ASRS v1.1 Calculator (Adult ADHD) + Clinician Guide to Scoring and Use

Question	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
1.How often do you have trouble wrapping up the final details of a project, once the challenging parts have been done?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
2.How often do you have difficulty getting things in order when you have to do a task that requires organization?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
3.How often do you have problems remembering appointments or obligations?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
4.When you have a task that requires a lot of thought, how often do you avoid or delay getting started?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
5.How often do you fidget or squirm with your hands or feet when you have to sit down for a long time?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
6.How often do you feel overly active and compelled to do things, like you were driven by a motor?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often

Question	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
7.How often do you make careless mistakes when you have to work on a boring or difficult project?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
8.How often do you have difficulty keeping your attention when you are doing boring or repetitive work?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
9.How often do you have difficulty concentrating on what people say to you, even when they are speaking to you directly?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
10.How often do you misplace or have difficulty finding things at home or at work?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
11.How often are you distracted by activity or noise around you?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
12.How often do you leave your seat in meetings or other situations in which you are expected to remain seated?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
13.How often do you feel restless or fidgety?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
14.How often do you have difficulty unwinding and relaxing when you have time to yourself?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
15.How often do you find yourself talking too much when you are in social situations?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
16.When you're in a conversation, how often do you find yourself finishing the sentences of the people you are talking to, before they can finish them themselves?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
17.How often do you have difficulty waiting your turn in situations when turn taking is required?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
18.How often do you interrupt others when they are busy?	Never	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often

What the Adult ADHD Self Report Scale Is

The ASRS v1.1 is an 18-item self-report symptom checklist designed for adults age 18+. It asks about the past 6 months and uses a frequency scale from Never → Very often. It’s meant to support screening and symptom monitoring - not to diagnose ADHD on its own.

Purpose and scope

Screening: Quick identification of adults who may warrant a fuller ADHD evaluation.
Interview structure: Helps you focus your assessment on concrete functional examples and impairment.
Monitoring: Can be repeated over time if you keep administration consistent (timeframe, context, medication timing).

Who it’s for

Adults with concerns about attention, organization, follow-through, restlessness, or impulsivity.
Clinicians in primary care, outpatient mental health, and telehealth who need a quick standardized screen.
Not for children (use pediatric measures for under 18).

Origins and alignment
The ASRS was developed in collaboration with the World Health Organization and researchers affiliated with Harvard’s National Comorbidity Survey work. The 18 items map to DSM-era symptom domains and remain widely used in adult ADHD screening workflows.

ASRS Components at a Glance

The ASRS has a simple structure that matters for scoring:

Part A (6 items): The “core screener.” These items were selected to best predict likely adult ADHD in population research.
Part B (12 items): Adds symptom breadth and clinical nuance, but does not determine screen status by itself.
Domains: 9 items reflect inattention and 9 reflect hyperactivity/impulsivity.

Response scale and timeframe

Timeframe is past 6 months (this is the single most common scoring error in real-world use).
Frequency options run from Never to Very often.

Quick table

What you’re looking at	What it’s for	What you do with it
Part A (6 items)	Screen-positive flag	Count responses that fall in the shaded threshold boxes; 4+ = positive screen
Part B (12 items)	Symptom detail	Use patterns to guide interview and impairment review
Inattention vs Hyperactivity/Impulsivity pattern	Clinical “shape” of symptoms	Helps you target examples, supports treatment planning

How to Use the ASRS in Practice

Before you start (30 seconds that prevent messy data)

Confirm the respondent is 18+.
Explain: “This is a screen for ADHD symptoms. It doesn’t diagnose ADHD.”
Anchor the timeframe: “Think about the past 6 months.”
Ask for “typical days,” not best days or worst weeks.

Step-by-step completion

Have the client select one frequency per item.
Encourage quick best estimates. Overthinking tends to drift toward “sometimes” for everything.
If literacy or attention is a barrier, read items aloud and clarify frequency anchors without coaching the “right” answer.

Scoring the scale

Part A screen: Count how many Part A responses fall in the shaded boxes. 4+ shaded = positive screen.
Part B: Look for reinforcing patterns (e.g., chronic disorganization, sustained attention issues, impulsivity markers).
Optional (helpful clinically): Summarize inattention vs hyperactivity/impulsivity pattern as a “profile,” not a total score.

Interpreting results (what “positive” really means)

A positive Part A screen means: “Further assessment is indicated.” It does not confirm ADHD. The next steps are where clinicians add the value:

Impairment check: Work/school performance, home management, relationships, driving/safety, finances, routines.
Developmental course: ADHD is neurodevelopmental—symptoms should be present since earlier life, even if the client didn’t label them that way at the time.
Differential + comorbidity: ADHD-like symptoms show up across many conditions (and ADHD often co-occurs with them).

High-yield differential prompts (fast)

Consider	What can mimic ADHD	What to ask/verify
Anxiety disorders	Distractibility from worry/hypervigilance	When attention drops: during worry spikes or across contexts?
Depression	Low drive, slowed processing, poor concentration	Is the “attention problem” episodic with mood?
Bipolar spectrum	Impulsivity, sleep disruption, goal-directed bursts	Any hypomanic history, decreased need for sleep?
Sleep disorders	Inattention, irritability, executive dysfunction	Sleep duration/quality, snoring, shift work
Substance use / caffeine	Focus variability, rebound symptoms	Timing, amounts, withdrawal/rebound patterns
Medical (e.g., thyroid)	Restlessness, concentration issues	Recent labs, medical review as indicated

Communicating with the patient (a simple script)

“This result suggests ADHD is possible, and it’s worth doing a full evaluation.”
“A lot of things affect attention—sleep, anxiety, depression, stress, substance use—so we’ll look at the whole picture.”
“We’ll focus on both symptoms and impairment, because impairment is what drives treatment planning.”

Clinical Pearls and Common Pitfalls

Pearls

Use ASRS early to structure your interview around concrete examples (missed deadlines, forgotten tasks, chronic lateness, impulsive spending, driving issues).
Track function, not just symptoms. ADHD treatment planning gets clearer when you document impairment in 2–3 domains.
Treat the domain pattern as a conversation starter: “Where do you see this most - work, home, relationships?”

Pitfalls

Wrong timeframe. The ASRS is past 6 months, not “last week.”
Over-weighting a “total score” mindset instead of impairment + course.
Missing sleep, mood, anxiety, substance, and bipolar spectrum factors.
Ignoring medication timing (stimulants, antidepressants, caffeine) when interpreting symptom frequency.

Equity and access

Use validated translations from official sources when possible.
Offer read-aloud administration when attention, literacy, or disability impacts completion.
Be mindful of cultural expectations around activity level and “productivity” norms.

Reliability, Validity, and Norms (brief, clinician-useful)

Evidence supports the ASRS v1.1 as a useful adult ADHD screener, with published work showing strong specificity in some population contexts and reasonable sensitivity depending on setting and methodology. It’s best used the way it was designed: as a screen paired with clinical review, not as a stand-alone diagnostic tool.

Clinically, the most defensible use is:

Part A: decide whether to proceed to fuller evaluation.
Pattern review: focus your interview and treatment planning.
Repeat administration: monitor change over time if your conditions stay consistent.

References

Conclusion

The ASRS v1.1 is a fast, structured way to screen adult ADHD symptoms and organize your assessment. Use Part A to decide whether a fuller evaluation is warranted, then use Part B and domain patterns to guide your interview. Anchor interpretation in impairment, developmental course, and differential diagnosis. And if you’re using a calculator, make sure it applies the official Part A shaded thresholds consistently - because that’s where most scoring mistakes happen.