The contradiction at the center
ADHD often craves novelty, variety, and unpredictability. Autism often craves routine, predictability, and known stimuli. A person who has both lives with that tension on a clock cycle that is hard to predict from outside.
Most productivity apps are built around one of those poles and lose the other. Habit-stacking apps work for the autistic side and feel unbearable to the ADHD side. Gamified novelty apps work for the ADHD side and feel intolerable to the autistic side. AuDHD adults churn through both.
Three patterns we built for
Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). A subset of autistic adults experience high anxiety in response to demands, including demands phrased as suggestions, including demands made by themselves to themselves. The clinical literature on PDA is still developing (Newson et al., 2003; O'Nions et al., 2018), but the lived experience is consistent: imperatives trigger shutdown.
KickMint's adaptive prompt tone, when the user reports PDA-aware framing helps them, switches the breakdown prompt's instruction style from imperatives ("Open the document") to declaratives ("Opening the document is the first action") and softens the Stuck recovery to "Here is one option you could try." Same content, different cognitive load.
Sensory overload. The autistic side often runs out of bandwidth in sensory-noisy environments. The ADHD side often does not notice this happening until it is already too late. The product answer is Stealth mode: a single tap that dims animations, mutes notifications, and switches the UI to a high-contrast minimal palette. It is a self-regulation lever the user reaches for, not an algorithm trying to predict their state.
Novelty rotation. ADHD craves variety; autism craves consistency. The Novelty Nudge feature lets the user say "I am bored of my current task," and quietly rotates Pick One toward a different category from the one the user worked on yesterday. The autistic side keeps the same surface; the ADHD side gets a fresh face.
Why the on-device AI matters specifically for AuDHD
AuDHD adults disclose more in private writing than in shared tools. That is not a soft observation; it is a practical fact about masking and trust. The breakdowns and Stuck recoveries that the on-device AI produces are most useful when they are honest, and they are honest when nothing about the system makes the user perform.
The model lives on your phone. It downloads once, about 900 megabytes, then it never talks to us again. There is no cloud inference for any AI feature. The optional encrypted sync (Pro) is end-to-end encrypted; the server holds ciphertext for at most 90 days and has no key material.
What we did not build
We did not build a diagnostic. KickMint does not screen for ADHD or autism, and never asks "do you have AuDHD?" as a gateway question. It asks about preferences (PDA-aware tone, sensory mode, novelty rotation) that are useful regardless of identity, and the user opts in.
We did not build a one-size-fits-all profile. The adaptive layers (energy, capacity, optional cycle phase, sensory mode, PDA tone) compose. The user can switch any one of them on or off without losing the rest.
If you want to read more
- Antshel, K. M., et al. (2016). The comorbidity of ADHD and autism spectrum disorder. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, 16(3), 279-293.
- Hours, C., Recasens, C., & Baleyte, J. M. (2022). ASD and ADHD comorbidity: What are we talking about? Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13.
- O'Nions, E., et al. (2018). Identifying features of pathological demand avoidance using the Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 27(4), 407-419.
The full bibliography is at /science. The privacy policy is at /privacy. The medical disclaimer is at /medical-disclaimer.
Common questions
What is AuDHD?
AuDHD is the co-occurrence of ADHD and autism. ADHD often craves novelty and unpredictability while autism often craves routine and predictability, so an AuDHD adult lives with both pulls on a cycle that is hard to predict from outside.
Why do most productivity apps fail AuDHD users?
Most apps are built around one pole. Habit-stacking apps suit the autistic side but feel unbearable to the ADHD side; gamified novelty apps suit the ADHD side but feel intolerable to the autistic side. AuDHD adults churn through both.
How does KickMint support PDA (pathological demand avoidance)?
When the user opts into PDA-aware tone, KickMint switches breakdown instructions from imperatives ("Open the document") to declaratives ("Opening the document is the first action") and softens the Stuck recovery to "Here is one option you could try."
Is AuDHD an official diagnosis?
No. AuDHD is an informal term for the co-occurrence of ADHD and autism, each of which is diagnosed separately. KickMint does not diagnose or screen for either; it offers preference-based settings such as PDA-aware tone, sensory mode, and novelty rotation that are useful regardless of formal labels.
What is sensory overload and how does KickMint help?
Sensory overload is when environmental input exceeds what a person can process, common on the autistic side of AuDHD. KickMint's Stealth Mode is a one-tap lever that dims animations, mutes notifications, and switches to a high-contrast minimal palette, so the user can self-regulate rather than rely on an algorithm.
Why does on-device AI matter for AuDHD users?
AuDHD adults often disclose more in private writing than in shared tools because of masking and trust. KickMint's model runs on the phone and never sends data to a server, so task breakdowns and Stuck recoveries stay private. The optional sync is end-to-end encrypted.