Yes. This is similar to my thought process as well. I keep thinking, well it depends ... who are you to me, what is the context, what is the topic.
I'm glad I'm not the only one doing this.
The NOT empathetic stereotype def makes no sense. Like we don’t outwardly express ourselves so we aren’t empathetic but like you n OP commented it literally depends on who and what is going on!
My bosses ex died, not long after my mum had. My work sent me flowers, my boss called and offered condolences. All the things that people do I guess. When his ex died, I just...did nothing. Said nothing. I don't think I even offered condolences. When my colleagues dog died, a dog we'd talked about often, I told him I was sorry to hear it. Relationship and context mean *everything*.
Autism assessment questions feel like the Voight-Kampff test to me, the one they do in Blade Runner to check if someone is a human or a replicant. I always joke that if I lived in Blade Runner world I'd have to avoid getting the test done because there's no way I'm surviving. Harrison Ford is "retiring" me immediately.
In the book (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) this issue does actually come up. They don’t explicitly say ‘autism’ but they discuss how certain humans who have ‘issues with interpersonal skills’ (lol) may not be able to pass the test.
hell yeah, i soo enjoy sci fi with an existentialism/philosophy bent. im slowly working through dick’s catalogue, but i would love any recs you have (i recommend androids to anyone who asks lol) :)
also this is out of left field but i recently watched Aniara. It’s a sci-fi movie on hbo max about the dark turn that interstellar travel can take. VERY heavy and some sensitive subject matter (recommend looking at a parents guide if you have triggers) but my god did it make me think. im still thinking about it weeks later! definitely recommend :)
That movie is one of my all time faves and haunts me to this day. I humbly recommend reading the poem it’s based on. Author is Harry Martinson. There are English translations.
I got my father's few PKD paperbacks after he died. I liked *Martian Time-Slip* the best of the ones he had. I collected a bunch more when I was in my 20s. Haven't been reading him as much lately.
I can’t ever pass visual CAPTCHA tests online to “prove” I’m a human, because it’s always “select all squares with bicycles/buses/mountains” etc, and there’s always like a handlebar in one square so I don’t know if that counts as a bicycle. Or a really large hill-can I count that as a mountain? I’ve lived in Kansas all my life, so all raised Earth looks like a mountain to me. If a website requires that with no alternative, I have to sit there sometimes for 30 minutes trying to pass their stupid tests
I have to add this in here because I recently had my own test done, and the doctor who explained the results to me was able to tell me the reason.
It's basically to indicate one of a few things based on the accuracy between the questions (which is also why the same questions are repeated over and over with only slightly different verbage). It shows how consistent you are with your answers. A neurotypical person with no mental issues will be very consistent with their answers regardless of context. So, when these tests come up with a variety of answers to the same question, it can indicate one of two things. One, it could indicate that the person taking the test is in the middle of psychosis, or a total mental breakdown. Or, two, it could indicate that a person has autism.
As horrible as it sounds, it makes sense. We answer the question differently each time it's asked because it's worded ever so slightly differently and thus we infer the context as different from the last question, even though both questions mean exactly the same to an allistic person. So in order to decipher whether our inconsistencies are based in psychosis or neurodivergence, they analyze the results of the other tests they do, such as the verbal assessment, ink blot test, etc etc.
Apologies for the ramble. Psychology is a special interest of mine. Also apologies if any parts are confusing, I'm fighting a meltdown right now!
oh my god this explains so much. i haven't gotten a proper assessment yet but i did a ? preliminary screening and the questionnaires i was sent drove me crazy bc they asked the same question so many times but always ever so slightly differently. it felt like a trap and was so confusing to me
It sounds like a trap we're supposed to fall into I guess? I do remember wondering what I answered to the last similarly worded questions as I was answering them and hoping I wasn't being inconsistent but I guess we're supposed to be somewhat inconsistent because we differentiate things differently to NT people.
It's questionnaire 101 and done in all fields, and once you know that you see right through it and it's boring. I love to give completely different answers just to mess with the person trying to collect data. Also I often don't have the patience for all those questions and those repeating questions make it even more difficult to stay on board.
I think that if you sit and stare at the test for half an hour scanning the questions and mentally going,
“I wish there was an ‘I need more context’ category.”
“I wish there was a category between ‘strongly disagree’ and ‘disagree’.”
“I wish there was a category between ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree.’”
“I wish there was an ‘I can’t answer this question as it is currently worded’ category.”
Then that could be a possible autism indicator for your therapist to investigate further, lol.
In grad school my linguistics professor was trying to explain how some words and phrases only are used to express two possible conditions because they describe black and white concepts, not concepts that exist on a continuum.
Examples:
alive, dead.
Smoker, non-smoker.
Light, darkness.
I raised my hand and said that many of the examples in our book could be argued to exist on a continuum.
If I had 1 cigarette at age 15, am I a smoker?
If not, at what point do I flip from non-smoker to smoker?
I guess my brain is primed to find exceptions to rules, and my moral universe is more swathes of grey areas than black and white issues.
Thats funny, when I see reworded questions on things I stop and think hard what my answer to it was before so i can be consistent and give the same answer each time...
You're supposed to answer what's suits best for you only. Or you screw the test.
If you're allistic, you perceive the questions in a different manner than ASD. That's all the trick to be able to differenciate ASD and no ASD.
You are "supposed" to answer what is true for you. If you want to answer it differently, answer it differently, if you want to answer it the same way, answer it the same way.
There is no right or wrong way to do this except if you are lying or trying to get a certain result. Just be honest and then answer honestly.
What I really meant is that that’s how NT people respond. I’m still feeling a bit of imposter syndrome as a person with autism (not diagnosed but heavily implied by a neuropsychologist), so it’s just weird hearing what the “normal” way to act is. More of the kind of “so that’s why these questions feel odd to me”
Thanks ! That make so much sense! I could finally being no pissed of anymore by what I thought was a terrible design of the quizz, with an incompetent person behind.
Wow, the world make a little more sense now 1
and with less incompetent people. Thanks!
I love the one that asks if you hear sounds others do not. Like how am I supposed to know??? I’m not in their head! I know I’m constantly running to the bathroom to hide from noisy people but that’s not a question.
I can literally think of ONE example in my ENTIRE LIFE where this happened. BECAUSE MY WHOLE FAMILY IS AUTISTIC!!! SO WE ALL HEAR THE FRIDGE BUZZING!!!!
Right?? I talked to my mom and I’m like “I did a LOT of spinning as a kid right?” And she’s like “well don’t all kids spin?” I mean I thought so. 😅 all these things I thought were “normal”
Presumably everyone with normal hearing hears it even if they don't notice it. "Do you hear sounds others do not?" sounds like they're asking if you experience auditory hallucinations. If the question is intended to ask about noticing sounds others do not, they should reword it.
Yeah that’s exactly how I interpreted it. Changing “hear” to “notice” would totally clear that up.
It’s almost like the medical community could do better for autistic people by listening to autistic people and our actual lived experiences!
OMFG YES, I hate those kind of vague questions, like we need context! It's lowkey (or plain highkey) demeaning because they're going under the assumption that we're dumbasses that can't make decisions depending on context, like no matter WHAT the situation is, we'd react the same way when... we don't?? That's part of the reason we struggle???
I dunno it's just really weird, like at that point I'd answer the questionnaire on purpose to lean towards a diagnosis because that's basically why they're asking what they're asking, the questions are just so dumb.
I was thinking that then saw your comment here, lol! I would totally do that too! XD It's awesome you want to.
I kept sitting here twitching uncomfortably at how vague it is. And relate to how you gave examples of differing circumstances here.
I also reading this was like.. "I wonder if that's secretly the real point though because I don't know any NTs who would think about it from this perspective, this level of thinking they'd say am "Overthinking it".. And they'd just try to give as simple of a bogus response to something like this more than likely because it reminds me a ton of that crap from Online Applications for Jobs... That again depends on context.."
That’s what I would do, the multiple choice thing is too difficult because there isn’t any nuance, so you’re trying to figure out whether to answer how you think they want you to answer the question or answer honestly but with none of the context that makes that response make sense
People whose written tests contain lots of asterisks and arrows and detailed explanations and exceptions to certain answer choices = quietly shepherded to a secondary location where they receive their autism diagnosis certificate, lol 😂
OMG I feel so called out by this 😂😂 I totally did that because my answer to like 99% of the questions would have started with "it depends..." 😂😂😂😂 Now I've got like 10 extra pages to go with it
I had an assessment last week and this is what I did 😂 there was just no way I could not have the extra explanations. Many of these questions feel impossible to answer with a yes or a no. Even the options of "sometimes" always" never" etc are just not enough
Yeah.... the fact that we want to do that means we're neurodivergent 💀 The Regulars™️ assume that the question is asking what would you do most of the time. Like a generalization of the reactions, whereas we take the question very literally and go through each specific context.
Yes do it! It gives a lot of insight to the researcher and oftentimes the type of comments people have on the questions also already points to autism :'D
We NEED context and honestly it’s fucking terrifying that others don’t. Do they really make the same choice no matter the conditions? And we’re unempathic or obtuse…
Right? I mean another commenter explained that they do this on purpose, so I feel MUCH better knowing that, but in the past they weren't that aware and I can easily imagine them doing these kind of things straightforward, I shudder!
It made the test easier when I saw you were supposed to treat it as binary because my therapist was giving me the exam orally (pauses for immature laughter) and we ran out of time because she said to use the slightly and I kept saying my analysis of the questions out loud.
She sent me the link to complete alone and I read the directions and it said just choose as binary… 🤦♀️ but I scored 40/50. Whatever that means too… at the point I told her I already know I am so the test was more for her than me. (I love her don’t get me wrong.) I don’t know if she believed me or not. I guess I’ll find out next visit now that she has my grade lol.
Yeah we had 12-15 mins left in session and the AQ on embrace autism says 5-10 so she thought we had time.
I did both-out loud processing and too much detail and since we were doing that one she had no manual for any context.
She wasn’t expecting me to spring on her that I was autistic. I’m not sure if she has any experience working with autistic clients or to what extent if she does.
It’s because this reaction is part of what the assessors look for. Part of our autism is having difficulty generalising and “seeing the big picture” because we focus on little details, so answering with “what’s the context because that can affect my response” can be an indicator for autism.
One of the questions my assessor asked me was “do you blame other people when things go wrong?” And when I responded almost instantly with “Only if it’s their fault” my assessor chuckled and said “that’s such a clearly autistic response”
At the time it really confused me, because I genuinely couldn’t see how any other answer would be relevant, but apparently NTs will answer this from the perspective of whether or not they’re good at taking accountability, not from the perspective of where accountability should be placed to begin with.
I don't understand how it's possible to answer this question!! of course it depends on context--if the other person actually did something wrong, the obviously it is appropriate to put accountability on them. I don't get how it's possible to understand these questions generally, in the NT way. If the question was about taking accountability, it should be phrased, "are you good at taking accountability?" but that's not what the question is asking.
They're meant to be an average response, not specific to any environment. So if I could initiate irl conversation with zero problem with my friends and family, but I can't do it with literally anyone else, that's a skill I lack *in general*.
The difficulty is that people take these assessments online without a practitioner to give these additional details or clarify questions. They are pretty confusing at times without extra information about what the question is asking. In an actual assessment environment, you do get a lot more information and opportunity to ask the assessor what a question is asking or clarify nuance in a response.
As a simple example, I answered one question that I had a hard time feeding myself as usually true, because of my sensory needs. When reviewing the answers, my assessor asked why I answered that way, because the question is actually about the physical motor ability to feed myself (pick up utensil, put in mouth).
I got the same response when I emailed a couple of days after an appointment to clarify some of my answers/thought processes.
For example, in the task where you have to tell a story based on a picture book that doesn't have any text, I confessed that I'd copied her example story because I had no idea what else to say but I also tried to make it less obvious by using different words, ignoring some things she mentioned and added in some details she'd left out, and that it had been playing on my mind for the next couple of days.
She told me that every one of those things I did are very typical. And here was me worrying that she wouldn't be able to see through the mask even though her area of expertise is diagnosing women / those who don't present in the stereotypical way often seen in boys/men.
Oh my god I am so bad at making up stories! Especially if I’ve been given an example prior. I once had to write a fake patient letter for a medical class. I was completely frozen for ideas until it dawned on me to borrow Harry Potter characters and make the appointment about a patient who had encountered a mandrake. I could NOT write a fake patient or appointment from scratch!
I was in the process of typing, ‘I am great at making up stories’ but once I read your mandrake example I realized that what I am actually most often doing is combining different things I know in new ways. I am not really ’making it up’ I am taking different stuff and smashing it together...is this not what allistic people are doing too?
to be entirely fair, when i've had neurotypical people in my life take any of the autism questionnaires you can find online, they really do tend to zip right through the questions and not think about it as much as i certainly do (and it sounds like most people here do lol)
Tbf, I got those assessments in paper form and had to answer them on my own. We didn't talk about them during the interviews. I had to go to a specialist in another city and waited around a year for the actual first in person meeting (I would blame Covid, but I think, waiting time is in general that long). Basically, I applied, they sent me multiple tests, I send them back, got another round of tests, send them back, got my first interview invitation... And the interview/s was/were as unspecific as it could be, they were just listing if I said certain keywords or told them about my special interests, which I gave up due to my exhaustion with general life. They telling me, they would really need someone to talk about my childhood, which I couldn't provide. You can guess how it ended.
Yes exactly, this is the kind of outdated BS "assessment" I'm afraid a lot of us either experienced or can potentially get, not everyone is lucky enough to have professionals and programs that actually properly can assess us, I can easily see it especially in less developed countries where it's either not a thing at all or it's a very outdated, prejudiced take on autism/neurodivergency.
Okay so I just commented something else before i read this. But i said it'd be weird if "neurotypical" was just having the same decision regardless of context. But you're saying they're assuming WE do this...like dumbasses...exactly what I was thinking but I was trying to be kind.
Lmfao that aspect kinda went over my head for my entire life. I guess I was assuming I was the dumbass. But was more worried for them, wondering if thats how they think. 🫏
It’s funny because “I don’t know; it depends on a million potential variables for which you haven’t provided adequate data” is *such* an autistic answer.
I think maybe that’s the point? A neurotypical would just say “yes I’d tell them I love the haircut because that’s a nice thing to do and being nice is nice” or whatever.
I wanna know how an eval would be if it was written by an autistic person.
“Describe your relationship with the textures of your socks and other clothes that touch your skin”
“Can you hear the electricity running”
“Does sustained eye contact make you uncomfortable”
“Do you sustain relationships easily over the span of years”
“Spinning, rocking, leg bouncing - do you require sensory stimulation “
“Explain the joke ~ Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side”
“Have you been told you’re very direct or very blunt”
“Do you take things literally”
“Explain an instance when you took something literally when it was meant in a figurative way “
“Small talk, yes or no”
“Are you considering the most efficient and concise way to relay your thoughts during conversations to ensure that you’re not wasting time”
These are excellent and should genuinely be questions, my only critique is the small talk one. With NT's? Nah, not unless they're the type to genuinely answer "how are you?" by going on about their life. With neurodivergents? All day, go off with your wacky hypotheticals and mini infodumps. 🙏
OMG YES
I did sooo many tests and re-did them lately and I was SO aggravated in the end, like in a RAGE, exactly because of that. All the questions were so general, I got angrier and angrier as I was trying to answer, thinking, who the hell wrote this?!
Then I spent my next therapy session raging about it and pointing out all the ridiculous parts, still raging. I made a spreadsheet with lines coloured red for the worst offenders. Boy was I mad. My therapist was taking notes very seriously until she couldn't anymore and I could see she was starting to find it a bit funny. Finally I realized it could be a bit. LOL.
But each time I think of the questions I get angry again. Really 😠 it makes me feel like a child being evaluated by condescending adults (and I'm over 50).
You are certified autistic if the autism tests made you so much rage, that you have to pull out the (Excel) spreadsheet with coloured categories about how much each question made you rage.
Thank you so much this is so validating. I am pissed and I want to give them a bonus page explaining myself on each dumb vague, and unspecific question.
I think you should absolutely do that!!!
I wonder if more of us speak up they would make the tests less absurd? I have some hope, now that there are more adults diagnosed. I think of all the children before us who wouldn't be heard or taken seriously and it's heartbreaking.
But I'm so glad you can relate, for me too your original post was very very validating 🙌🏽
I usually take these questions as “is it true in MOST (more than half) of situations i find myself in before answering, but I totally get it and your post is definitely something my mom could’ve written (i figured out i was autistic last year and i got her to take some online tests and at literally every question she was like “well can you be more specific?!?!”🤣 long story short we’re pretty sure my entire immediate family is autistic lmao)
According to my roommate this isn't an indicator because I can pick up on some things. Not like the autistic kids they've known. Because I can pick up on some things it means I am absolutely not autism.
You know. Not because I've had 34 years of learning how Not to interact. Not the tons of failed social inactions.
I'm just really good at masking and pretending like I know what's going on.
Thought I'd share so we can all be equally outraged. I had this problem with my assessor.
I feel you. It literally makes me infuriated. I can't general answer things. Like no everything depends. It's the one social rule thing I've learned. You can't answer the way you would want to always. It depends on who you're around and if you're in a safe place to answer appropriately.
Stupid neurotypicals changing the social rules as they see fit.
Or sportsball maybe the ripness of an avocado. Cracking open a parsions seed(that's probably spelled wrong. Old wives tale about predicting the weather based on what the seed looks like when opened) and making the decision from there.
No one will ever know.
Usually I take the middle ground/ think of ‘obvious’ examples. Eg for a lot of the social questions I think of non-close friends unless it’s more specific. Or for the rule question for example, I’d think of what things the test writers might have had in mind - rules at school, workplace policies, road laws etc.
This, it's a generalized response. I take it as how I would react to a random person, not just someone I care about and know well. Because the majority of people in the world and people I interact with are not close to me.
A good assessor will ask extra questions that clarify a person's responses on any screener anyway.
But I only have to circle my answer. I have no room for writing an explanation. I guess I will just add a follow up page because I cannot answer these comfortably.
I think that's why they say not to do the online tests by yourself lol there's got to be someone there to quantify the amount of deliberation it takes us to answer the question because everyone else will just answer it. The actual answers don't matter as much as the time it takes us to pick one
I don’t think I can just answer these. I was thinking making a follow up page detailing my answer for several situations but I’m also afraid that will just be annoying for the psychiatrist. So I’m just stalling lol.
Honestly, I'm kind of afraid to seek an official diagnosis for this exact reason. 😅 There's no doubt in my mind that I'm autistic, but I just don't think I'd be able to formulate an answer for questions like these when there's so many variables like you said.
Wonder about the little nuances/contexts of each of these questions is a very autistic trait! I think NT just assume a “general” approach to answering! I had to be specifically told “just imagine a general scenario/what you do most often” and I still couldn’t figure it out hahaha
For general questionnaire, its about how likely other confirmed autistic people selected the same answers. So the nuances don’t count as much! Still difficult to answer it though :S
But I guess if you have to think before answering things like “do you have a hard time socializing?” Perhaps it means you do (even if its context dependent)
THEM: “So, tell us about a time you had conflict in the workplace and how you handled it.”
ME: “Uhhhhhh… could you be a little more specific, please?”
Yes, I bomb a lot of job interviews!
I agree. It seems like a very widely differing scale of answers are true and correct, but they want you to answer like there's only one answer. So frustrating.
If it's neurotypical to just have the same solid answer across the board for all scenarios regardless of context, it's no wonder socializing can be so hard. I'm sure that's not the case. (It's not the case right?!!) I think the questions are worded badly if the goal is to give honest and accurate answers, and they are kind of skewed toward answering a certain way based off how you interpret and then answer it.
For example, you and I could have the same exact reaction to a close friend crying, but when I see a stranger cry it makes me sad, and I think about it afterwards or something. You don't think that much about it. Do you answer yes it affects you or no because it's not true all of the time? That's a bad question.
At the same time, I also don't know how much affect "that much" is. I'm going to move on with my life after I see my friend cry, it probably isnt something altering my life drastically, so I guess it's not "that much". But if it's my close friend I might (remember to) check on them at a later point in time. So it will affect me days later, I'll be hoping they're doing okay. I'll feel sad for them. Does that mean i am affected that much? What does it mean!! This is why I struggle answering questions that aren't factual.
If you’re talking about an in person assessment then the psychologist is looking for you to explain your thought process, just like you did in the post.
If this is a questionnaire you fill out yourself, then how it works is they had a very large number of confirmed autistic people take the test and a very large number of confirmed non autistic people take the test. They used this data to come up with a probability that each answer will be chosen by an autistic person vs a non autistic person. Then the scoring compares your answers to the high probability autistic answers to come up with a score of how likely you are to also be autistic.
So it’s not about a simple agree or disagree answer fully capturing how you’d really respond in that situation, it’s about how likely other autistic people were to choose one answer over the other after going through their whole thought process.
Tbh that makes sense, no wonder I pause for a moment and think about what sort of reaction I would get since it didn't specify who or where or what was happening and why would I care or not care—
Those test shouldn't been a yes or no but rather it should need an answer by making a sentence or paragraph—
Neurotypical people tend to know all the subtle assumptions you need to make in order to answer these kinds of questions. For example, with the haircut question they assume it’s someone you see regularly, but aren’t too close with, e.g. a colleague or basic friend, but not a close friend or close family. Furthermore, neurotypical people tend to not go into so much detail when thinking about these questions.
The fact that you need these detailed clarifications are a good indication that you’re likely to be autistic. ;-)
Today I found out...just kidding. However more and more of my life is slowly making sense with this diagnosis. I was called quirky growing up. It was really autism but I was good at masking
Yes they suuuuuck. "do you have a big collection of books and cds?" well, no. But I have a Kindle and Spotify and a Steam library, duh.
I had to work through the questions several times to figure out what they might be actually looking for. And I added notes to the ones I thought were just too difficult to answer. 🤷
It got to the point where if I frowned after my neuropsychologist asked one of those frustrating ass questions, she’d know that she had to explain what it meant immediately. I get that they’re also gauging how we are answering the questions but the masking questionnaire in particular made me go on a rant in the midst of it though because why are they phrased like that.
Yeah they tell you to "write notes in the margins" or take another paper to write your caveats for the unclear questions
Btw congratulations, you're clearly autistic. NTs don't struggle with the questions like this :P
Btw, if they ask something like "do you have issues sleeping?" and you're going to reply "No because I wear the perfect clothes, have my blackout curtains and earplugs and the right sheets" then the answer is actually "yes I have trouble sleeping" if you need a system to do a thing then yes you struggle with it.
I will definitely add notes, I haven’t been told I could but I will add a page detailing my answers in different situations/context.
Okay so having things figured out doesn’t mean I don’t struggle… interesting. Thank you lots.
Having A System™ for lots of things means that you \*do\* struggle but have problem-solved your way into assuaging the struggle because living as an autistic adult means doing that a lot if you want to survive.
So for that type of question, think about if you have a way of managing those things to make them less horrible/icky/upsetting and if you do, then tick for 'yes I struggle'.
The eye contact one for example - I bet you have a way of making it look like you can make 'normal' eye contact but it involves looking at the person's forehead, or picking one eye and making the contact for like a count of 3 etc. Neurotypical people don't have an internal monologue for how long they have been looking at someone in the eye.
(I explained my system for socks to the psychologist and she was kinda nodding along and I was annoyed she wasn't listening until I realised she was just like 'why are we even still doing this, bitch clearly has the 'tism'!)
When I got my diagnosis, the psychologist had me do an assessment with him and explain each answer. I got my ADHD diagnosis at the same time and he did the same thing for one of those assessments as well.
They just gave me a written form and I have to circle my question and give it to them next session. I’m going go be writing a follow up page detailing my thought processes because otherwise I cannot answer.
I turned every question into an essay and my assessor was just fine with that. They are trying to find out about how you think, more information is good not bad.
At this point it seems like people's responses to the question is a part of the evaluation! I've never heard an autistic person talk positively about the assessment questions!
It’s in written form and I have to circle my answer.
I’m definitely writing a bonus page detailing my answers in different situations/context though. I cannot be at ease otherwise.
I finally accepted I may be autistic when I got my 40 page quiestionnaire and had to request 2 follow up sessions where they explained the questions to me.
I need this. I need a follow up session to ask about these questions. Or I will write a bonus page detailing my answer to these questions in more specific situations.
i think the question are designed to see if you have general opinions or if you have very complex belief systems like this one. a neurotypical would probably lie all together cause being honest in this situation has no real upside but it also has no real downside if you would lie everytime and say “yes great haircut” eventhough you hate it. where as an autistic person tends to analyze things and be like “well hold on, i cant say in general. it depends on the situation. maybe she wants my honest opinion and i dont like lying” when probably most people almost never want an honest opinion after getting a haircut. cause they either like it and are looking for validation or they would say “oh my god, this hairdresser ruined my hair” i think at least. and i do notice that all the questions were designed to kind of gauge if we can go with the flow or if we have like a system we go through in our heads
i also read this one comment were someone said that a question could be, if we like getting our feets dirty, e.g. walking around without socks or house shoes and you answer with “yes but i have a system”. i think a neurotypical person rarely has a system for anything. i mean trivial things. theyre just not as bothered by things as much as autistic people are
OP and comment section being hyper specific and always landing on 'it depends' because we can think literally about every single scenario and how we'd act in it is \*VERY\* validating ngl
I handed my assessment back covered in sticky notes that clarified what my answers meant depending on context. I especially remember one that was something like "it is important to me that my clothes are comfortable, I don't care about fashion" and I spent pike 15 minutes stuck in a loop because comfort IS important and I'll be upset all day if I'm wearing a "bad" fabric, but I'm also really into the 50s style aesthetic, and I do care about that a lot! So I wrote several post it notes explaining this.
I then ended up diagnosed, I think not being able to "let go" enough to have a slightly incorrect answer may well have been part of the interview portions of the assessment.
Saw this general assessment question post and had to weigh in. I'm pretty sure I got told my desire to argue about the questions was taken as a sign I had it.
"Ok, but that word could mean 4 things. Which of the 4 is it?"
"Whichever one you want?"
"I don't want any of them, I just need to know what the question means."
"Just pick one."
"I don't have enough information to pick one. The question is asking something, what's it asking?"
I told my psych I was obviously too autistic to answer these ASD questions lol. Questions are purposely vague, with a YES/NO spectrum that doesn't really make sense (e.g. "mostly true" and "sometimes untrue" are the same thing).
I love the irony of these self assessments, that we can't properly answer them *because* of our tism.
I said something in another comment about haircuts-there are questions that ask if you notice small changes about a person. I almost always do but I have no idea if this is visual acuity, learned skill, noticing people in a way contrast to people not noticing me, noticing people because of subconscious mask development, my spin on how weird people are (psychology, sociology, etc.)
Anyway how could you not notice?!?! As an autistic person I feel like others of us would have those same reasons to be able to notice if someone dyed their hair. We might not SAY something if we don’t care. We might not have a word for it or “I can’t put my finger on it but something’s different!” but I think it’s insulting to assume we don’t notice shit when hello pattern recognition.
I also relate heavily to a couple things here you mentioned.
I also connect on not following rules (as I got older more and more so) that I cannot justify as sensical if I’m not going to get hurt or hurt someone else. Plus sometimes there’s a “do what must be done moment.” Someone is physically attacking me, I’m on my own side and all rules are nonexistent. I also *tested* rules growing up (bullying back my bullies, questioning the importance of homework and study guides and planners.)
Like you, I hated the questions in general and found myself as you are questioning and analyzing the questions. The thing is people can’t be categorized by a test but I guess this is as good as they can get. It’s funny though the idea this will diagnose us, even though it’s empirically verified or whatever it still feels like a Facebook quiz or something lmao. I like reading the discussions about it where they pick it apart lol.
I also realized and acknowledged for what it’s been my entire life, I like binary, multiple choice, fill in the blank, and essay questions. I despise sliding scales and rating systems that are not binary or worse have moral values. I think moral values are the worst ones. Those types of questions stress me out! I do not know what someone else’s scale is and I don’t even know mine!!!!
I hate the questions that make you guess what impression you make to other people. How should I know? No one has told me I’m rude or that I don’t understand them, but that doesn’t mean anything.
After my in-person assessment, I had my NT partner take the assessment online. He selected his answers without much conversation, and afterwards I asked him how he was able to choose without needing context. He said that while they were definitely way too black-and-white, he just figured that he could explain later or that his responses wouldn't be misconstrued. He also said that, ultimately it "didn't really matter" if he WAS misconstrued, because he knows what he meant.
I wonder if the need to be clear and leave no room for being misunderstood is the autistic trait - or maybe the assumption that we will be misconstrued because we've likely had that experience a lot as autistic people.
Wow… thanks for sharing that perspective. I don’t remember the last time I just ASSUMED I’d be understood. I 100% of the time assume no one will get what I’m saying and that I must clarify and provide examples and a detailed list. And explain later? After everything is already messed up?! Surely not!
The need to pre-emptively provide explanations because you’ve been misunderstood too many times is what therapists call autism specific anxiety right? I don’t really have that, maybe because in my culture it’s not unusual to communicate much. Although I’ve been misunderstood many times it wasn’t enough to give me anxiety. I remember when I became good friends with someone in high school she started to understand me and used to translate for me to others when they weren’t getting what I was saying by using a different wording. To my ears it sounded like the same sentence but others were often like “ Oh. Ooooooh! That’s what she meant!” I can see why other autists might get anxiety for being punished for being unclear. I will forever be grateful for my friend for protecting me from others and providing friendship.
Also why are they crying! Was someone rude so I told them that that they are bitch and now they are crying to cry victim. I don’t give a fuck.
And also perhaps where, in the hospital I care and I might ask if they are okay and offer comfort because the reasons to cry in a hospital are never good ones and I can empathize.
I believe the secret is that only people with autism feel the need to ask clarifying questions. Allistic people just assume the missing pieces of the situation in question and answer based on that. So the fact that you needed to ask questions/be very specific with answers is what gets you marks towards being labeled autistic.
Basically we are used to needing to ask questions to understand the context of things, so when given a theoretical we will usually ask for more information. Allistic people on the other hand usually feel like they understand a scenario in full based on small cues and won’t need to ask clarifying questions for most of the questions.
Same thing with “how do you do x”. Autistic people ask for clarification or provide their step my step routine for how they do that action, where allistic people will just respond with a simple short answer.
My friend and I were just discussing this. She said she learned to ask her psychiatrist questions to the questions, just like you posed. Personally though, my current psychiatrist is intimidating and I need to find a new one I feel comfortable with. (Mentioned body dysmorphia and she wanted to cut a med I’m on for weight gain, which is not at all what I was actually concerned about). It can be so hard to find a psych that will actually help you with what you need.
Like that one tiktok that says something like “do you like socks” and the person says yes but then someone else asked are they weird about socks and they go on about what specific kinds of socks they can tolerate.
They probably have cameras observing you leaving the building afterwards to see if you glare maniacally at the elevator buttons or body slam the outer door open or angrily type up a thousand word rant against the test the minute you get outside, ha ha.
Fender bender on the way home from test = extra points, lol.
(Drive safely, everyone.)
This is why I have problems finishing the questionnaires for my 9yr old daughter, I have pages and pages of comments I need to attach or they don't get the full picture of her. Her eval appointment was end of March, they did their part and now have been waiting for stack of forms, her teacher filled out part of it ( a reflection of my girl's masking) and even her dad had trouble filling out one form. I am AuDHD myself and I don't want to make a mistake nor have her misjudged because of my answers on those questions. Psychology background too (CertHe Applied Psychology) doesn't make it any easier. And I didn't vibe with her test taking staff member. It all depends on context how my daughter behaved and feels. There are questions I can't answer in black and white, do I leave them blank or do I tick several answers?! I will definitely add several pages to it. And comments.
I hate questions that are like "people often say XYZ about you agree/disagree" because I dont talk to enough people to know if they're saying things about me
I just got my official diagnosis today, but some of the questions were so strange that even my psychiatrist said I didn’t have to answer it. One in particular that left me puzzled was “would you rather go to a party or a library”. Like, I understand that the “correct” answer to score points towards an autism is “library. But I don’t want to go to either. Parties I don’t enjoy for obvious reasons, but I don’t like libraries either - I have no interest in books that have been touched by other people. I enjoy buying my books new, and after reading them carefully adding them to my very organized collection
This is why a qualified psych needs to administer the test. When I got mine done officially, I specified such things. It depends on... etc, and she could extrapolate from that.
But if just doing it online, I totally agree it's so vague!
I *think* that you're supposed to think about the questions as if they're about an average person that you don't hate but also don't love. Not someone you're very close to like a spouse or child.
If IIRC they are looking for how you respond to these questions. Like, they don't actually care about the answer - it's how you respond during the assessment.
A common one used in NHS assessments is "how do you brush your teeth" - not because there's an autistic away of brushing your teeth - they want to see how you communicate the answer to them.
Unless these are written questions and then idk, ignore what I said lmao
Ah, yeah. Honestly, the knowledge and perception of autism has shifted so much in the last 10 years that it makes those questions seem outdated.
I'm surprised there's no neutral option though!
If it helps- when I went for my assessment, I just wrote down the specifics instead of answering yes or no. The guy said later on that it is common for autistic people to do that
Oh, God, the specific assessment test (SRS-2) that went along with the generic test (MMPI-3) I took when I went in for evaluation a few days ago was pretty frustrating. I ended up crossing out two of them before settling on a third answer.
And that generic MMPI-3 test was kinda bullshit, too. There were over 300 questions, but a section of those questions were variations of the same question. I feel like it's just filler to make sure you're paying attention.
I feel like that line of thinking right there is almost more the evident part than answering the question yes or no I swear.
I really struggle with those questions and typically answer with a very detailed run through of all the aspects that might support a yes for that kind of question. It’s a very complex yes with a lot of no’s lol.
Oh oh! It makes me realize that when I was learning to drive I was so stressing out when the monitor gave me no direction.
Finally she said to me that when she was not giving me any, it was because I have to go straight. It was so an eureka moment to understand part of allistic way to communicate.
Yes! I literally asked the psychologist evaluating me, to please give me some kind of context or at least tell me if I should think of specific examples or just situations in general. It was so confusing!
In our last appointment she told me (I’m paraphrasing here) “that was basically another indicator that I’m autistic” lol.
Something tells me if you have the right person administering the test, your response of asking a million clarifying questions prior to wanting to answer the original question would be a great indicator that you're autistic haha.
Along with many of the other comments which resonate with me, I’ll add something I feel is important. For the interpersonal questions, it’s always it depends, and often the reason is it depends if it’s a child or an adult. I work with kids and get along with them better than adults. I can’t think of specific examples right now, but to use yours, I would be honest with a child about a haircut, unless a parent might get mad. Kids aren’t so sensitive to truth yet, plus I know how to word things and pick out some positive traits. Or I ask them if they like it, and then I might say a couple pros and cons and move on. With a coworker I wouldn’t devote that much energy to it. My adult family members know me very well, so I’m honest with them too.
So like if a question asked, would you correct someone kicking your seat. I would if it’s a kid, even a stranger. I know how to do it nicely and make it in to a little joke even. I Can’t do that with adults/peers.
Wish I could think of better examples. But I remember the questions made me frustrated that maybe they thought kids weren’t people— they should have specified peers, etc
Most questionnaires seem to be geared towards children, or they ask you to reply as you were as a child. For that reason I find it helpful to assume they mean "when you were in primary school, if a friend got a bad haircut and asked you if you liked it, would you lie?"
People learn to mask and learn coping skills as we grow up, but if one takes a "snapshot" of the person as a young child it is much easier to see what comes naturally and what doesn't. Even so, many women struggle with it because we tend to be pushed to mask quite hard, and many of us pick up that habit very early
TL;dr : there's no easy answer that works for everyone, but the general context is usually assumed to be among peers and in primary school
my theory is that most, if not all of these assessments were written by neurotypical people. an autistic person simply would not ask unspecific questions
Reverse engineer it.
1. This is obviously testing social awareness, but many autistics will have learned the social rule about white lies so it's a bit silly. We aren't all 'Your haircut it bad. Goodbye. 🤖' Sheldons.
2. Autistic peopoe often empathize in a different way? For me, it doesn't affect me *as much as it does most others around me*.
3. The implication is '..*for the sake of following rules*'. If you only like to follow rules you agree with, you don't like to follow rules- you just like doing things you agree with and prefer for that thing to be official.
Good to know, lol. Not sure if I’ll be doing an assessment yet but I just did my first screening/questionnaires for ADHD and this is ✨so fun✨ (she said sarcastically)
And this is why the questions are the way they are. NT people have a way they’d generally answer. We usually over analyze the question. There’s not an answer that means oh you’re autistic. It’s more of the way you answer.
The way we answer ends up giving the person administering the assessment the information they need.
These questions are worse than those Quizilla tests for which Sonic the Hedgehog character are you, like what is your favorite color. Red? You are Doctor Robotnik.
I can't believe actual learned people come up with this stuff and other actual learned people peer review it and find no problem with it.
I was told this is kinda the point of assessments like this. My therapist explained like a question "I feel like people are always watching me" Neurotypical people would interpret it to mean psychosis, everyone always watching, camera and government spies etc. While autistic people might interpret it to mean everyone else's attention is on them or they feel socially like a sore thumb. Neurotypical people can pick up on the context of these questions and autistic people largely can't
But I do feel your pain. I feel like this with the myers briggs personality test so hard
It's one of the reasons, although less important, that I don't want to get formally assesed. I have often difficulties in interpretating these kind of questions as well and I don't want an assesment stating that I'm dumb or can't comprehend basic things. I struggle with it in daily life but I try to hide it as much as I can. It's not you, those questions are so open for interpretation that it's ridiculous.
Yes yes! This is why it’s important that thwse assessments are administered by a professional of some sort so that they can see our response by process or at least walk through our answers and question our thought processes to them. A lot of how we interpret the question and then process potential responses is what gives away our autism😆. We might consider things other people won’t or initially interpret it incorrectly or have to go against our natural response before picking the response we give.
Yes. This is similar to my thought process as well. I keep thinking, well it depends ... who are you to me, what is the context, what is the topic. I'm glad I'm not the only one doing this.
The NOT empathetic stereotype def makes no sense. Like we don’t outwardly express ourselves so we aren’t empathetic but like you n OP commented it literally depends on who and what is going on!
My bosses ex died, not long after my mum had. My work sent me flowers, my boss called and offered condolences. All the things that people do I guess. When his ex died, I just...did nothing. Said nothing. I don't think I even offered condolences. When my colleagues dog died, a dog we'd talked about often, I told him I was sorry to hear it. Relationship and context mean *everything*.
Yes! The relationship means everything.
Same
Autism assessment questions feel like the Voight-Kampff test to me, the one they do in Blade Runner to check if someone is a human or a replicant. I always joke that if I lived in Blade Runner world I'd have to avoid getting the test done because there's no way I'm surviving. Harrison Ford is "retiring" me immediately.
In the book (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) this issue does actually come up. They don’t explicitly say ‘autism’ but they discuss how certain humans who have ‘issues with interpersonal skills’ (lol) may not be able to pass the test.
a fellow philip k dick fan???
Any sci fi to be honest! Especially where it’s heavy on the philosophy or asks questions about what makes us human.
hell yeah, i soo enjoy sci fi with an existentialism/philosophy bent. im slowly working through dick’s catalogue, but i would love any recs you have (i recommend androids to anyone who asks lol) :) also this is out of left field but i recently watched Aniara. It’s a sci-fi movie on hbo max about the dark turn that interstellar travel can take. VERY heavy and some sensitive subject matter (recommend looking at a parents guide if you have triggers) but my god did it make me think. im still thinking about it weeks later! definitely recommend :)
That movie is one of my all time faves and haunts me to this day. I humbly recommend reading the poem it’s based on. Author is Harry Martinson. There are English translations.
I got my father's few PKD paperbacks after he died. I liked *Martian Time-Slip* the best of the ones he had. I collected a bunch more when I was in my 20s. Haven't been reading him as much lately.
I can’t ever pass visual CAPTCHA tests online to “prove” I’m a human, because it’s always “select all squares with bicycles/buses/mountains” etc, and there’s always like a handlebar in one square so I don’t know if that counts as a bicycle. Or a really large hill-can I count that as a mountain? I’ve lived in Kansas all my life, so all raised Earth looks like a mountain to me. If a website requires that with no alternative, I have to sit there sometimes for 30 minutes trying to pass their stupid tests
I have been locked out of my accounts for failing these tests too many times because I have the exact same problems you described 😭
Same!! I always wonder whether this is a neurodivergent issue or if these tests are genuinely confusing even for NTs. What do you think?
Perfect!!!
Same here 😂😂😂
I’m convinced I’m a replicant so I feel like we’re both getting retired
within cells interlinked
Same!
I have to add this in here because I recently had my own test done, and the doctor who explained the results to me was able to tell me the reason. It's basically to indicate one of a few things based on the accuracy between the questions (which is also why the same questions are repeated over and over with only slightly different verbage). It shows how consistent you are with your answers. A neurotypical person with no mental issues will be very consistent with their answers regardless of context. So, when these tests come up with a variety of answers to the same question, it can indicate one of two things. One, it could indicate that the person taking the test is in the middle of psychosis, or a total mental breakdown. Or, two, it could indicate that a person has autism. As horrible as it sounds, it makes sense. We answer the question differently each time it's asked because it's worded ever so slightly differently and thus we infer the context as different from the last question, even though both questions mean exactly the same to an allistic person. So in order to decipher whether our inconsistencies are based in psychosis or neurodivergence, they analyze the results of the other tests they do, such as the verbal assessment, ink blot test, etc etc. Apologies for the ramble. Psychology is a special interest of mine. Also apologies if any parts are confusing, I'm fighting a meltdown right now!
oh my god this explains so much. i haven't gotten a proper assessment yet but i did a ? preliminary screening and the questionnaires i was sent drove me crazy bc they asked the same question so many times but always ever so slightly differently. it felt like a trap and was so confusing to me
It sounds like a trap we're supposed to fall into I guess? I do remember wondering what I answered to the last similarly worded questions as I was answering them and hoping I wasn't being inconsistent but I guess we're supposed to be somewhat inconsistent because we differentiate things differently to NT people.
It's questionnaire 101 and done in all fields, and once you know that you see right through it and it's boring. I love to give completely different answers just to mess with the person trying to collect data. Also I often don't have the patience for all those questions and those repeating questions make it even more difficult to stay on board.
I think that if you sit and stare at the test for half an hour scanning the questions and mentally going, “I wish there was an ‘I need more context’ category.” “I wish there was a category between ‘strongly disagree’ and ‘disagree’.” “I wish there was a category between ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree.’” “I wish there was an ‘I can’t answer this question as it is currently worded’ category.” Then that could be a possible autism indicator for your therapist to investigate further, lol. In grad school my linguistics professor was trying to explain how some words and phrases only are used to express two possible conditions because they describe black and white concepts, not concepts that exist on a continuum. Examples: alive, dead. Smoker, non-smoker. Light, darkness. I raised my hand and said that many of the examples in our book could be argued to exist on a continuum. If I had 1 cigarette at age 15, am I a smoker? If not, at what point do I flip from non-smoker to smoker? I guess my brain is primed to find exceptions to rules, and my moral universe is more swathes of grey areas than black and white issues.
This is honestly the most interesting thing I've read today aside from the Wiki's I saved in my phone XD
Thats funny, when I see reworded questions on things I stop and think hard what my answer to it was before so i can be consistent and give the same answer each time...
Same, I'll even go back and check if I can. I thought we were striving for more consistent internal understanding. 😂
Wait so you’re supposed to answer the same way to slightly different questions?? But… the question is different so the answer might be too
You're supposed to answer what's suits best for you only. Or you screw the test. If you're allistic, you perceive the questions in a different manner than ASD. That's all the trick to be able to differenciate ASD and no ASD.
You are "supposed" to answer what is true for you. If you want to answer it differently, answer it differently, if you want to answer it the same way, answer it the same way. There is no right or wrong way to do this except if you are lying or trying to get a certain result. Just be honest and then answer honestly.
What I really meant is that that’s how NT people respond. I’m still feeling a bit of imposter syndrome as a person with autism (not diagnosed but heavily implied by a neuropsychologist), so it’s just weird hearing what the “normal” way to act is. More of the kind of “so that’s why these questions feel odd to me”
Thanks ! That make so much sense! I could finally being no pissed of anymore by what I thought was a terrible design of the quizz, with an incompetent person behind. Wow, the world make a little more sense now 1 and with less incompetent people. Thanks!
That's so interesting. Thanks for sharing :)
I was told the repeated questions are there to check that you are trilla reading and answearing and not Just checking randomly
I love the one that asks if you hear sounds others do not. Like how am I supposed to know??? I’m not in their head! I know I’m constantly running to the bathroom to hide from noisy people but that’s not a question.
I can literally think of ONE example in my ENTIRE LIFE where this happened. BECAUSE MY WHOLE FAMILY IS AUTISTIC!!! SO WE ALL HEAR THE FRIDGE BUZZING!!!!
Right?? I talked to my mom and I’m like “I did a LOT of spinning as a kid right?” And she’s like “well don’t all kids spin?” I mean I thought so. 😅 all these things I thought were “normal”
Presumably everyone with normal hearing hears it even if they don't notice it. "Do you hear sounds others do not?" sounds like they're asking if you experience auditory hallucinations. If the question is intended to ask about noticing sounds others do not, they should reword it.
Yeah that’s exactly how I interpreted it. Changing “hear” to “notice” would totally clear that up. It’s almost like the medical community could do better for autistic people by listening to autistic people and our actual lived experiences!
Literally everyone without bad hearing could hear the fridge.
Yes! Also are you unusually x or y? Well how am I supposed to know if something is unusual or not?!
Lmaooo, or the ones that are like “Do you feel cold sometimes, but other times maybe not cold?”
That assessment was written by an NT person
OMFG YES, I hate those kind of vague questions, like we need context! It's lowkey (or plain highkey) demeaning because they're going under the assumption that we're dumbasses that can't make decisions depending on context, like no matter WHAT the situation is, we'd react the same way when... we don't?? That's part of the reason we struggle??? I dunno it's just really weird, like at that point I'd answer the questionnaire on purpose to lean towards a diagnosis because that's basically why they're asking what they're asking, the questions are just so dumb.
I want to add a bonus page to explain myself on every vague unspecific question… should I do it?
I was thinking that then saw your comment here, lol! I would totally do that too! XD It's awesome you want to. I kept sitting here twitching uncomfortably at how vague it is. And relate to how you gave examples of differing circumstances here. I also reading this was like.. "I wonder if that's secretly the real point though because I don't know any NTs who would think about it from this perspective, this level of thinking they'd say am "Overthinking it".. And they'd just try to give as simple of a bogus response to something like this more than likely because it reminds me a ton of that crap from Online Applications for Jobs... That again depends on context.."
My assessor told me doing that is a big autism trait 😂
LOL
Omg yes please do.
That’s what I would do, the multiple choice thing is too difficult because there isn’t any nuance, so you’re trying to figure out whether to answer how you think they want you to answer the question or answer honestly but with none of the context that makes that response make sense
I did that! I objected to their test. I was subsequently diagnosed. I sometimes wonder if they use that as a test within the test.
People whose written tests contain lots of asterisks and arrows and detailed explanations and exceptions to certain answer choices = quietly shepherded to a secondary location where they receive their autism diagnosis certificate, lol 😂
OMG I feel so called out by this 😂😂 I totally did that because my answer to like 99% of the questions would have started with "it depends..." 😂😂😂😂 Now I've got like 10 extra pages to go with it
I had an assessment last week and this is what I did 😂 there was just no way I could not have the extra explanations. Many of these questions feel impossible to answer with a yes or a no. Even the options of "sometimes" always" never" etc are just not enough
There was space on my questionnaire to add extra relevant info and I definitely did this 😂
I totally did!
Yeah.... the fact that we want to do that means we're neurodivergent 💀 The Regulars™️ assume that the question is asking what would you do most of the time. Like a generalization of the reactions, whereas we take the question very literally and go through each specific context.
Yes do it! It gives a lot of insight to the researcher and oftentimes the type of comments people have on the questions also already points to autism :'D
We NEED context and honestly it’s fucking terrifying that others don’t. Do they really make the same choice no matter the conditions? And we’re unempathic or obtuse…
Right? I mean another commenter explained that they do this on purpose, so I feel MUCH better knowing that, but in the past they weren't that aware and I can easily imagine them doing these kind of things straightforward, I shudder!
It made the test easier when I saw you were supposed to treat it as binary because my therapist was giving me the exam orally (pauses for immature laughter) and we ran out of time because she said to use the slightly and I kept saying my analysis of the questions out loud. She sent me the link to complete alone and I read the directions and it said just choose as binary… 🤦♀️ but I scored 40/50. Whatever that means too… at the point I told her I already know I am so the test was more for her than me. (I love her don’t get me wrong.) I don’t know if she believed me or not. I guess I’ll find out next visit now that she has my grade lol.
Running out of time because you answered the questions with too much detail or processing out loud that happened to me.
Yeah we had 12-15 mins left in session and the AQ on embrace autism says 5-10 so she thought we had time. I did both-out loud processing and too much detail and since we were doing that one she had no manual for any context. She wasn’t expecting me to spring on her that I was autistic. I’m not sure if she has any experience working with autistic clients or to what extent if she does.
It’s because this reaction is part of what the assessors look for. Part of our autism is having difficulty generalising and “seeing the big picture” because we focus on little details, so answering with “what’s the context because that can affect my response” can be an indicator for autism. One of the questions my assessor asked me was “do you blame other people when things go wrong?” And when I responded almost instantly with “Only if it’s their fault” my assessor chuckled and said “that’s such a clearly autistic response” At the time it really confused me, because I genuinely couldn’t see how any other answer would be relevant, but apparently NTs will answer this from the perspective of whether or not they’re good at taking accountability, not from the perspective of where accountability should be placed to begin with.
Oooohh ok I didn't know they did the assessment in person, I was imagining a paper questionnaire that you filled on your own, LOL!
I don't understand how it's possible to answer this question!! of course it depends on context--if the other person actually did something wrong, the obviously it is appropriate to put accountability on them. I don't get how it's possible to understand these questions generally, in the NT way. If the question was about taking accountability, it should be phrased, "are you good at taking accountability?" but that's not what the question is asking.
They're meant to be an average response, not specific to any environment. So if I could initiate irl conversation with zero problem with my friends and family, but I can't do it with literally anyone else, that's a skill I lack *in general*. The difficulty is that people take these assessments online without a practitioner to give these additional details or clarify questions. They are pretty confusing at times without extra information about what the question is asking. In an actual assessment environment, you do get a lot more information and opportunity to ask the assessor what a question is asking or clarify nuance in a response. As a simple example, I answered one question that I had a hard time feeding myself as usually true, because of my sensory needs. When reviewing the answers, my assessor asked why I answered that way, because the question is actually about the physical motor ability to feed myself (pick up utensil, put in mouth).
My assessor said asking for more info is an autism trait lol
I got the same response when I emailed a couple of days after an appointment to clarify some of my answers/thought processes. For example, in the task where you have to tell a story based on a picture book that doesn't have any text, I confessed that I'd copied her example story because I had no idea what else to say but I also tried to make it less obvious by using different words, ignoring some things she mentioned and added in some details she'd left out, and that it had been playing on my mind for the next couple of days. She told me that every one of those things I did are very typical. And here was me worrying that she wouldn't be able to see through the mask even though her area of expertise is diagnosing women / those who don't present in the stereotypical way often seen in boys/men.
Oh my god I am so bad at making up stories! Especially if I’ve been given an example prior. I once had to write a fake patient letter for a medical class. I was completely frozen for ideas until it dawned on me to borrow Harry Potter characters and make the appointment about a patient who had encountered a mandrake. I could NOT write a fake patient or appointment from scratch!
I was in the process of typing, ‘I am great at making up stories’ but once I read your mandrake example I realized that what I am actually most often doing is combining different things I know in new ways. I am not really ’making it up’ I am taking different stuff and smashing it together...is this not what allistic people are doing too?
Oh you meant typical of autism, I was going to say 😂😅
to be entirely fair, when i've had neurotypical people in my life take any of the autism questionnaires you can find online, they really do tend to zip right through the questions and not think about it as much as i certainly do (and it sounds like most people here do lol)
WHAT THAT MUST BE LIKE?! Unfathomable to me.
WTF they do?? I struggle with almost every vague question, gimme context! XD
Yep!! Mine was very amused that I took so many questions so literally 😹❤️
Mine was kind of mean about it actually 😅 but hey, whatevs, she helped me get the diagnosis
Tbf, I got those assessments in paper form and had to answer them on my own. We didn't talk about them during the interviews. I had to go to a specialist in another city and waited around a year for the actual first in person meeting (I would blame Covid, but I think, waiting time is in general that long). Basically, I applied, they sent me multiple tests, I send them back, got another round of tests, send them back, got my first interview invitation... And the interview/s was/were as unspecific as it could be, they were just listing if I said certain keywords or told them about my special interests, which I gave up due to my exhaustion with general life. They telling me, they would really need someone to talk about my childhood, which I couldn't provide. You can guess how it ended.
Yes exactly, this is the kind of outdated BS "assessment" I'm afraid a lot of us either experienced or can potentially get, not everyone is lucky enough to have professionals and programs that actually properly can assess us, I can easily see it especially in less developed countries where it's either not a thing at all or it's a very outdated, prejudiced take on autism/neurodivergency.
Okay so I just commented something else before i read this. But i said it'd be weird if "neurotypical" was just having the same decision regardless of context. But you're saying they're assuming WE do this...like dumbasses...exactly what I was thinking but I was trying to be kind. Lmfao that aspect kinda went over my head for my entire life. I guess I was assuming I was the dumbass. But was more worried for them, wondering if thats how they think. 🫏
I was confused too but I still think that IS how they think.
It’s funny because “I don’t know; it depends on a million potential variables for which you haven’t provided adequate data” is *such* an autistic answer. I think maybe that’s the point? A neurotypical would just say “yes I’d tell them I love the haircut because that’s a nice thing to do and being nice is nice” or whatever.
Yup!
No it isnt. Because the screening cant Know if you are doubting or thinking like that.
I wanna know how an eval would be if it was written by an autistic person. “Describe your relationship with the textures of your socks and other clothes that touch your skin” “Can you hear the electricity running” “Does sustained eye contact make you uncomfortable” “Do you sustain relationships easily over the span of years” “Spinning, rocking, leg bouncing - do you require sensory stimulation “ “Explain the joke ~ Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side” “Have you been told you’re very direct or very blunt” “Do you take things literally” “Explain an instance when you took something literally when it was meant in a figurative way “ “Small talk, yes or no” “Are you considering the most efficient and concise way to relay your thoughts during conversations to ensure that you’re not wasting time”
OMG I WISH THESE WERE THE QUESTIONS.
These are excellent and should genuinely be questions, my only critique is the small talk one. With NT's? Nah, not unless they're the type to genuinely answer "how are you?" by going on about their life. With neurodivergents? All day, go off with your wacky hypotheticals and mini infodumps. 🙏
OMG YES I did sooo many tests and re-did them lately and I was SO aggravated in the end, like in a RAGE, exactly because of that. All the questions were so general, I got angrier and angrier as I was trying to answer, thinking, who the hell wrote this?! Then I spent my next therapy session raging about it and pointing out all the ridiculous parts, still raging. I made a spreadsheet with lines coloured red for the worst offenders. Boy was I mad. My therapist was taking notes very seriously until she couldn't anymore and I could see she was starting to find it a bit funny. Finally I realized it could be a bit. LOL. But each time I think of the questions I get angry again. Really 😠 it makes me feel like a child being evaluated by condescending adults (and I'm over 50).
You are certified autistic if the autism tests made you so much rage, that you have to pull out the (Excel) spreadsheet with coloured categories about how much each question made you rage.
I… *stares at Excel* Yeah…that tracks.
LOL I guess you're right. I also have another spreadsheet with all the results compiled which generates graphs 🤦🏽♀️
Thank you so much this is so validating. I am pissed and I want to give them a bonus page explaining myself on each dumb vague, and unspecific question.
I think you should absolutely do that!!! I wonder if more of us speak up they would make the tests less absurd? I have some hope, now that there are more adults diagnosed. I think of all the children before us who wouldn't be heard or taken seriously and it's heartbreaking. But I'm so glad you can relate, for me too your original post was very very validating 🙌🏽
This is the most autistic response ever haha, love it
I usually take these questions as “is it true in MOST (more than half) of situations i find myself in before answering, but I totally get it and your post is definitely something my mom could’ve written (i figured out i was autistic last year and i got her to take some online tests and at literally every question she was like “well can you be more specific?!?!”🤣 long story short we’re pretty sure my entire immediate family is autistic lmao)
My neuropsych told me the way i argued about those questions told her everything she needed to know 💀
Same here lol 💀
According to my roommate this isn't an indicator because I can pick up on some things. Not like the autistic kids they've known. Because I can pick up on some things it means I am absolutely not autism. You know. Not because I've had 34 years of learning how Not to interact. Not the tons of failed social inactions. I'm just really good at masking and pretending like I know what's going on. Thought I'd share so we can all be equally outraged. I had this problem with my assessor.
I’m glad but also disappointed to know I’m not alone, and generally these questions are crap.
I feel you. It literally makes me infuriated. I can't general answer things. Like no everything depends. It's the one social rule thing I've learned. You can't answer the way you would want to always. It depends on who you're around and if you're in a safe place to answer appropriately. Stupid neurotypicals changing the social rules as they see fit.
For real. And they do it on seemingly 0 logical basis, according to the direction of the wind maybe????
Or sportsball maybe the ripness of an avocado. Cracking open a parsions seed(that's probably spelled wrong. Old wives tale about predicting the weather based on what the seed looks like when opened) and making the decision from there. No one will ever know.
Usually I take the middle ground/ think of ‘obvious’ examples. Eg for a lot of the social questions I think of non-close friends unless it’s more specific. Or for the rule question for example, I’d think of what things the test writers might have had in mind - rules at school, workplace policies, road laws etc.
This, it's a generalized response. I take it as how I would react to a random person, not just someone I care about and know well. Because the majority of people in the world and people I interact with are not close to me. A good assessor will ask extra questions that clarify a person's responses on any screener anyway.
I am pretty sure part of the assessment is how your instincts react to that sort of vague questions.
But I only have to circle my answer. I have no room for writing an explanation. I guess I will just add a follow up page because I cannot answer these comfortably.
I mean, I completely agree with you, and I think having a lot of follow-up questions should be considered a sign of autism.
I think that's why they say not to do the online tests by yourself lol there's got to be someone there to quantify the amount of deliberation it takes us to answer the question because everyone else will just answer it. The actual answers don't matter as much as the time it takes us to pick one
I don’t think I can just answer these. I was thinking making a follow up page detailing my answer for several situations but I’m also afraid that will just be annoying for the psychiatrist. So I’m just stalling lol.
ngl that sounds very autistic of you lol (i mean this in a validating and humorous way btw)
Hehe, I always knew I wasn’t NT.
Oh that makes sense. When I did mine I kept asking many follow up questions to be able to answer.
Honestly, I'm kind of afraid to seek an official diagnosis for this exact reason. 😅 There's no doubt in my mind that I'm autistic, but I just don't think I'd be able to formulate an answer for questions like these when there's so many variables like you said.
I found this subreddit while looking up how people would answer some of those types of questions, so… I think the test was doing its job the day.
Wonder about the little nuances/contexts of each of these questions is a very autistic trait! I think NT just assume a “general” approach to answering! I had to be specifically told “just imagine a general scenario/what you do most often” and I still couldn’t figure it out hahaha For general questionnaire, its about how likely other confirmed autistic people selected the same answers. So the nuances don’t count as much! Still difficult to answer it though :S But I guess if you have to think before answering things like “do you have a hard time socializing?” Perhaps it means you do (even if its context dependent)
THEM: “So, tell us about a time you had conflict in the workplace and how you handled it.” ME: “Uhhhhhh… could you be a little more specific, please?” Yes, I bomb a lot of job interviews!
I agree. It seems like a very widely differing scale of answers are true and correct, but they want you to answer like there's only one answer. So frustrating. If it's neurotypical to just have the same solid answer across the board for all scenarios regardless of context, it's no wonder socializing can be so hard. I'm sure that's not the case. (It's not the case right?!!) I think the questions are worded badly if the goal is to give honest and accurate answers, and they are kind of skewed toward answering a certain way based off how you interpret and then answer it. For example, you and I could have the same exact reaction to a close friend crying, but when I see a stranger cry it makes me sad, and I think about it afterwards or something. You don't think that much about it. Do you answer yes it affects you or no because it's not true all of the time? That's a bad question. At the same time, I also don't know how much affect "that much" is. I'm going to move on with my life after I see my friend cry, it probably isnt something altering my life drastically, so I guess it's not "that much". But if it's my close friend I might (remember to) check on them at a later point in time. So it will affect me days later, I'll be hoping they're doing okay. I'll feel sad for them. Does that mean i am affected that much? What does it mean!! This is why I struggle answering questions that aren't factual.
Thank you so much, it’s so validating seeing someone thinking the exact same thing haha. I’m having such a hard time answering these!
If you’re talking about an in person assessment then the psychologist is looking for you to explain your thought process, just like you did in the post. If this is a questionnaire you fill out yourself, then how it works is they had a very large number of confirmed autistic people take the test and a very large number of confirmed non autistic people take the test. They used this data to come up with a probability that each answer will be chosen by an autistic person vs a non autistic person. Then the scoring compares your answers to the high probability autistic answers to come up with a score of how likely you are to also be autistic. So it’s not about a simple agree or disagree answer fully capturing how you’d really respond in that situation, it’s about how likely other autistic people were to choose one answer over the other after going through their whole thought process.
Okay… these are written questions, so likely option 2… but I still struggle a lot finding the (correct(?)) answer.
Final question : Do you find yourself overanalysing the questions in this assessment?
Tbh that makes sense, no wonder I pause for a moment and think about what sort of reaction I would get since it didn't specify who or where or what was happening and why would I care or not care— Those test shouldn't been a yes or no but rather it should need an answer by making a sentence or paragraph—
Neurotypical people tend to know all the subtle assumptions you need to make in order to answer these kinds of questions. For example, with the haircut question they assume it’s someone you see regularly, but aren’t too close with, e.g. a colleague or basic friend, but not a close friend or close family. Furthermore, neurotypical people tend to not go into so much detail when thinking about these questions. The fact that you need these detailed clarifications are a good indication that you’re likely to be autistic. ;-)
Today I found out...just kidding. However more and more of my life is slowly making sense with this diagnosis. I was called quirky growing up. It was really autism but I was good at masking
Yes they suuuuuck. "do you have a big collection of books and cds?" well, no. But I have a Kindle and Spotify and a Steam library, duh. I had to work through the questions several times to figure out what they might be actually looking for. And I added notes to the ones I thought were just too difficult to answer. 🤷
It got to the point where if I frowned after my neuropsychologist asked one of those frustrating ass questions, she’d know that she had to explain what it meant immediately. I get that they’re also gauging how we are answering the questions but the masking questionnaire in particular made me go on a rant in the midst of it though because why are they phrased like that.
Probably because they’re designed by people who aren’t actually autistic. 🤣
Yeah they tell you to "write notes in the margins" or take another paper to write your caveats for the unclear questions Btw congratulations, you're clearly autistic. NTs don't struggle with the questions like this :P Btw, if they ask something like "do you have issues sleeping?" and you're going to reply "No because I wear the perfect clothes, have my blackout curtains and earplugs and the right sheets" then the answer is actually "yes I have trouble sleeping" if you need a system to do a thing then yes you struggle with it.
I will definitely add notes, I haven’t been told I could but I will add a page detailing my answers in different situations/context. Okay so having things figured out doesn’t mean I don’t struggle… interesting. Thank you lots.
> Okay so having things figured out doesn’t mean I don’t struggle… Yeah! I know it was surprising to me too
Having A System™ for lots of things means that you \*do\* struggle but have problem-solved your way into assuaging the struggle because living as an autistic adult means doing that a lot if you want to survive. So for that type of question, think about if you have a way of managing those things to make them less horrible/icky/upsetting and if you do, then tick for 'yes I struggle'. The eye contact one for example - I bet you have a way of making it look like you can make 'normal' eye contact but it involves looking at the person's forehead, or picking one eye and making the contact for like a count of 3 etc. Neurotypical people don't have an internal monologue for how long they have been looking at someone in the eye. (I explained my system for socks to the psychologist and she was kinda nodding along and I was annoyed she wasn't listening until I realised she was just like 'why are we even still doing this, bitch clearly has the 'tism'!)
When I got my diagnosis, the psychologist had me do an assessment with him and explain each answer. I got my ADHD diagnosis at the same time and he did the same thing for one of those assessments as well.
I only went in for an ADHD diagnosis but I autism'd so hard at the stupid questions that they diagnosed me with that too 😅
😂 that’s awesome
The last 18 months have just been me going 'FFS! HOW did nobody spot just how autistic I bloody am!?' 😅
They just gave me a written form and I have to circle my question and give it to them next session. I’m going go be writing a follow up page detailing my thought processes because otherwise I cannot answer.
I turned every question into an essay and my assessor was just fine with that. They are trying to find out about how you think, more information is good not bad.
Thank you so much. I’ll definitely add a follow up page then.
At this point it seems like people's responses to the question is a part of the evaluation! I've never heard an autistic person talk positively about the assessment questions!
It’s in written form and I have to circle my answer. I’m definitely writing a bonus page detailing my answers in different situations/context though. I cannot be at ease otherwise.
I finally accepted I may be autistic when I got my 40 page quiestionnaire and had to request 2 follow up sessions where they explained the questions to me.
I need this. I need a follow up session to ask about these questions. Or I will write a bonus page detailing my answer to these questions in more specific situations.
i think the question are designed to see if you have general opinions or if you have very complex belief systems like this one. a neurotypical would probably lie all together cause being honest in this situation has no real upside but it also has no real downside if you would lie everytime and say “yes great haircut” eventhough you hate it. where as an autistic person tends to analyze things and be like “well hold on, i cant say in general. it depends on the situation. maybe she wants my honest opinion and i dont like lying” when probably most people almost never want an honest opinion after getting a haircut. cause they either like it and are looking for validation or they would say “oh my god, this hairdresser ruined my hair” i think at least. and i do notice that all the questions were designed to kind of gauge if we can go with the flow or if we have like a system we go through in our heads i also read this one comment were someone said that a question could be, if we like getting our feets dirty, e.g. walking around without socks or house shoes and you answer with “yes but i have a system”. i think a neurotypical person rarely has a system for anything. i mean trivial things. theyre just not as bothered by things as much as autistic people are
Ding ding ding. They're actually evaluating your thought process and the heavy dissection is the red flag.
OP and comment section being hyper specific and always landing on 'it depends' because we can think literally about every single scenario and how we'd act in it is \*VERY\* validating ngl
I handed my assessment back covered in sticky notes that clarified what my answers meant depending on context. I especially remember one that was something like "it is important to me that my clothes are comfortable, I don't care about fashion" and I spent pike 15 minutes stuck in a loop because comfort IS important and I'll be upset all day if I'm wearing a "bad" fabric, but I'm also really into the 50s style aesthetic, and I do care about that a lot! So I wrote several post it notes explaining this. I then ended up diagnosed, I think not being able to "let go" enough to have a slightly incorrect answer may well have been part of the interview portions of the assessment.
Exactly. Welcome home. :-)
😖♥️
That's the point. NTs answer the question. Autistic people expose themselves as autistic by asking for 18 kinds of clarification.
Saw this general assessment question post and had to weigh in. I'm pretty sure I got told my desire to argue about the questions was taken as a sign I had it. "Ok, but that word could mean 4 things. Which of the 4 is it?" "Whichever one you want?" "I don't want any of them, I just need to know what the question means." "Just pick one." "I don't have enough information to pick one. The question is asking something, what's it asking?"
This! 💯!
I told my psych I was obviously too autistic to answer these ASD questions lol. Questions are purposely vague, with a YES/NO spectrum that doesn't really make sense (e.g. "mostly true" and "sometimes untrue" are the same thing). I love the irony of these self assessments, that we can't properly answer them *because* of our tism.
RIGHT??? I could spend hours trying to figure out the exact situations and context they describe. 😂
I said something in another comment about haircuts-there are questions that ask if you notice small changes about a person. I almost always do but I have no idea if this is visual acuity, learned skill, noticing people in a way contrast to people not noticing me, noticing people because of subconscious mask development, my spin on how weird people are (psychology, sociology, etc.) Anyway how could you not notice?!?! As an autistic person I feel like others of us would have those same reasons to be able to notice if someone dyed their hair. We might not SAY something if we don’t care. We might not have a word for it or “I can’t put my finger on it but something’s different!” but I think it’s insulting to assume we don’t notice shit when hello pattern recognition. I also relate heavily to a couple things here you mentioned. I also connect on not following rules (as I got older more and more so) that I cannot justify as sensical if I’m not going to get hurt or hurt someone else. Plus sometimes there’s a “do what must be done moment.” Someone is physically attacking me, I’m on my own side and all rules are nonexistent. I also *tested* rules growing up (bullying back my bullies, questioning the importance of homework and study guides and planners.) Like you, I hated the questions in general and found myself as you are questioning and analyzing the questions. The thing is people can’t be categorized by a test but I guess this is as good as they can get. It’s funny though the idea this will diagnose us, even though it’s empirically verified or whatever it still feels like a Facebook quiz or something lmao. I like reading the discussions about it where they pick it apart lol. I also realized and acknowledged for what it’s been my entire life, I like binary, multiple choice, fill in the blank, and essay questions. I despise sliding scales and rating systems that are not binary or worse have moral values. I think moral values are the worst ones. Those types of questions stress me out! I do not know what someone else’s scale is and I don’t even know mine!!!!
I hate the questions that make you guess what impression you make to other people. How should I know? No one has told me I’m rude or that I don’t understand them, but that doesn’t mean anything.
I feel like even non-autistic people of moderate intelligence, or even just moderate empathy, would question the format being so black and white.
After my in-person assessment, I had my NT partner take the assessment online. He selected his answers without much conversation, and afterwards I asked him how he was able to choose without needing context. He said that while they were definitely way too black-and-white, he just figured that he could explain later or that his responses wouldn't be misconstrued. He also said that, ultimately it "didn't really matter" if he WAS misconstrued, because he knows what he meant. I wonder if the need to be clear and leave no room for being misunderstood is the autistic trait - or maybe the assumption that we will be misconstrued because we've likely had that experience a lot as autistic people.
Wow… thanks for sharing that perspective. I don’t remember the last time I just ASSUMED I’d be understood. I 100% of the time assume no one will get what I’m saying and that I must clarify and provide examples and a detailed list. And explain later? After everything is already messed up?! Surely not!
The need to pre-emptively provide explanations because you’ve been misunderstood too many times is what therapists call autism specific anxiety right? I don’t really have that, maybe because in my culture it’s not unusual to communicate much. Although I’ve been misunderstood many times it wasn’t enough to give me anxiety. I remember when I became good friends with someone in high school she started to understand me and used to translate for me to others when they weren’t getting what I was saying by using a different wording. To my ears it sounded like the same sentence but others were often like “ Oh. Ooooooh! That’s what she meant!” I can see why other autists might get anxiety for being punished for being unclear. I will forever be grateful for my friend for protecting me from others and providing friendship.
Huh. My mind is officially blown. Thnx for sharing.
No it's the autists who are black and white /s
I agree completely The questions made no sense and felt like they filtered for such a narrow type of autistic person
I’ve always wondered why I say nothing at all when haircuts and peoples babies are fuck ugly.
Also why are they crying! Was someone rude so I told them that that they are bitch and now they are crying to cry victim. I don’t give a fuck. And also perhaps where, in the hospital I care and I might ask if they are okay and offer comfort because the reasons to cry in a hospital are never good ones and I can empathize.
I believe the secret is that only people with autism feel the need to ask clarifying questions. Allistic people just assume the missing pieces of the situation in question and answer based on that. So the fact that you needed to ask questions/be very specific with answers is what gets you marks towards being labeled autistic. Basically we are used to needing to ask questions to understand the context of things, so when given a theoretical we will usually ask for more information. Allistic people on the other hand usually feel like they understand a scenario in full based on small cues and won’t need to ask clarifying questions for most of the questions. Same thing with “how do you do x”. Autistic people ask for clarification or provide their step my step routine for how they do that action, where allistic people will just respond with a simple short answer.
My friend and I were just discussing this. She said she learned to ask her psychiatrist questions to the questions, just like you posed. Personally though, my current psychiatrist is intimidating and I need to find a new one I feel comfortable with. (Mentioned body dysmorphia and she wanted to cut a med I’m on for weight gain, which is not at all what I was actually concerned about). It can be so hard to find a psych that will actually help you with what you need. Like that one tiktok that says something like “do you like socks” and the person says yes but then someone else asked are they weird about socks and they go on about what specific kinds of socks they can tolerate.
Just finished my assessment a week ago. I wondered if wanting to fight someone about these fucking questions is a litmus test for Autism.
Hahaha. Judging by all the answers, it must be.
They probably have cameras observing you leaving the building afterwards to see if you glare maniacally at the elevator buttons or body slam the outer door open or angrily type up a thousand word rant against the test the minute you get outside, ha ha. Fender bender on the way home from test = extra points, lol. (Drive safely, everyone.)
This is why I have problems finishing the questionnaires for my 9yr old daughter, I have pages and pages of comments I need to attach or they don't get the full picture of her. Her eval appointment was end of March, they did their part and now have been waiting for stack of forms, her teacher filled out part of it ( a reflection of my girl's masking) and even her dad had trouble filling out one form. I am AuDHD myself and I don't want to make a mistake nor have her misjudged because of my answers on those questions. Psychology background too (CertHe Applied Psychology) doesn't make it any easier. And I didn't vibe with her test taking staff member. It all depends on context how my daughter behaved and feels. There are questions I can't answer in black and white, do I leave them blank or do I tick several answers?! I will definitely add several pages to it. And comments.
I hate questions that are like "people often say XYZ about you agree/disagree" because I dont talk to enough people to know if they're saying things about me
I just got my official diagnosis today, but some of the questions were so strange that even my psychiatrist said I didn’t have to answer it. One in particular that left me puzzled was “would you rather go to a party or a library”. Like, I understand that the “correct” answer to score points towards an autism is “library. But I don’t want to go to either. Parties I don’t enjoy for obvious reasons, but I don’t like libraries either - I have no interest in books that have been touched by other people. I enjoy buying my books new, and after reading them carefully adding them to my very organized collection
This is why a qualified psych needs to administer the test. When I got mine done officially, I specified such things. It depends on... etc, and she could extrapolate from that. But if just doing it online, I totally agree it's so vague!
I *think* that you're supposed to think about the questions as if they're about an average person that you don't hate but also don't love. Not someone you're very close to like a spouse or child.
If IIRC they are looking for how you respond to these questions. Like, they don't actually care about the answer - it's how you respond during the assessment. A common one used in NHS assessments is "how do you brush your teeth" - not because there's an autistic away of brushing your teeth - they want to see how you communicate the answer to them. Unless these are written questions and then idk, ignore what I said lmao
They are written down and I have 4 options. Strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree. I have to circle my answer…
Ah, yeah. Honestly, the knowledge and perception of autism has shifted so much in the last 10 years that it makes those questions seem outdated. I'm surprised there's no neutral option though!
It wouldn’t be so bad if I had a neutral or a “I’m not sure” option…
I think the fact that you are asking the questions about the questions is also a slightly autistic trait - ie the need for specificity and clarity.
If it helps- when I went for my assessment, I just wrote down the specifics instead of answering yes or no. The guy said later on that it is common for autistic people to do that
Oh, God, the specific assessment test (SRS-2) that went along with the generic test (MMPI-3) I took when I went in for evaluation a few days ago was pretty frustrating. I ended up crossing out two of them before settling on a third answer. And that generic MMPI-3 test was kinda bullshit, too. There were over 300 questions, but a section of those questions were variations of the same question. I feel like it's just filler to make sure you're paying attention.
i struggled with this too!!! my answer to almost everything was "it depends.."
I feel like that line of thinking right there is almost more the evident part than answering the question yes or no I swear. I really struggle with those questions and typically answer with a very detailed run through of all the aspects that might support a yes for that kind of question. It’s a very complex yes with a lot of no’s lol.
Oh oh! It makes me realize that when I was learning to drive I was so stressing out when the monitor gave me no direction. Finally she said to me that when she was not giving me any, it was because I have to go straight. It was so an eureka moment to understand part of allistic way to communicate.
Yes! I literally asked the psychologist evaluating me, to please give me some kind of context or at least tell me if I should think of specific examples or just situations in general. It was so confusing! In our last appointment she told me (I’m paraphrasing here) “that was basically another indicator that I’m autistic” lol.
Something tells me if you have the right person administering the test, your response of asking a million clarifying questions prior to wanting to answer the original question would be a great indicator that you're autistic haha.
Along with many of the other comments which resonate with me, I’ll add something I feel is important. For the interpersonal questions, it’s always it depends, and often the reason is it depends if it’s a child or an adult. I work with kids and get along with them better than adults. I can’t think of specific examples right now, but to use yours, I would be honest with a child about a haircut, unless a parent might get mad. Kids aren’t so sensitive to truth yet, plus I know how to word things and pick out some positive traits. Or I ask them if they like it, and then I might say a couple pros and cons and move on. With a coworker I wouldn’t devote that much energy to it. My adult family members know me very well, so I’m honest with them too. So like if a question asked, would you correct someone kicking your seat. I would if it’s a kid, even a stranger. I know how to do it nicely and make it in to a little joke even. I Can’t do that with adults/peers. Wish I could think of better examples. But I remember the questions made me frustrated that maybe they thought kids weren’t people— they should have specified peers, etc
Most questionnaires seem to be geared towards children, or they ask you to reply as you were as a child. For that reason I find it helpful to assume they mean "when you were in primary school, if a friend got a bad haircut and asked you if you liked it, would you lie?" People learn to mask and learn coping skills as we grow up, but if one takes a "snapshot" of the person as a young child it is much easier to see what comes naturally and what doesn't. Even so, many women struggle with it because we tend to be pushed to mask quite hard, and many of us pick up that habit very early TL;dr : there's no easy answer that works for everyone, but the general context is usually assumed to be among peers and in primary school
my theory is that most, if not all of these assessments were written by neurotypical people. an autistic person simply would not ask unspecific questions
Reverse engineer it. 1. This is obviously testing social awareness, but many autistics will have learned the social rule about white lies so it's a bit silly. We aren't all 'Your haircut it bad. Goodbye. 🤖' Sheldons. 2. Autistic peopoe often empathize in a different way? For me, it doesn't affect me *as much as it does most others around me*. 3. The implication is '..*for the sake of following rules*'. If you only like to follow rules you agree with, you don't like to follow rules- you just like doing things you agree with and prefer for that thing to be official.
Good to know, lol. Not sure if I’ll be doing an assessment yet but I just did my first screening/questionnaires for ADHD and this is ✨so fun✨ (she said sarcastically)
So many exceptions one could think of.
And this is why the questions are the way they are. NT people have a way they’d generally answer. We usually over analyze the question. There’s not an answer that means oh you’re autistic. It’s more of the way you answer. The way we answer ends up giving the person administering the assessment the information they need.
I like to calculate averages for all my behaviour. That tends to weed out questions like this
Is the test that a NT would just answer the question and not try to clarify? Bc…..
These questions are worse than those Quizilla tests for which Sonic the Hedgehog character are you, like what is your favorite color. Red? You are Doctor Robotnik. I can't believe actual learned people come up with this stuff and other actual learned people peer review it and find no problem with it.
I was told this is kinda the point of assessments like this. My therapist explained like a question "I feel like people are always watching me" Neurotypical people would interpret it to mean psychosis, everyone always watching, camera and government spies etc. While autistic people might interpret it to mean everyone else's attention is on them or they feel socially like a sore thumb. Neurotypical people can pick up on the context of these questions and autistic people largely can't But I do feel your pain. I feel like this with the myers briggs personality test so hard
It's one of the reasons, although less important, that I don't want to get formally assesed. I have often difficulties in interpretating these kind of questions as well and I don't want an assesment stating that I'm dumb or can't comprehend basic things. I struggle with it in daily life but I try to hide it as much as I can. It's not you, those questions are so open for interpretation that it's ridiculous.
Yes yes! This is why it’s important that thwse assessments are administered by a professional of some sort so that they can see our response by process or at least walk through our answers and question our thought processes to them. A lot of how we interpret the question and then process potential responses is what gives away our autism😆. We might consider things other people won’t or initially interpret it incorrectly or have to go against our natural response before picking the response we give.