Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
I’ve recently had my first autism assessment (online) and towards the end of it I was asked to tell a story with 5 objects I’d chosen. I chose the first 5 things that happened to be on the sofa next to me. I was asked to tell a story with them & I just couldn’t. I told the assessor this & she said it was ok. Has anyone else had a similar experience?
I think of it like going for an eye test. I do not feel a failure if I cannot read the bottom line of letters. I don't get embarrassed or upset if i have to tell them that "number one" is more blurry that "number two." They're just using the tools they need to assess what I can see and get the right glasses for me. The autism assessment is doing the same.
Having said that, I do use my imagination as escapism a lot. I've written 1.3 million words of fanfic in the last few years. That's like War and Peace twice. Granted, most of that isn't heavy with plot. And it's taken me a few years to come up with an actual plot for the novel I want to write. So I guess mine just takes longer.
I'm still waiting for my assessment but I'm intrigued to see the infamous frog book. I'm really glad people don't give too much detail about it because I want to see what I come up with, and preparing it in advance would spoil the results.
I think that this type of test is useful for children, who often cannot reliably describe their traits and difficulties, but it is a bit insulting to inflict them on adults, adults with average or above average intellect. Adults can describe their history and 'symptoms' accurately and this should carry far more weight than tests or observation.
Anyone who has taken AQ or RAADS tests can see that many questions are aimed at what are now considered outdated stereotypes of autism and are gender-biased. The same is true of 'testing' for autistic traits, anything that is susceptible to becoming outdated and discredited is not a reliable diagnostic tool.
I wonder if some of it is how you approach a task rather than the task itself. I definitely think this was the case when I had to tell a story from pictures. I had 4 similar tasks about making something up and I think each one probably looked at different things and not just imagination. For example I take the making a story from pictures task to replicate how we make sense of social situations and how we build up from detail rather than go straight in for the bigger picture. It was hard because I had nothing to go on. It made no sense. But I persevered. I do wonder how neurotypical people would go on with and go about these tasks. It would be really interesting to see the differences. Also I think the tests are useful because if you take someone's word for it, they might have traits which look like autism but are not. Altho I do think if you are putting yourself forward for assessment you probably have a good reason to. I do agree the questionnaires are out dated though.
Glitter I too struggle with the comparisons because people are either too polite to point things out, are a bit similar to me anyway and also I have never lived inside anyone else's head so I don't know how some things compare. On the other hand there are things which I inherently know I am different to others but it's hard to put my finger on and they are not in the questionnaire.
I have written some Sci-Fi pastiches; I found that I was very inventive in coming up with plots, good at descriptions, reasonable in producing relatable characters, but really abysmal in constructing dialogue. If I was asked to create a story about objects I would be fully capable of doing so, but they would not be talking to each other to any great extent. But how much would this say about my communication difficulties, which are less about ability and more about dislike, discomfort and eventual overwhelm?