Published on 12, July, 2020
I am waiting to hear a response from an ASD clinic on being put on a waiting list for an assessement.
My worry is that during the interview (and when claiming benifits), I will be perceived as 'too able' and misdiagnosed or rejected, due to my intellectual ability, and that my speech will sometimes appear normal when interested in a topic. I have learning difficulties when it comes to comprehension (making sense of information), but in terms of fluid intelligence (pattern recognition), I am able to use inductive reasoning to assess situations or problems and find ways to cope - I am the type of person your parents would ask on how a piece of technology works for instance, because I like to tinker.
I am debating how I should appear in the interview, even though it could be months ahead. I have heard people use the term 'masking' for when adapting their behaviour to model that of a neurotypic person. I am a very ethical and rational person, so it is playing on my mind.
I'm the opposite with a big gap between verbal intelligence and non-verbal/pattern recognition/spatial intelligence. Unfortunately I was at school(1961-1975) when although there might be sporadic mentions of difficulties nothing was joined together into a coherent whole. Basically if you were of average or above intelligence having learning difficulties was very rarely considered..
I've heard of some autism assessments where cognition is tested, but that wasn't the case with me. My stepfamily has said I have little common sense , and I'm most definitely not good at practical tasks.