An intelligent textbook about ADHD, written for the person who has it and the people who care for them — to read together.
📖 Read it here: https://arunbatchu.github.io/adhd/
An ADHD diagnosis lands on more than one person. Most ADHD books pick a single reader — the patient, or the parent, or the clinician. This one addresses two readers at once, in every chapter: the person who has ADHD, and the parent, partner, sibling, or friend trying to work out how to help.
Particular emphasis on things the literature tends to underserve:
- Late diagnosis in adulthood, and ADHD in girls and women — masking, high achievement hiding the struggle, and the gender diagnosis gap
- Supporting an adult family member without parenting them
- Caring for the caregiver — strain, burnout, and boundaries
The book ends with two documents the readers write themselves: a personal owner's manual by the person with ADHD, and a family support plan by the people around them. Then they trade.
| Element | Count |
|---|---|
| Chapters | 15 |
| Words | ~65,000 |
| Concepts in the learning graph | 300 |
| Interactive MicroSims | 23 |
| Glossary terms | 300 |
| FAQ questions | 108 |
| Quiz questions | 300 (two quizzes per chapter) |
| Annotated references | 150 |
This is an intelligent textbook: concepts are organized as a dependency graph, content is generated against that graph so nothing is introduced before its prerequisites, and interactive simulations let readers test ideas directly rather than just read about them.
docs/
├── index.md Landing page
├── about.md Audience, how to read, limits, citation
├── course-description.md Seed document (Bloom's-organized outcomes)
├── glossary.md 300 ISO 11179-compliant terms
├── faq.md 108 questions
├── chapters/ 15 chapters, each with index, two quizzes, references
├── learning-graph/ Concept graph, taxonomy, quality reports
│ ├── learning-graph.csv Source of truth (300 concepts + dependencies)
│ ├── learning-graph.json Generated; includes Concept Impact Scores
│ └── csv-to-json.py Regeneration script
└── sims/ 23 MicroSims + interactive graph viewer
pip install mkdocs mkdocs-material
mkdocs serveThen open http://127.0.0.1:8000/adhd/.
Verify before committing — this catches broken nav links, the common failure:
mkdocs build --strictDeploy to GitHub Pages:
mkdocs gh-deploy --forcelearning-graph.csv is the source of truth. After editing it, regenerate the
JSON from docs/learning-graph/:
python3 csv-to-json.py learning-graph.csv learning-graph.json color-config.json metadata.json taxonomy-names.jsoncolor-config.json and taxonomy-names.json are committed so legend colors
and names stay stable across regenerations.
Generated with Dan McCreary's claude-skills intelligent-textbook pipeline, using Claude Code:
| Step | Skill |
|---|---|
| Scaffold | book-installer feature 0 |
| Course description | course-description-analyzer |
| Learning graph (300 concepts) | learning-graph-generator |
| Chapter structure (15 chapters) | book-chapter-generator |
| Chapter content (~65k words) | chapter-content-generator |
| MicroSims (23) | microsim-generator conventions |
| Glossary, FAQ, quizzes, references | dedicated generator skills |
Project conventions and current pipeline state are in CLAUDE.md.
This book explains; it does not diagnose or prescribe. It describes what an evaluation involves but cannot replace one, and explains how ADHD medications work while leaving dosing to you and your prescriber. Where evidence is thin or contested, the book says so.
If you are in crisis, contact a clinician — or in the US, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Corrections, particularly on clinical accuracy and broken links, are welcome — please open an issue or a pull request.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Share and adapt for non-commercial purposes, with attribution, under the same license.
To cite:
Batchu, Arun. Understanding ADHD: A Guidebook for People with ADHD and the
People Who Care for Them. 2026. https://arunbatchu.github.io/adhd/