Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi folks,
Having a lot of problems during my life from being a child with being unable to mix socially and having terrible anxiety I decided at the an advanced age to ask to be referred for an autism assessment.
I was given the same test as I believe a lot of others have gone through, book with flying frogs, asked to create a story etc
I also filled in the quiz's as well, and was told they were borderline as regards the spectrum.
Anyway it seems I flew through the test with the flying frogs book and was told that it was a multi-disciplinary assessment and I was told I didn't have autism.
To be honest I was relieved about this, but at the same time concerned that these particular tests might not accurately be the right criteria to determine whether a person has autism or not for the following reasons.
1 I do believe that a good number of people if picked from a random number of people off the street might not have the creative ability to construct a story from these tests, and it could well be because of that would be diagnosed with autism, where in fact they are not on the spectrum.
2 Are autism people somehow not allowed to be creative?
3 from the age perspective even people with autism can develop a coping strategy as they get a lot older ( I certainly have) and because of this the tests might not accurately diagnose the condition.
I would appreciate your thoughts on the above.
Many thanks.
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.
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.
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