Early-Warning Tracker

How this tool works

Once a week, you check in against the published early signs of autistic burnout: how your energy is holding, how much you have left for people, how well you are coping with noise, change and demand — the questions map to what the research defines, not to a mood score. Each check-in's answers are compared to banding thresholds computed on this site's scoring endpoint (nothing stored server-side, no accounts), and the band — steady, strain, warning — comes back with guidance written for that reading. The check-ins themselves live in your browser's local storage: your trend never leaves this device, and the export and delete-all buttons do exactly what they say.

The point is the trend, not any single week. One bad check-in is a bad week; several climbing weeks in a row is a pattern — and patterns are what burnout gives you time to act on, if you can see them coming. Sustained high readings shift the guidance toward load reduction, and burnout-adjacent readings signpost crisis resources gently, without ever speaking a diagnosis.

The research behind it

The signs tracked are the published definitions of autistic burnout, not a generic wellness checklist: pervasive exhaustion and interpersonal withdrawal as the essential pair, with reduced tolerance and harder-to-mask close behind (Raymaker et al., 2020; Higgins et al., 2021). Two more findings shape the tool. First, autistic adults are frequently misdiagnosed before being recognized as burnt out (Arnold et al., 2023) — external checklists help where the internal sense has been overwritten. Second, interoception differences can mute the early warning itself (Mantzalas et al., 2022) — many people simply cannot feel the decline until it arrives. That is the whole reason a weekly external check-in exists: it watches what you might not be able to feel.

One sober piece of context the research insists on: autistic burnout carries documented links to suicidal ideation (Raymaker et al., 2020; Cassidy et al., 2018). The tool treats that as a reason for honest, calm signposting on high readings — not as a reason to scare anyone on a steady band.

How to use it well

• Pick one day and stick to it. A weekly rhythm — Sunday evening, Friday morning, whichever — makes the trend comparable instead of mood-sampled.
• Answer honestly, especially on good weeks. A trend is only as useful as its worst input is truthful.
• Watch the direction, not the number. Strain for three weeks after steady is a different message than strain as your baseline — the guidance says which is which.
• Use the export with someone you trust. The research on interoception (Mantzalas et al., 2022) is why it exists: a partner, therapist or doctor can read the trend even when you can't feel it moving.
• Act on warning bands early. Load reduction is cheaper in strain than in burnout — the whole research-backed point of an early warning tracker.

What this tool is not

• Not a screener, not a diagnosis. It tracks published signs and bands them; it cannot tell you what you have, and it never speaks a clinical word at you.
• Not a substitute for support. Weeks of warning-band readings — or any reading that scares you — deserve a human professional, not just a web tool.
• Not a crisis service. The signposting points to real help; it is not itself the help.

Questions people ask

Why weekly and not daily?

Because burnout moves in weeks, not hours. Daily check-ins would measure mood noise; a weekly rhythm matches the timescale the research describes (Raymaker et al., 2020) and keeps the ritual light enough to actually keep.

What is the band actually based on?

Bandings map to the published burnout signs — exhaustion, withdrawal, reduced tolerance, masking cost (Higgins et al., 2021). The thresholds and every sentence of guidance are computed server-side and self-authored; no research instrument is reproduced.

My trend has been “strain” forever. Is that bad?

A flat strain band means chronic load — the guidance will say so, and chronic is worth taking seriously even when it never spikes. Burnout research treats sustained demand without recovery as the pattern that precedes the crash (Raymaker et al., 2020).

Where are my check-ins stored?

In your browser's local storage on this device. Nothing is uploaded; the export button writes your trend to text you can share; delete-all removes everything, permanently.

Can I use this for my child?

The signs tracked here come from research on autistic adults' lived experience (Raymaker et al., 2020; Higgins et al., 2021). A parent can absolutely log observations and watch the trend, but the reading language is written for the person doing the checking in — and for children, a professional who knows autistic kids is the right interpreter of a weeks-long pattern.

Where to go next

• Signal Decoder — when a bad week already happened, read what it was doing.
• Energy Ledger — the daily budget underneath the weekly pattern.
• Autistic burnout and masking — the essay on what sustained masking does to energy.
• Unmasking and stress as competence — the suite's companion essay.