Non Autism diagnosis

childrens books sound cringe and for that reason id likely not really cooperate as id be too busy cringing at the situation thinking these people think im some kind of little child or something. its infantilization and id likely not play along with that and wait until they treat me like a adult

Hello! 

I've never heard of this frog story thing but it sounds pretty outdated in terms of autistic testing. I was diagnosed a few months ago and I am composer with a music degree, so creativity is definitely allowed within autistics! It's how I express myself. My little brother however is also autistic and can't write a creative story to save his life. People are different, including autistics! There has been research into something called the "Intense World Theory" and discusses the idea that rather than having/feeling no empathy (as the stereotype goes) autistics actually feel much more than a neuortypical and therefore get overwhelmed with it, leading to shutdowns and meltdowns. With new research like this it's clear that there isn't one profile for autism, yes there are some diagnostic traits that have to be there with an emphasis on sensory struggles, but in terms of personality traits and creativity I think there needs to be some readjustment! 

(I am also a female so of course that is different too)

Thanks so much folks for your helpful replies and sorry for taking a little long to get back.

I quite enjoyed doing the test even the frog book one and was surprised  and probably a bit relieved at the end when they said I wasn't on the spectrum.

But every now and again it springs to mind that if they had seen me when I was a lot younger or maybe in a real social situation ( I have been to many psychology assessments in the past and for some reason I tend to act  in what I would regard as a normal manner) they might have taken a different diagnose.

But anyway I am glad I went and got the assessment done, now if anyone has any experience of using VR virtual reality headsets to deal with Social phobia and in particular eating around a table with people rather than cognitive therapy please let me know, I know its an ASD forum but I'm sure they wont mind a quick note slipped in on here.

Many thanks.

I don't think any test has a %100 accuracy, but with that said there are people with a lot of Autistic traits that still don't meet the threshold for an Autism diagnosis depending on who is doing the assessment and what experience or medical bias they may have or if they keep up to date on diagnosis tools and criteria. And some people just plain have some traits but aren't actually Autistic.

I was always described as having an active imagination and yet I got diagnosed as a kid in the 90's back when they didn't even know about all the other stuff they look for nowadays. So I suspect it's not a lack of imagination they are looking for but how you tell that story from your head the language used etc, since a big area of autism is the way we communicate differently than others.

Going back to that first point I made though. There is a degree of overlap with other diagnoses, I know plenty people who are very what I call "sus-autistic" ie they can exhibit enough traits with regularity it could look like Autism if you didn't know that what you are really seeing is OCD, SPD, ADHD, PTSD agoraphobia, Social Anxiety, etc, and sometimes a combination of any of those too. It is possible you could not be Autistic but are experiencing overlapping traits from something else. If you really want to get to the bottom of it you could also ask for an ADHD/ADD assessment, discuss other possibilities with your GP, get a second opinion, go private and get another Autism assessment with someone else. This isn't the end of the line if you feel you need some closure on it all.

I had also seen comments from people saying that they felt demeaned or offended by the seemingly child-like nature of the ADOS tests which did make me a little apprehensive.

However, I went into the assessment with an open mind and actually enjoyed the ADOS bit. Not sure if I would have reacted differently if I didn't have any idea of what was likely to be asked of me to do.

It’s definitely a weird experience and from what I’ve seen online some people are quite offended by it because they think it’s designed for children. But I think it revealed what they needed to know about me.

Very similar to all of that.  I had a different book to the frog one, but the comment was that I talked about the characters thoughts but not their feelings or emotions.

Likewise with the story I made up from objects that they thought was creative/imaginative but didn't go into thoughts and feelings, I seem to remember veering off into talking about Keith Haring as one of the objects was a Haring coaster so my objects had gone to an art gallery....  Strong imagination and creativity skills are listed on my report as a strength.

There are defo things in the assessment that could be improved for people of different ages or women and people we know are being under-diagnosed.

Maps, countries and geography in general has been one of my special interests since I was a small child so I’m a bit of an encyclopaedia in that regard !

That's pretty much how my assessment went.

Thankfully I didn't have the story task (as far as I remember). I think that I would have either really struggled or made up a totally inappropriate story.

I enjoyed the map and could have(and wanted to)  talk for ages recounting my experiences associated with the area of the map

Presumably the decision also took into account numerous questionnaires, how you interacted with the assessors and perhaps interviews with people who know you?

My assessment report noted a few things about the ADOS test:

• I fidgeted throughout 
• I didn’t make much eye contact with the assessor 
• when items were placed in front of me for the tasks I focussed fully on them and didn’t look at the assessor at all
• for the frogs thing I gave a very factual description of each page, didn’t say anything about the emotional state of the things/people and and throughout had a completely flat affect, both face and voice
• for the thing where you have to make up a story I just completely messed that up
• my response to the map part of the test was also very unusual apparently but I won’t elaborate so as not to give anyone ideas 

Maybe I was lucky and didn’t get the frog book - I don’t know but I suspect I would just have refused to cooperate.

I have an extremely good imagination but that frog book is one of the strangest and hardest things I've ever had to do. I think some of it might be looking at how you approach the task itself and I don't think it's solely about being creative. The frog book isn't only one test for autism. From my own experience they were observing absolutely everything during and between tasks and while I answered the questions,  not just the actual answers given. I am not a medical professional by any means, but I know people can have acquired neurodivergent traits through how they have developed as a child and their environment growing up. My friend has anxiety and trouble mixing,  is quite blunt etc but doesn't have the repetitive behaviours or sensory differences. This is all just my opinion and own experience.