Some of us (ourselves included) are actually pretty good at it. One reason it's called a spectrum! The previous time with our mental health professionals factored into their diagnoses, though, not just the tests. The takeaway: Book a therapist and psychiatrist both if you don't already and get those balls rolling.
flysand7 20d ago
Opening up devtools during ADHD test is so ADHD, almost as if he didn't even need the psychiatrist to explain the results :D
- schlauerfox 17d ago
  That was my first thought. I only wish my type was to put in the work for a blog post instead of just thinking on it and getting overwhelmed with all I need to get done.
  - nullpt_rs 17d ago
    Trust, this blog post was in the works for weeks and was actually supposed to have a YouTube video accompanying it that I never finished T_T
- nullpt_rs 17d ago
  I didn't think of this until after haha
- Muromec 17d ago
  That doesn't have to be ADHD, could be the *tism too. The tells are usually somewhat overlapping. In general, if you are in the industry, save yourself (and your kids) some trouble and get diagnosed before it becomes a problem. Add: I wonder why they don't just give people some ritalin and ask if they feel calmed down? Except the obvious reason of course
  - mcmoor 15d ago
    Yeah it feels like the diagnosis itself is useless, compared to just straight up trying some of those drugs and see how much you feel better. If none works, then no use in diagnosis.
    - Muromec 15d ago
      Right? If the meds work, they work, I just want someone to control the side effects and help with sourcing and dosage. If they don't, I can't get disability or whatever work/military/wife-slavery exemption with that paper anyway.
_fw 20d ago
I found myself trying to come up with a system that used the position of my hands to “solve” the problem for me. But then I worried if my system worked, I would be misdiagnosed. It didn’t work. I was 98th percentile. Thanks for sharing this!
- nullpt_rs 17d ago
  this sounds interesting! would love to hear more about this
nullpt_rs 17d ago
hi! author here, please let me know if you have any questions :-)
- BearOso 17d ago
  Following through on the top comment, surely you realized when you decided to forgo the back half of the test that, had the program compensated for it, you were consciously leaning into the ADHD diagnosis, right?
  - nullpt_rs 17d ago
    Sure! However, I think at that point I just felt trapped and overwhelmed that I no longer cared about the test or its results.
    - jaggederest 17d ago
      Which is exactly how it manifests, at least for a lot of people. ADHD isn't just "I can't focus lol", it's "trying to focus feels like dragging myself through broken glass" He says while commenting on HN as CI runs...
      - Thlom 16d ago
        One of my kids got diagnosed with ADHD and autism/asperger. He can sit for hours reading IF IT IS INTERESTING. But homework? Impossible. Even if it's just reading a couple of pages of a book it's nearly impossible for him to do it and it takes so much energy and suffering to get through it.
- mrbenjihao 17d ago
  Would you mind sharing the test platform?
  - freehorse 16d ago
    Not OP but I think it is moxo.ai
pixel_popping 17d ago
[flagged]
- LocalPCGuy 17d ago
  I agree that ADHD is a serious condition for many people, and that it's overly romanticized and that isn't good when it comes to getting help for those that do need it. To that point, I'm going push back on this language just a bit: > you end up addicted and pretty much permanently require drugs to function well That is negatively framing medication, which if taken properly as prescribed is no different than any other medication someone might take to help with a chronic health condition. It slightly encourages and leans into the idea that ADHD is "fixable" without medication and so taking medication is a problem (or due to a weakness, etc). I'm not discounting the value of other forms of non-medical treatment, but in many case medication IS appropriate as part of the overall treatment that a person requires to manage their ADHD. We should not use language that stigmatizes treatment that should be between a person and their doctor.
  - schlauerfox 17d ago
    This Doctor's videos reframed the clinical work and actual research for me, very informative and helpful to me personally. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0tLWu7ljYVFPiZQfHjTMsA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0tLWu7ljYVFPiZQfHjTMsA
    - LocalPCGuy 16d ago
      Dr. Barkley does a great job presenting research and factual information in a way that is easy to understand and I've also found it very helpful personally. Was diagnosed in adulthood, so resources like this were great finds during my hyperfocus dive into gaining some measure of understanding of ADHD.
  - nullpt_rs 17d ago
    Agree with original commenter but +1 to reframing the language. I was very afraid to begin medication because I would always hear about how addicting this medication can be. But like you say, you wouldn't tell someone with diabetes that they're addicted to insulin.
sbiru93 17d ago
Ahahah the end got me laughing
doawoo 17d ago
This is basically what I did to every online based quiz in school. Big respect lol.
- nullpt_rs 17d ago
  this method works more often than not :P
a2dam 17d ago
> At the end, she told me she would review my exam and have the results ready in a few days. Yeah man I can go ahead and let you know early if you want.
- johnwalkr 16d ago
  This comment is so funny to me, because I imagine you being distracted to make the comment before making it to the end where the psych did indeed review the new results. Well I only know that because I skipped to the end. Then, while scrolling up I realised I missed the whole side-quest about promising to not cheat the test again, taking the test again, but then "accidentally" finding an exploit the system, and then cheating the test again, but this time cheating even more to see the results. Then, scrolling up more I see that this whole thing started with seeing stars and then buying a telescope on amazon (probably at 3am). And here I am commenting on HN instead of replying to an email...
  - jaggederest 16d ago
    Brother the test is quick, easy, and painless, and the results can be lifechanging. The other thing is, ADHD in my mind is really a syndrome that starts with a symptom - inattention - that can be caused by so, so many things. I have both, because of course I do, I had a medical problem that exacerbated my ADHD to a significant, significant degree (it's amazing I was able to be a software engineer for so long without treatment). So don't just tunnel vision in... as we tend to be prone to do. Get the whole workup with an experienced clinician, it's so lifechanging it's hard to describe.
    - johnwalkr 16d ago
      I want to add that the comment is also funny to me because it and the blog post are very relatable to me. I don't mean to dismiss it at all. It's really important to get a good diagnosis for anything like this and not dismiss it or lock into the wrong diagnosis because of your own tunnel vision. You wrote "the test is quick, easy, and painless" but I also want to note that it's not always. Depending on your country, parents, specific doctor, etc it can be very difficult to get a proper diagnosis and help. In some places a big criteria is diagnosis during childhood so if you're 30 or 40 you might have no chance. Or a chance but it depends on your parents retroactively answering a questionnaire, or finding an old report card with the right words. As you said it's life changing to get the right help and I encourage everyone to pursue this.
usernametaken29 16d ago
I spent a decent amount working on ADHD diagnostics and unfortunately it sucks. To my knowledge, to this day, there isn’t a single reliable biomarker that identifies autism spectrum disorders. It’s usually correlation studies paired with questionnaires which for lack of better words can be described as “incidental” at best. Most z scored tests I know are also developed with small samples, a hundred participants with an outgroup of 20 would already be a LARGE sample. The standard ADHD questionnaire was validated on some 35 people. There might be some hope in deep learning, particularly in observing eye movement components to deliver reliable biomarkers in the future, but I’m not so confident any time soon. It’s dreadful and fascinating at the same time that defining and testing for ADS has been so elusive for so long…
- anamexis 16d ago
  ADHD is not an autism spectrum disorder, is it?
  - poopmonster 16d ago
    No, however they are often comorbid.
  - usernametaken29 16d ago
    That’s my bad for conflating the two. Indeed they are not the same in ICT-11 but! diagnostics is moving towards the direction of treating them the same. ADHD and ASD have extremely high comorbidity and it has been proposed many times to classify them together because the symptoms overlap (difficulties at school, aggressive behaviour or temper, lack of social skills, etc). In fact it has become so difficult to find distinctive features of ADHD both in diagnostics AND treatment (both are usually treated with cognitive behavioural therapy and in more severe cases medication) that it has been proposed numerous times to drop their distinction in the ICT, but this hasn’t happened yet. Good paper to the point: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4654237/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4654237/
    - BirdieNZ 16d ago
tomrod 16d ago
Oh hilarious and well done Null ptrs. And brilliant picture.
rukuu001 16d ago
> This performance pattern^H^H^H^H^H^H BLOG POST may indicate attentional difficulties, and taken together with other findings, an increased likelihood for the existence of ADHD.
kleton 16d ago
There's a well-known issue of "construct validity" in neuroscience.
Ozzie-D 16d ago
[flagged]
burnto 16d ago
What a lovely mini journey. Turns something possibly stressful into something weird and fun.
0plus1 16d ago
Am I risking any trouble if I were to open source this test? Based on this writeup?
- Maxious 16d ago
  These platforms are often just digitising a test that is already open access. I think this one is https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11546344/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11546344/ https://embrace-autism.com/autism-tests/ https://embrace-autism.com/autism-tests/ also implements a bunch of open access tests.
tosti 16d ago
I would've liked to read the article but I got distracted.
rtpg 16d ago
I remember finding a test online for "left-right blindness" that had a similar kinda busted vibe. It was literally something where you look at arrows going up/down/left/right and you have to press a thing to match it. I wish I could find it again and run it across some cohorts, because it was quite fascinating to feel my brain suffer more on the horizontal arrows.
delis-thumbs-7e 16d ago
So they got so bered in ADHD test that they hacked the whole website administering the test. They are truly one of us. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W99n083E0IA&pp=ygUeZnJlYWtzIGdvb2JsZSBnb2JibGUgb25lIG9mIHVz&ra=m https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W99n083E0IA&pp=ygUeZnJlYWtzIGd...
- plaguuuuuu 16d ago
  Yep, I was thinking that the results of the report might as well be irrelevant
drsalt 16d ago
seems like lack of focus to me. doesn't mean you have a medical condition.
- drewstiff 16d ago
  "Seems like you have a lack of control over when you pee your pants to me. Doesn't mean you have a medical condition."
- tonfel 16d ago
  [flagged]
  - aacid 16d ago
    ADHD is not a disease; it is disorder. People with ADHD are differently wired in their brain, you cannot cure it like you can disease.
    - hirvi74 16d ago
      > People with ADHD are differently wired in their brain I am not sure that is objectively true in the sense that people think. If so, the condition would have a much more objective diagnostic process. I have been professionally described as ADHD, had an fMRI (unrelated reason), and my results came back perfectly normal. I know n=1, but the data doesn't necessarily suggest that ADHD is some kind of organic, neurological disease.
- mrweasel 16d ago
  In the past few years the internet have been busy trying to attribute completely normal human quirks to ADHD, ADD and various levels of autism. We see these "Only people with X will understand this" and it's something stupid like forgetting why you entered a room. I don't know if neurodivergent people increasingly seeks out online "forums" like Reddit and Imgur, but they seem to be populated entirely by people with ADD, autism and depression (and Furries, but that feels less problematic). All are on a mission to convince anyone who stumble into their realm that they too have a disorder. Understandably people want to help when they see someone struggling with the same things they did, and I'm not suggesting that you don't seek out professionals if you think you might have a disorder, but we need to stop labeling completely normal behaviour as problematic. Just like people without various disorders can't relate well to those with e.g. ADHD, people with the these disorders also understand neurotypical behaviour way less than they think they do. A large number seems to struggle with separating "normal" quirks of the brains and their diagnoses.
alexfoo 16d ago
I sat a similar test at the start of my ADHD diagnosis (in the UK for reference). The one I did (QbCheck) was a similar setup but you were presented with shapes on the screen, either a square or a circle, and either blue or red. All you had to do was press the spacebar when the shape on the screen was the same shape and colour as the previous one. No sound distracitons (or maybe I just had the volume muted.) You also had to do the test on a laptop with a forward facing camera so the software could track eye movement. I remember starting the test and thinking "This is exactly what my brain is wired for, I'm going to be awesome at this test!" Within a minute my mind had already moved on to "I wonder how they score this test? I guess they're looking at accuracy, reaction times, how those trend over time, whether the accuracy/reactions goes up/down if they show the same shape/colour more than twice in a row?" etc... It didn't take long for me to then get jolted into a "wait, did I just zone out a bit there and miss one?" Then I became overly conscious of my eyes wandering around and not looking at the screen. Then my mind moved on to "what if I'm too good at this and it means I won't get a diagnosis?" Soon it was "When will this ever end? This must have been going on for ages!" only to find it had only been about 3 minutes. The test took 20 minutes or so and I was mentally exhausted by the end of it. My actual ADHD diagnosis was backed up by an 80 minute interview, basically doing the DSM-5 questions but linking it all back to childhood experiences too. I've no idea how much weight the QbCheck test had. Glad I got the diagnosis, I've been masking both for years (diagnosed in my late 40s) but just got burnt out doing so. Medication helps but isn't perfect and since I'm probably AuDHD I find the ADHD medication amplifies some of the Autism traits and makes me into a bit of an emotional zombie, but that seems to be better than having zero motivation (aside from stress/deadlines and serious consequences).
- dashdashu 16d ago
  I feel your thoughts about "what if I'm too good at this and it means I wont get diagnosed?" and "when will this ever end?" one, felt like forever - the time blindness struggle is real. I still thought I did too well until the end where they showed me.. well I missed a lot of those little dots in the quadrants or whatever it was.
- jon-wood 16d ago
  The first time I went for a diagnosis I was made to sit the same QbCheck test, which was then used as the entire justification for why I couldn't possibly have ADHD despite every other aspect saying I did. Apparently 30 years of having to sit at a computer and do a task in order to eat and pay rent means that I can sit down for 20 minutes and do a task at a computer. I'm still quite bitter about this because it then took me another two years to work up the motivation to go get retested (this time somewhere that doesn't use snake oil), followed by an additional year to work up the motivation to sort out coordinating with my GP to get on meds. That's three years I could have been a functioning human being.
erlich 16d ago
The biggest risk for ADHD treatment is that most diagnosed people are told: "you brain doesn't make enough dopamine" which makes it feel safe for you and why they say non-ADHD people cannot take it. But for your specific brain it does make enough and it will fight to maintain that via homeostasis (usually by creating more dopamine vacuums/re-uptakes that stick around a long time...there is good science on this). So you become dependent on the medication and tolerance can occur making your situation worse than it was in the end. ADHD-as-a-diagnosis is just a clever way to make the government okay with prescribing stimulant medication to "people who it can help" and having someone safely monitor its usage, and to assure the government that we won't end up with too large of percentage of the population taking it.
- testacc74 16d ago
  Don't know what conspiracy theory are u in but I forgot taking my meds this morning and forgot it a couple times every month. I hope I am addicted to it so I don't forget
  - deleted 16d ago
    [deleted]
  - b40d-48b2-979e 16d ago
    I hope I am addicted to it so I don't forget For real. I bet the people showing up every 90 days on the dot are the easiest addicts/scammers to detect.
    - testacc74 14d ago
      100% serial killer behavior
- sadsach 16d ago
  "people who it can help" This is just my story but before ADHD diagnosis and medication I was unemployed, on food stamps, in an abusive relationship, and struggling with alcoholism. After taking medication for a couple years I'm in a healthy relationship, making good money in a stable job, and on the wagon. The medication prescribed helped so much with my impulse control issues that it literally changed my life.
Nevermark 16d ago
The most surprising thing my adult ADHD diagnosis revealed was that as I began telling friends that I had been diagnosed positive they told me they had known that since they met me. These were childhood friends. Thanks friends. I thought I was bad at lots of things other people were good at, because I was more disciplined and saw the bigger picture. So I only worked on important things. Things that could matter to millions of people, or still be relevant in 100 years. And all the side quests and rabbit holes were obviously for recharging, expanding my biological-being-on-an-odd-planet situational awareness, or benefited me as self-improvement challenges. All in service of the important things. How would tracking the day of the week, doing homework on something I could learn later if/when I ever needed it, or mowing the lawn, help me accomplish anything important? Wasting brain space on those kinds of things would be dysfunction. I actively culled such dreck! Now I know my self-narrative was Stockholm Syndrome coping. But I still don't mow lawns, and if the blinds are drawn when I finish a big task, I couldn't guess if it was am or pm better than a coin toss. My day metric is when Amazon Prime's "Your Orders" list, tells me I am a day closer to getting a crafting item I ordered for a project I may never get to.
- wccrawford 16d ago
  Don't be too mad at your friends. People are not receptive to being told they're odd. And as much as they might say "we knew", they didn't really. They might have suspected, but they cannot diagnose you. Many things are very clear in hindsight that weren't actually clear at the time.
  - tccole 16d ago
    I call this the “this boy ain’t right” diagnosis
- gulugawa 16d ago
  Some friends I've known for over a decade clearly have ADHD, and I'm not going to tell them unprompted. I feel like it is very disrespectful, especially when the conversation is about something completely different. Also, I'm not a medical professional, and it is possible that their ADHD-like symptoms are caused by something else. That being said, if they ask if I think they have ADHD, or any other form of neurodivergence, I will say yes.
randusername 16d ago
I did a similar test and it came back neurotypical. Given the overlap between ADHD and video games, I'm not convinced of the accuracy. It felt like a lame rhythm minigame to me. I don't think the research is solid, my guess is these tests are convenient for insurance and liability paperwork since stimulants are controlled substances.
FrustratedMonky 16d ago
This article itself seems to scream ADHD. But also seems very much like a software dev, so does seem to reinforce the stereo type.
kalinkochnev 16d ago
I was researching this test yesterday for my own appointment and did not expect to see it on hacker news. I am having a really difficult time finding a reputable psychiatrist to assess adult ADHD. I called 15 places and only heard back from one. I scheduled an appointment. They had 1/5 stars, gave me a 30 year old 1 page questionnaire, and asked to see my childhood report card. I did not see them again. Yesterday I got a callback from an office offering this online test but nothing else? It all smells fishy. Did anyone have to cross state lines to find a reputable psychiatrist?
- b40d-48b2-979e 16d ago
  I used my general physician. It may not be as high quality as a psych, but he determined the symptoms correlated with the diagnosis and the medicine has helped me immensely in my life.
- sersi 16d ago
  My psychiatrist gave me some questionnaires (BECK Depression Inventory, THE BECK Anxiety Inventory) and gave me an IQ test (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale), she noted in her report the fact that I had a tendency to be restless, that I was distracted by the sound of the clock in her office ticking and that the IQ test scores were very lopsided with Processing Speed being much lower than everything else (and slightly lower working memory). Total test took 8 hours. I had abysmal results on the (Picture Completion) subtest.
- gwbas1c 16d ago
  > It all smells fishy Because for some, an "ADHD" is like playing up a symptom to get "Medical Marijuana." It makes it hard to differentiate between people who have a legitimate need for treatment, and people who just want uppers. (There's a joke that if you want a prescription, just look for a 1-star doctor and make sure to accept the vaccinations so they can bill for more.) Have you asked your general practitioner for help finding a psychiatrist?
jappgar 16d ago
"ADHD" is really having a moment, isn't it.
not-so-darkstar 16d ago
[flagged]
yuck39 16d ago
I took a similar test but in person at an office a few years ago. Exact same layout, of "click when x appears, do nothing if not". It was only 25 minutes I believe but felt like an eternity. I had a 100% success rate and above average reaction speed, but I still "failed" because of my observed behavior as I was taking the test. The proctor noted my restless legs, frequent posture shifts, and "tendancy to tap the table when not responding to the stimuli" (this was a strategy I had come up with to create something to do in response to "doing nothing", as it made a sort of rhythm that gave me something to do). I then realized that the test meant very little, but the proctor was watching and diagnosing me durng the test.
bitwize 16d ago
Reminds me of one of the first video games to get FDA approval as a medical device. EndeavorRx I believe it's called. You have to keep the character moving down the path while not paying attention to all the shit the game produces to distract you. https://www.endeavorrx.com/ https://www.endeavorrx.com/
RIMR 16d ago
I like how this can be summarized as a person taking part in an ADHD test before getting off-track and overanalyzing the task without actually doing it. Good test, though—very effective.
deleted 16d ago
[deleted]
ge96 16d ago
I feel like I would have been a different person if I was diagnosed. Probably finished my physics/aero degree. But idk... I would buy it and it was fun to do recreationally which supposedly means you don't have ADHD. Anyway I ended up not finishing school but I got lucky that I still became an SWE. People would say "just ask for it" but I remember having to try and do these tests like look at these abstract shapes and what not. It was multiple sessions I eventually ran out of insurance so yeah I just abandoned it. I don't like the side effect of shrinkage down there when you're on uppers.
- willy_k 16d ago
  > I would buy it and it was fun to do recreationally which supposedly means you don't have ADHD. That’s something some people with ADHD need to hear to be ok with taking what is a powerful drug. A comorbidity of ADHD is substance abuse, and stimulants are very rewarding neuobiologically speaking (because they, especially amphetamine, promote dopamine release and persistence in the reward areas near the brainstem, as opposed to non-stimulants like Strattera which does effect dopamine reuptake but only in the prefrontal cortex, the primary area of impairment in ADHD [it does this by exploiting the fact that the NET is used for Dopamine reuptake exclusively in the PFC]), especially when treated like a recreational substance to be taken freely in a dose designed to be fun. There is a lot of variety in people with ADHD, but I think that perception is more due to how the drugs work when taken medicinally vs recreationally and individual propensity for abuse.
Alifatisk 16d ago
Still waiting on reverse engineering tiktok vm part 2 https://nullpt.rs/reverse-engineering-tiktok-vm-1 https://nullpt.rs/reverse-engineering-tiktok-vm-1
orvergon 16d ago
I find really interesting the description of the ADHD assessments, both on the post and on the comments. It seems like everyone had one or two tests plus some interview at most. My diagnosis came after I had multiple tests and interviews in a 2 month period, including interviews with my mother and my partner. Sure I was also diagnosed with autism, but the final report given to me was so complete and descriptive of my pains, symptoms and the impact on my day-to-day functioning that it just couldn't be made with a single interview.

318 points by hazebooth 21d ago

I don't think this is a real way to test for ADHD.

I took a similar ADHD test. It seemed so easy and simple that I always wondered how it was actually supposed to catch me. Good to know that neurotypical people mostly likely test differently than I did.

hellweaver666 16d ago
This was part of how my ADHD was diagnosed. I did a full day of testing at a specialist center. First I had a conversation with a nurse, then a psychologist, then they had me do a similar test (but in a controlled environment and I also had face tracking and a motion sensor monitoring my movement). After the test, I was given lunch and a dose of adhd medication and about an hour break, then they had me do the test again. After that I met with a psychiatrist who walked me through the test results. Then I had another break while the three specialists met to discuss my case and make a diagnosis. Finally I met with the three to hear the outcome (I was also given a full write-up of my results from the day). My one surprise from this article is that "play a web game for 18 minutes" in an uncontrolled environment was considered enough testing for a diagnosis!
- thirdtruck 16d ago
  It's been a trip hearing how much testing others have gone through. IIRC, we had all of one conversation with our psychiatrist (albeit one we had already been seeing for a while) and got our diagnosis. But then it wasn't exactly subtle ADHD. For our autism assessment a couple months ago, our therapist (whom we've been seeing for about a year at that point?) had us take one or two relatively short multiple choice assessments or the like and that was enough to diagnose us as on the spectrum. Did you know: Not all autistics struggle with eye contact? Some of us (ourselves included) are actually pretty good at it. One reason it's called a spectrum! The previous time with our mental health professionals factored into their diagnoses, though, not just the tests. The takeaway: Book a therapist and psychiatrist both if you don't already and get those balls rolling.

flysand7 20d ago

Opening up devtools during ADHD test is so ADHD, almost as if he didn't even need the psychiatrist to explain the results :D

schlauerfox 17d ago
That was my first thought. I only wish my type was to put in the work for a blog post instead of just thinking on it and getting overwhelmed with all I need to get done.
- nullpt_rs 17d ago
  Trust, this blog post was in the works for weeks and was actually supposed to have a YouTube video accompanying it that I never finished T_T
nullpt_rs 17d ago
I didn't think of this until after haha
Muromec 17d ago
That doesn't have to be ADHD, could be the *tism too. The tells are usually somewhat overlapping. In general, if you are in the industry, save yourself (and your kids) some trouble and get diagnosed before it becomes a problem. Add: I wonder why they don't just give people some ritalin and ask if they feel calmed down? Except the obvious reason of course
- mcmoor 15d ago
  Yeah it feels like the diagnosis itself is useless, compared to just straight up trying some of those drugs and see how much you feel better. If none works, then no use in diagnosis.
  - Muromec 15d ago
    Right? If the meds work, they work, I just want someone to control the side effects and help with sourcing and dosage. If they don't, I can't get disability or whatever work/military/wife-slavery exemption with that paper anyway.

_fw 20d ago

I found myself trying to come up with a system that used the position of my hands to “solve” the problem for me. But then I worried if my system worked, I would be misdiagnosed. It didn’t work. I was 98th percentile. Thanks for sharing this!

nullpt_rs 17d ago
this sounds interesting! would love to hear more about this

nullpt_rs 17d ago

hi! author here, please let me know if you have any questions :-)

BearOso 17d ago
Following through on the top comment, surely you realized when you decided to forgo the back half of the test that, had the program compensated for it, you were consciously leaning into the ADHD diagnosis, right?
- nullpt_rs 17d ago
  Sure! However, I think at that point I just felt trapped and overwhelmed that I no longer cared about the test or its results.
  - jaggederest 17d ago
    Which is exactly how it manifests, at least for a lot of people. ADHD isn't just "I can't focus lol", it's "trying to focus feels like dragging myself through broken glass" He says while commenting on HN as CI runs...
    - Thlom 16d ago
      One of my kids got diagnosed with ADHD and autism/asperger. He can sit for hours reading IF IT IS INTERESTING. But homework? Impossible. Even if it's just reading a couple of pages of a book it's nearly impossible for him to do it and it takes so much energy and suffering to get through it.
mrbenjihao 17d ago
Would you mind sharing the test platform?
- freehorse 16d ago
  Not OP but I think it is moxo.ai

pixel_popping 17d ago

[flagged]

LocalPCGuy 17d ago
I agree that ADHD is a serious condition for many people, and that it's overly romanticized and that isn't good when it comes to getting help for those that do need it. To that point, I'm going push back on this language just a bit: > you end up addicted and pretty much permanently require drugs to function well That is negatively framing medication, which if taken properly as prescribed is no different than any other medication someone might take to help with a chronic health condition. It slightly encourages and leans into the idea that ADHD is "fixable" without medication and so taking medication is a problem (or due to a weakness, etc). I'm not discounting the value of other forms of non-medical treatment, but in many case medication IS appropriate as part of the overall treatment that a person requires to manage their ADHD. We should not use language that stigmatizes treatment that should be between a person and their doctor.
- schlauerfox 17d ago
  This Doctor's videos reframed the clinical work and actual research for me, very informative and helpful to me personally. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0tLWu7ljYVFPiZQfHjTMsA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0tLWu7ljYVFPiZQfHjTMsA
  - LocalPCGuy 16d ago
    Dr. Barkley does a great job presenting research and factual information in a way that is easy to understand and I've also found it very helpful personally. Was diagnosed in adulthood, so resources like this were great finds during my hyperfocus dive into gaining some measure of understanding of ADHD.
- nullpt_rs 17d ago
  Agree with original commenter but +1 to reframing the language. I was very afraid to begin medication because I would always hear about how addicting this medication can be. But like you say, you wouldn't tell someone with diabetes that they're addicted to insulin.

sbiru93 17d ago

Ahahah the end got me laughing

doawoo 17d ago

This is basically what I did to every online based quiz in school. Big respect lol.

nullpt_rs 17d ago
this method works more often than not :P

a2dam 17d ago

> At the end, she told me she would review my exam and have the results ready in a few days. Yeah man I can go ahead and let you know early if you want.

johnwalkr 16d ago
This comment is so funny to me, because I imagine you being distracted to make the comment before making it to the end where the psych did indeed review the new results. Well I only know that because I skipped to the end. Then, while scrolling up I realised I missed the whole side-quest about promising to not cheat the test again, taking the test again, but then "accidentally" finding an exploit the system, and then cheating the test again, but this time cheating even more to see the results. Then, scrolling up more I see that this whole thing started with seeing stars and then buying a telescope on amazon (probably at 3am). And here I am commenting on HN instead of replying to an email...
- jaggederest 16d ago
  Brother the test is quick, easy, and painless, and the results can be lifechanging. The other thing is, ADHD in my mind is really a syndrome that starts with a symptom - inattention - that can be caused by so, so many things. I have both, because of course I do, I had a medical problem that exacerbated my ADHD to a significant, significant degree (it's amazing I was able to be a software engineer for so long without treatment). So don't just tunnel vision in... as we tend to be prone to do. Get the whole workup with an experienced clinician, it's so lifechanging it's hard to describe.
  - johnwalkr 16d ago
    I want to add that the comment is also funny to me because it and the blog post are very relatable to me. I don't mean to dismiss it at all. It's really important to get a good diagnosis for anything like this and not dismiss it or lock into the wrong diagnosis because of your own tunnel vision. You wrote "the test is quick, easy, and painless" but I also want to note that it's not always. Depending on your country, parents, specific doctor, etc it can be very difficult to get a proper diagnosis and help. In some places a big criteria is diagnosis during childhood so if you're 30 or 40 you might have no chance. Or a chance but it depends on your parents retroactively answering a questionnaire, or finding an old report card with the right words. As you said it's life changing to get the right help and I encourage everyone to pursue this.

usernametaken29 16d ago

I spent a decent amount working on ADHD diagnostics and unfortunately it sucks. To my knowledge, to this day, there isn’t a single reliable biomarker that identifies autism spectrum disorders. It’s usually correlation studies paired with questionnaires which for lack of better words can be described as “incidental” at best. Most z scored tests I know are also developed with small samples, a hundred participants with an outgroup of 20 would already be a LARGE sample. The standard ADHD questionnaire was validated on some 35 people. There might be some hope in deep learning, particularly in observing eye movement components to deliver reliable biomarkers in the future, but I’m not so confident any time soon. It’s dreadful and fascinating at the same time that defining and testing for ADS has been so elusive for so long…

anamexis 16d ago
ADHD is not an autism spectrum disorder, is it?
- poopmonster 16d ago
  No, however they are often comorbid.
- usernametaken29 16d ago
  That’s my bad for conflating the two. Indeed they are not the same in ICT-11 but! diagnostics is moving towards the direction of treating them the same. ADHD and ASD have extremely high comorbidity and it has been proposed many times to classify them together because the symptoms overlap (difficulties at school, aggressive behaviour or temper, lack of social skills, etc). In fact it has become so difficult to find distinctive features of ADHD both in diagnostics AND treatment (both are usually treated with cognitive behavioural therapy and in more severe cases medication) that it has been proposed numerous times to drop their distinction in the ICT, but this hasn’t happened yet. Good paper to the point: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4654237/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4654237/
  - BirdieNZ 16d ago

tomrod 16d ago

Oh hilarious and well done Null ptrs. And brilliant picture.

rukuu001 16d ago

> This performance pattern^H^H^H^H^H^H BLOG POST may indicate attentional difficulties, and taken together with other findings, an increased likelihood for the existence of ADHD.

kleton 16d ago

There's a well-known issue of "construct validity" in neuroscience.

Ozzie-D 16d ago

[flagged]

burnto 16d ago

What a lovely mini journey. Turns something possibly stressful into something weird and fun.

0plus1 16d ago

Am I risking any trouble if I were to open source this test? Based on this writeup?

Maxious 16d ago
These platforms are often just digitising a test that is already open access. I think this one is https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11546344/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11546344/ https://embrace-autism.com/autism-tests/ https://embrace-autism.com/autism-tests/ also implements a bunch of open access tests.

tosti 16d ago

I would've liked to read the article but I got distracted.

rtpg 16d ago

I remember finding a test online for "left-right blindness" that had a similar kinda busted vibe. It was literally something where you look at arrows going up/down/left/right and you have to press a thing to match it. I wish I could find it again and run it across some cohorts, because it was quite fascinating to feel my brain suffer more on the horizontal arrows.

delis-thumbs-7e 16d ago

So they got so bered in ADHD test that they hacked the whole website administering the test. They are truly one of us. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W99n083E0IA&pp=ygUeZnJlYWtzIGdvb2JsZSBnb2JibGUgb25lIG9mIHVz&ra=m https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W99n083E0IA&pp=ygUeZnJlYWtzIGd...

plaguuuuuu 16d ago
Yep, I was thinking that the results of the report might as well be irrelevant

drsalt 16d ago

seems like lack of focus to me. doesn't mean you have a medical condition.

drewstiff 16d ago
"Seems like you have a lack of control over when you pee your pants to me. Doesn't mean you have a medical condition."
tonfel 16d ago
[flagged]
- aacid 16d ago
  ADHD is not a disease; it is disorder. People with ADHD are differently wired in their brain, you cannot cure it like you can disease.
  - hirvi74 16d ago
    > People with ADHD are differently wired in their brain I am not sure that is objectively true in the sense that people think. If so, the condition would have a much more objective diagnostic process. I have been professionally described as ADHD, had an fMRI (unrelated reason), and my results came back perfectly normal. I know n=1, but the data doesn't necessarily suggest that ADHD is some kind of organic, neurological disease.
mrweasel 16d ago
In the past few years the internet have been busy trying to attribute completely normal human quirks to ADHD, ADD and various levels of autism. We see these "Only people with X will understand this" and it's something stupid like forgetting why you entered a room. I don't know if neurodivergent people increasingly seeks out online "forums" like Reddit and Imgur, but they seem to be populated entirely by people with ADD, autism and depression (and Furries, but that feels less problematic). All are on a mission to convince anyone who stumble into their realm that they too have a disorder. Understandably people want to help when they see someone struggling with the same things they did, and I'm not suggesting that you don't seek out professionals if you think you might have a disorder, but we need to stop labeling completely normal behaviour as problematic. Just like people without various disorders can't relate well to those with e.g. ADHD, people with the these disorders also understand neurotypical behaviour way less than they think they do. A large number seems to struggle with separating "normal" quirks of the brains and their diagnoses.

alexfoo 16d ago

I sat a similar test at the start of my ADHD diagnosis (in the UK for reference). The one I did (QbCheck) was a similar setup but you were presented with shapes on the screen, either a square or a circle, and either blue or red. All you had to do was press the spacebar when the shape on the screen was the same shape and colour as the previous one. No sound distracitons (or maybe I just had the volume muted.) You also had to do the test on a laptop with a forward facing camera so the software could track eye movement. I remember starting the test and thinking "This is exactly what my brain is wired for, I'm going to be awesome at this test!" Within a minute my mind had already moved on to "I wonder how they score this test? I guess they're looking at accuracy, reaction times, how those trend over time, whether the accuracy/reactions goes up/down if they show the same shape/colour more than twice in a row?" etc... It didn't take long for me to then get jolted into a "wait, did I just zone out a bit there and miss one?" Then I became overly conscious of my eyes wandering around and not looking at the screen. Then my mind moved on to "what if I'm too good at this and it means I won't get a diagnosis?" Soon it was "When will this ever end? This must have been going on for ages!" only to find it had only been about 3 minutes. The test took 20 minutes or so and I was mentally exhausted by the end of it. My actual ADHD diagnosis was backed up by an 80 minute interview, basically doing the DSM-5 questions but linking it all back to childhood experiences too. I've no idea how much weight the QbCheck test had. Glad I got the diagnosis, I've been masking both for years (diagnosed in my late 40s) but just got burnt out doing so. Medication helps but isn't perfect and since I'm probably AuDHD I find the ADHD medication amplifies some of the Autism traits and makes me into a bit of an emotional zombie, but that seems to be better than having zero motivation (aside from stress/deadlines and serious consequences).

dashdashu 16d ago
I feel your thoughts about "what if I'm too good at this and it means I wont get diagnosed?" and "when will this ever end?" one, felt like forever - the time blindness struggle is real. I still thought I did too well until the end where they showed me.. well I missed a lot of those little dots in the quadrants or whatever it was.
jon-wood 16d ago
The first time I went for a diagnosis I was made to sit the same QbCheck test, which was then used as the entire justification for why I couldn't possibly have ADHD despite every other aspect saying I did. Apparently 30 years of having to sit at a computer and do a task in order to eat and pay rent means that I can sit down for 20 minutes and do a task at a computer. I'm still quite bitter about this because it then took me another two years to work up the motivation to go get retested (this time somewhere that doesn't use snake oil), followed by an additional year to work up the motivation to sort out coordinating with my GP to get on meds. That's three years I could have been a functioning human being.

erlich 16d ago

The biggest risk for ADHD treatment is that most diagnosed people are told: "you brain doesn't make enough dopamine" which makes it feel safe for you and why they say non-ADHD people cannot take it. But for your specific brain it does make enough and it will fight to maintain that via homeostasis (usually by creating more dopamine vacuums/re-uptakes that stick around a long time...there is good science on this). So you become dependent on the medication and tolerance can occur making your situation worse than it was in the end. ADHD-as-a-diagnosis is just a clever way to make the government okay with prescribing stimulant medication to "people who it can help" and having someone safely monitor its usage, and to assure the government that we won't end up with too large of percentage of the population taking it.

testacc74 16d ago
Don't know what conspiracy theory are u in but I forgot taking my meds this morning and forgot it a couple times every month. I hope I am addicted to it so I don't forget
- deleted 16d ago
  [deleted]
- b40d-48b2-979e 16d ago
  I hope I am addicted to it so I don't forget For real. I bet the people showing up every 90 days on the dot are the easiest addicts/scammers to detect.
  - testacc74 14d ago
    100% serial killer behavior
sadsach 16d ago
"people who it can help" This is just my story but before ADHD diagnosis and medication I was unemployed, on food stamps, in an abusive relationship, and struggling with alcoholism. After taking medication for a couple years I'm in a healthy relationship, making good money in a stable job, and on the wagon. The medication prescribed helped so much with my impulse control issues that it literally changed my life.

Nevermark 16d ago

The most surprising thing my adult ADHD diagnosis revealed was that as I began telling friends that I had been diagnosed positive they told me they had known that since they met me. These were childhood friends. Thanks friends. I thought I was bad at lots of things other people were good at, because I was more disciplined and saw the bigger picture. So I only worked on important things. Things that could matter to millions of people, or still be relevant in 100 years. And all the side quests and rabbit holes were obviously for recharging, expanding my biological-being-on-an-odd-planet situational awareness, or benefited me as self-improvement challenges. All in service of the important things. How would tracking the day of the week, doing homework on something I could learn later if/when I ever needed it, or mowing the lawn, help me accomplish anything important? Wasting brain space on those kinds of things would be dysfunction. I actively culled such dreck! Now I know my self-narrative was Stockholm Syndrome coping. But I still don't mow lawns, and if the blinds are drawn when I finish a big task, I couldn't guess if it was am or pm better than a coin toss. My day metric is when Amazon Prime's "Your Orders" list, tells me I am a day closer to getting a crafting item I ordered for a project I may never get to.

wccrawford 16d ago
Don't be too mad at your friends. People are not receptive to being told they're odd. And as much as they might say "we knew", they didn't really. They might have suspected, but they cannot diagnose you. Many things are very clear in hindsight that weren't actually clear at the time.
- tccole 16d ago
  I call this the “this boy ain’t right” diagnosis
gulugawa 16d ago
Some friends I've known for over a decade clearly have ADHD, and I'm not going to tell them unprompted. I feel like it is very disrespectful, especially when the conversation is about something completely different. Also, I'm not a medical professional, and it is possible that their ADHD-like symptoms are caused by something else. That being said, if they ask if I think they have ADHD, or any other form of neurodivergence, I will say yes.

randusername 16d ago

I did a similar test and it came back neurotypical. Given the overlap between ADHD and video games, I'm not convinced of the accuracy. It felt like a lame rhythm minigame to me. I don't think the research is solid, my guess is these tests are convenient for insurance and liability paperwork since stimulants are controlled substances.

FrustratedMonky 16d ago

This article itself seems to scream ADHD. But also seems very much like a software dev, so does seem to reinforce the stereo type.

kalinkochnev 16d ago

I was researching this test yesterday for my own appointment and did not expect to see it on hacker news. I am having a really difficult time finding a reputable psychiatrist to assess adult ADHD. I called 15 places and only heard back from one. I scheduled an appointment. They had 1/5 stars, gave me a 30 year old 1 page questionnaire, and asked to see my childhood report card. I did not see them again. Yesterday I got a callback from an office offering this online test but nothing else? It all smells fishy. Did anyone have to cross state lines to find a reputable psychiatrist?

b40d-48b2-979e 16d ago
I used my general physician. It may not be as high quality as a psych, but he determined the symptoms correlated with the diagnosis and the medicine has helped me immensely in my life.
sersi 16d ago
My psychiatrist gave me some questionnaires (BECK Depression Inventory, THE BECK Anxiety Inventory) and gave me an IQ test (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale), she noted in her report the fact that I had a tendency to be restless, that I was distracted by the sound of the clock in her office ticking and that the IQ test scores were very lopsided with Processing Speed being much lower than everything else (and slightly lower working memory). Total test took 8 hours. I had abysmal results on the (Picture Completion) subtest.
gwbas1c 16d ago
> It all smells fishy Because for some, an "ADHD" is like playing up a symptom to get "Medical Marijuana." It makes it hard to differentiate between people who have a legitimate need for treatment, and people who just want uppers. (There's a joke that if you want a prescription, just look for a 1-star doctor and make sure to accept the vaccinations so they can bill for more.) Have you asked your general practitioner for help finding a psychiatrist?

jappgar 16d ago

"ADHD" is really having a moment, isn't it.

not-so-darkstar 16d ago

[flagged]

yuck39 16d ago

I took a similar test but in person at an office a few years ago. Exact same layout, of "click when x appears, do nothing if not". It was only 25 minutes I believe but felt like an eternity. I had a 100% success rate and above average reaction speed, but I still "failed" because of my observed behavior as I was taking the test. The proctor noted my restless legs, frequent posture shifts, and "tendancy to tap the table when not responding to the stimuli" (this was a strategy I had come up with to create something to do in response to "doing nothing", as it made a sort of rhythm that gave me something to do). I then realized that the test meant very little, but the proctor was watching and diagnosing me durng the test.

bitwize 16d ago

Reminds me of one of the first video games to get FDA approval as a medical device. EndeavorRx I believe it's called. You have to keep the character moving down the path while not paying attention to all the shit the game produces to distract you. https://www.endeavorrx.com/ https://www.endeavorrx.com/

RIMR 16d ago

I like how this can be summarized as a person taking part in an ADHD test before getting off-track and overanalyzing the task without actually doing it. Good test, though—very effective.

deleted 16d ago

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ge96 16d ago

I feel like I would have been a different person if I was diagnosed. Probably finished my physics/aero degree. But idk... I would buy it and it was fun to do recreationally which supposedly means you don't have ADHD. Anyway I ended up not finishing school but I got lucky that I still became an SWE. People would say "just ask for it" but I remember having to try and do these tests like look at these abstract shapes and what not. It was multiple sessions I eventually ran out of insurance so yeah I just abandoned it. I don't like the side effect of shrinkage down there when you're on uppers.

willy_k 16d ago
> I would buy it and it was fun to do recreationally which supposedly means you don't have ADHD. That’s something some people with ADHD need to hear to be ok with taking what is a powerful drug. A comorbidity of ADHD is substance abuse, and stimulants are very rewarding neuobiologically speaking (because they, especially amphetamine, promote dopamine release and persistence in the reward areas near the brainstem, as opposed to non-stimulants like Strattera which does effect dopamine reuptake but only in the prefrontal cortex, the primary area of impairment in ADHD [it does this by exploiting the fact that the NET is used for Dopamine reuptake exclusively in the PFC]), especially when treated like a recreational substance to be taken freely in a dose designed to be fun. There is a lot of variety in people with ADHD, but I think that perception is more due to how the drugs work when taken medicinally vs recreationally and individual propensity for abuse.

Alifatisk 16d ago

Still waiting on reverse engineering tiktok vm part 2 https://nullpt.rs/reverse-engineering-tiktok-vm-1 https://nullpt.rs/reverse-engineering-tiktok-vm-1

orvergon 16d ago

I find really interesting the description of the ADHD assessments, both on the post and on the comments. It seems like everyone had one or two tests plus some interview at most. My diagnosis came after I had multiple tests and interviews in a 2 month period, including interviews with my mother and my partner. Sure I was also diagnosed with autism, but the final report given to me was so complete and descriptive of my pains, symptoms and the impact on my day-to-day functioning that it just couldn't be made with a single interview.