Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults

A Guide for the Anxious, Uniquely Wired, and Easily Distracted

By: Caroline Maguire

Narrated by: Caroline Maguire

From a social emotional learning expert: a book providing simple, science-based, practical advice including scripts, tips and strategies to help Neurodivergent adults who have ADHD, autism or anxiety find the belonging and support of lifelong friendships they seek.

Friendship can be hard for many Neurodivergent adults. There is an assumption that good, worthwhile friendships “should” come easy. However, for Neurodivergent adults, there are brain-based reasons why friendship can feel less intuitive. From differences in the parts of the brain that are vital to managing the logistics of a fulfilling social life to difficulty with self-regulation, the way neurodiverse individuals experience social bonding and connection can feel unintuitive.

Friendship Skills For Neurodivergent Adults is a guide to navigate these differences, broken into three parts:

1. How friendship works
2. How to find your people
3. How connecting will get you in motion

With the guidance of Friendship Skills For Neurodivergent Adults, readers will feel less alone, and have the tools to understand the unique way neurodiverse individuals can approach friendship.

Critic reviews

For Autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD adults who want practical guidance for real connection--this book was written with you in mind.
—Jessica McCabe, New York Times bestselling author of How to ADHD

Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults is the kind of book that meets you where you are. Caroline Maguire breaks down social concepts with clarity, compassion, and metaphor in a way that feels genuinely respectful to neurodivergent experience. Nothing here is patronizing or prescriptive — it’s practical, hopeful, and deeply human. She names the realities so many of us carry while offering clear paths toward friendship that don’t ask you to mask or contort yourself. A needed and affirming guide for our community.—Megan Anna Neff, PsyD, clinical psychologist; author of Self-Care for Autistic People; and founder of Neurodivergent Insights

"As an autistic ADHD therapist and coach who spent decades feeling like an alien in my own life, I know how brutal friendship can feel for neurodivergent adults. Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults: A Guide for the Anxious, Uniquely Wired, and Easily Distracted gives autistic and ADHD adults something we rarely get: concrete language, permission to honor our sensory and social limits, and a way to build real connection without masking ourselves into burnout. Caroline treats autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people as worthy of love exactly as we are, then walks readers through small, doable steps that make belonging feel possible instead of out of reach."—Patrick Casale, AuDHD mental health therapist, neurodivergent business coach, TEDx speaker, and host of the All Things Private Practice and Divergent Conversations podcasts

"Caroline Maguire is a relationship guru for anyone with a neurodiversity, especially those with ADHD and anxiety. Her book is an extraordinary offering full of warmth, insight and depth. It’s a useful and fun must read.”
—Dr. Ned Hallowell, New York Times bestselling co-author of Driven to Distraction and ADHD 2.0

"Friendship can be difficult for the neurodivergent. Thankfully, Caroline Maguire provides us with the strategies and tools needed to rise to the challenge! In Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults, she shares meaningful ideas and actionable exercises that help us connect with others, exploring everything from friendship anxiety, masking (and unmasking), how to tell if someone will be a good friend, and friendship maintenance. And the book is written in a neurodiverse-friendly way that chunks information for easy processing, and revisits key concepts to make sure we remember them. It’s great! Buy this book!"—Brendan Mahan, host of the ADHD Essentials Podcast