ADHD
Testing for ages 16+
“Why have I always struggled with focus and concentration?”
“ I have shorts bursts of enthusiasm, but then leave a trail of unfinished projects. What can I do?”
“Could this be ADHD? Or something else?”
What does ADHD look like for late adolescents and adults?
You may be someone who reads the same paragraph five times, knows exactly what to do and still can't start, or loses hours to a task that should have taken twenty minutes. For many people, that gap between ability and follow-through is what leads them to wonder about ADHD.
ADHD in teens and adults often looks different from the "hyperactive child" picture.
It usually shows up as struggles with focus, organization, follow-through, restlessness, impulsivity, and managing emotions, despite real effort and ability.
Everyone with ADHD is different, and having some of these signs doesn't by itself mean you have ADHD.
It's more likely when the pattern started in childhood, has lasted a long time, and causes real difficulty in more than one area of life.
Only a qualified professional can make the diagnosis: no single checklist or test can confirm or rule it out.
Common signs include:
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Trouble managing time and deadlines; hard to stay focused on tasks, conversations, or reading.
Attention that's inconsistent: bored easily, but can "hyperfocus" on interesting things.
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Chronic disorganization despite effort.
Starting projects but rarely finishing them
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Underperforming relative to your abilities, with effects reaching beyond work into relationships, finances, and self-esteem.
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Often felt on the inside as an adult:
Inner restlessness, impatience, interrupting, or acting/deciding quickly without thinking things through.
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Intense feelings, quick frustration, or difficulty bouncing back.
What does the evaluation involve?
A thorough ADHD evaluation looks at your history, your current functioning, and how your attention and thinking patterns show up on standardized tasks.
No single test diagnoses ADHD — the diagnosis comes from putting all the pieces together.
Here is what to expect:
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Objective, standardized measures help characterize your attention, executive functioning, cognitive skills, emotional patterns, and processing style.
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A detailed conversation about your life over time including early patterns of attention and impulsivity, how you did in school and at work, and the strategies you have used to manage focus, time, and organization. This history is the foundation of the evaluation.
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Your experiences are compared against the formal DSM-5-TR criteria.
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With your permission, input from people who know you well, including a partner, family member, or old report cards and prior evaluations helps confirm patterns across settings and over time.
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Anxiety, depression, learning differences, autism, sleep problems, and other conditions can look like or occur alongside ADHD.
Your evaluation also screens for these, so you understand the full picture.
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All of this information is integrated into a clear explanation of whether the criteria for ADHD are met, what else may be contributing, and what would help going forward.
Anxiety or depression
Chronic stress or burnout
Sleep deprivation or an undiagnosed sleep disorder
Thyroid or other medical conditions
Hormonal changes related to menopause
Learning differences that were never identified
A mismatch between how you naturally work and what your current environment demands
A checklist of symptoms can't tell these apart. Testing exists to sort through that complexity, not to confirm a hunch, but to actually understand what's going on.
Why Self-Diagnosis Isn't the Full Picture
Trouble with attention, disorganization, and focus can come from more than one source, including:
The Path Forward:
1. Reach out
Take the first step and schedule a free 15-minute Zoom call to see if working together would be the right fit for your needs
2. Come in for testing
Engage in evidence-based, gold standard psychological testing to access cognitive skills, executive functioning, and emotional patterns to create a clear image of your strengths and challenges.
3. Get the answers
Receive a clear, easy to read report with testing results and a concrete action plan to move forward.