Children's tests used on adult assessment?

The aim of these tests is to see how your mind works. The simplicity is not the point. People on the spectrum find it almost impossible to understand the abstract. There is nothing more abstract than giving you a bag of sundry items and then asking you to formulate a story, When I had the test I found it impossible and yet I have a vivid imagination. It matters not what you have learned. I have an IQ of 170 and couldn't do this test. The frog book is designed for the same purpose. I found myself bogged down in the small details and saw no story at all. Yet, I read avidly as a child. I thought the concept of frogs on lily pads was absurd. I was unable to interpret the story because there was no narrative. That is the difference. I need a narrative to fully understand the story and my brain doesn't understand a bunch of pictures as a story, in the same way that I wasn't able to use random objects to make one. I think people are misunderstanding this fundamental detail. The tests may seem absurd and childish, but our brains work in the same way. They are trying to figure out which part of your brain you are using. In short, which part has been undeveloped due to trauma as a child or abuse. I Hope this helps you. I had to Google it after the assessment to see what in the Sam Hill it was all about.

Thanks very much Matt and Recom, I wish you could come to my next appointment as witnesses for the defence! That's how this process feel - as if I'm on trial for falsely caliming to have AS.

Thanks yoo for that link Recom, it's now in my 'favourites' list. 

Technophobe23 said:

To feel that a positive diagnosis could be denied me because I did 'too well' in stupid tests like these, would make me quite angry, and very depressed.

They may be stupid tests because you can't imagine that they would be useful! There is a possibility that they did help the diagnostic staff to form an opinion. Also you are likely to be struggling with being too categorical in your thinking.

I remember a time at primary school when I was being asked to pretend to be a tree in a drama class. I remember this, 50 years later, and my memory of it was what a stupid thing to be asked to do. I have thought that many things were stupid since then but often I was probably just lacking the imagination to believe that anything outside the truly rational world could be worth anything.

If you are struggling with depression then have you seen therecoveryletters.com/the-recovery-letters I heard about this on an All In the Mind recording from Radio 4.

It seems to be fairly true regarding the plagiarism idea, I can't remember off the top of my head who it was, but there was a historian who believed there is only about 7 original stories and that everything else is just a retelling of those 7 basic plot lines but with the details altered. People tend to write from what they know, whether that is first hand experience or from another account. 

To get back onto the subject of the test, there is many things which could account for someone being good at the task. For example, if someone with ASD was an avid reader, wrote a lot of fiction and studied the art of story telling, etc. It could result in them performing better on such tests as they have the kind of experience and aquired knowledge which lends itself well to the task.

I think in cases such as mine because I performed so badly, it would certainly add weight to determining a positive diagnosis of ASD, but I find it hard to believe that the opposite could be true. That performing so well should add weight to a negative diagnosis. Realistically, I think if you performed well on that task all that can be said is that you are good at those kinds of tasks, I don't think it could logically rule out the possibility of ASD.

You seem to understand this very well. I wish I did!  Did I have a good point re the story composition / plagiarism matter or am I missing something there too?

Technophobe23 said:

What about map reading? Are people with AS meant to be unable to read maps?  Because to read a map is to interpret the lines and colours and symbols, using one's imagination, to create a mental picture of the landscape and where one is in it. If you can't do this, a map is no use to you!

I'm just challenging this idea that AS means an absence of that kind of imagination. The hairband as a pond example seems little different to a thin black outline with blue infill for a pond. Neither are ponds. But we know what the symbols mean (don't we?).

I also question whether making up stoiries as a child, using bits and pieces gleaned from previously encountered stories, can be called pure palgiarism or even copying. Surely, most stories are exactly that? Think about all the detective stories, all the Western films, the Mills & Boon tat - they're pretty much all the same stories, just re-worked and mixed up a bit. Same with music - very few songs/tunes are truly original. Some are of course, but generally, we are all influenced more than we tend to realise by our environment, including all the previous human input into it.

That's how I see it anyway. 

You're confusing a deficit in imagination with an absense of imagination. Nobody has suggested that people with ASD have no imagination at all, just that it is common for that imagination to be restricted by rigid patterns of thought.

Maps are typically very logical in form, for example, they use a 'key' which tells you what various symbols mean, in addition to this it is perfectly reasonable to assume that if you are knowingly looking at a pictoral representation of a landscape you could rationally expect to see things on there which represent roads, rail lines and bodies of water and it is not too challenging for anyone to associate the colour blue with water, these things would require a fairly low-level of imagination/flexible thinking. On the otherhand associating one object (eg; a hairband) with another object which doesn't look like, isn't related to nor connected in any real sense (eg; a lake) requires a larger degree of flexible thinking. The key to the issue and what is really being measured, is not so much how much imagination someone has, but how rigid their thought patterns are.

What about map reading? Are people with AS meant to be unable to read maps?  Because to read a map is to interpret the lines and colours and symbols, using one's imagination, to create a mental picture of the landscape and where one is in it. If you can't do this, a map is no use to you!

I'm just challenging this idea that AS means an absence of that kind of imagination. The hairband as a pond example seems little different to a thin black outline with blue infill for a pond. Neither are ponds. But we know what the symbols mean (don't we?).

I also question whether making up stoiries as a child, using bits and pieces gleaned from previously encountered stories, can be called pure palgiarism or even copying. Surely, most stories are exactly that? Think about all the detective stories, all the Western films, the Mills & Boon tat - they're pretty much all the same stories, just re-worked and mixed up a bit. Same with music - very few songs/tunes are truly original. Some are of course, but generally, we are all influenced more than we tend to realise by our environment, including all the previous human input into it.

That's how I see it anyway. 

I agree that this test would be more appropriate to a young child. At the top end of primary school, I loved stories, read avidly and wrote endless stories.

At face value you would think that I was using imagination, but I reused what I had read. Most of my stories were bits of stories I had read, rehashed. Pure plagiarism and good memory.

I have always thought that imagination was conjuring upsomething new. That is why young children are good at it, because they have less life experience and knowledge of other stories to get in the way.

Technophobe23 said:

[quote][/quote]

Hints of the Triad - "lacks imagination", same as "lacks empathy". What a load of rubbish.

Asks you to try to create a story round some objects or a children's picture book story

It is a crying shame that this is the best we can expect from some professionals.

If you don't have good social referencing you may not acquire the thought processes associated with children's and young people's interactive games.

Doesn't mean you don't have imagination. Just you don't respond to conventional stimuli for imagination found amongst more social individuals.

But the intense focus and interests of people on the spectrum must display elabotrate imagination - just it is not socially based

Professional grasp of autism is an utter disgrace.

Thanks, I can see you know something of what I mean here.  It seemed to me that the CP considered my imaginative ability too great for a diagnosis of AS.  In other words, people with AS are supposed to have very limited capacity for imagination.  I can't see that at all.  Why?  I mean, we're not talking about people with moderate or severe ASD symptoms, but somebody (ie: me in this instance) presenting with symptoms of mild or 'high functioning' AS.  Also, somebody (me again) who has been hanging around on this planet for some 55 years, almost 35 of them living independently.  I am not Mr Spock!  I have feelings, emotions, fears, anxieties etc etc.  And what are fears and anxieties if they are not imagination-based?

I find the apparent focus upon diagnostic algorithms extremely troublesome.  I am an individual, not a clone. I KNOW from almost everything I've read that AS explains almost everything about the difficulties I've experienced in my life, together with what I've gradually come to realise are my talents.  

To feel that a positive diagnosis could be denied me because I did 'too well' in stupid tests like these, would make me quite angry, and very depressed.

I will try to do as you say, Recomb, ie: not pre-judge. But the imagination I'm apparently not supposed to possess is getting the better of me and I can't help but worry!

Bear in mind the result of your assessment is not going going to be based on these few tests, it's going to be based on the whole of the assessment, which for me was 3 hours in total.

I personally could not come up with anything in the 5 items task, I was completely unable to string together any kind of narrative involving those objects. I was also unable to imagine those objects as anything other than what they were, for example, when the Psychiatrist gave me a demonstration of the task, he imagined a hairband as representing a lake which would have never occured to me to do. I do still have an imagination, but it is more heavily restricted and "rigid" than most people's, which is common among people with ASD. That being said, my response to that task was only used as supporting evidence in favour of a positive diagnosis it was not what determined the positive diagnosis. The positive diagnosis was made based on the assessment as a whole.

It is still possible for someone with ASD to be imaginative enough to successfully perform this task as we all are somewhat different and have different strengths and weaknesses, such discrepancies are taken into account. Whether or not you receive a positive diagnosis will be dependent on how you perform throughout the whole of the assessment, if you show significant signs of ASD in all other areas of the assessment you will still be given a positive diagnosis.

Try not to dwell too much on those specific things, they're not "make-or-break" tasks.

longman said:

Hints of the Triad - "lacks imagination", same as "lacks empathy". What a load of rubbish.

Asks you to try to create a story round some objects or a children's picture book story

It is a crying shame that this is the best we can expect from some professionals.

If you don't have good social referencing you may not acquire the thought processes associated with children's and young people's interactive games.

Doesn't mean you don't have imagination. Just you don't respond to conventional stimuli for imagination found amongst more social individuals.

But the intense focus and interests of people on the spectrum must display elabotrate imagination - just it is not socially based

Professional grasp of autism is an utter disgrace.

Thanks, I can see you know something of what I mean here.  It seemed to me that the CP considered my imaginative ability too great for a diagnosis of AS.  In other words, people with AS are supposed to have very limited capacity for imagination.  I can't see that at all.  Why?  I mean, we're not talking about people with moderate or severe ASD symptoms, but somebody (ie: me in this instance) presenting with symptoms of mild or 'high functioning' AS.  Also, somebody (me again) who has been hanging around on this planet for some 55 years, almost 35 of them living independently.  I am not Mr Spock!  I have feelings, emotions, fears, anxieties etc etc.  And what are fears and anxieties if they are not imagination-based?

I find the apparent focus upon diagnostic algorithms extremely troublesome.  I am an individual, not a clone. I KNOW from almost everything I've read that AS explains almost everything about the difficulties I've experienced in my life, together with what I've gradually come to realise are my talents.  

To feel that a positive diagnosis could be denied me because I did 'too well' in stupid tests like these, would make me quite angry, and very depressed.

I will try to do as you say, Recomb, ie: not pre-judge. But the imagination I'm apparently not supposed to possess is getting the better of me and I can't help but worry!

Hints of the Triad - "lacks imagination", same as "lacks empathy". What a load of rubbish.

Asks you to try to create a story round some objects or a children's picture book story

It is a crying shame that this is the best we can expect from some professionals.

If you don't have good social referencing you may not acquire the thought processes associated with children's and young people's interactive games.

Doesn't mean you don't have imagination. Just you don't respond to conventional stimuli for imagination found amongst more social individuals.

But the intense focus and interests of people on the spectrum must display elabotrate imagination - just it is not socially based

Professional grasp of autism is an utter disgrace.

I'm sorry if this has upset you. Mental health diagnosis is not an exact science - the lack of certainty is particularly hard to take if you have an autism condition where we prefer to see things as black or white. The system works as well as it can but it takes time and it makes mistakes and is irritatingly inconsistent and uncertain for people like us. Try and be patient, try not to prejudge the outcome.

Well this is very depressing.

There is no standard test (there is no such thing as a standard person with autism either) - it depends on all sorts of things. - like Hope, I didn't do any such tests and just did questionnaires and interviews with an expert. It depends on the team that are working with you, it depends on how you present yourself to them.

They will not tell you 'the truth' about what the tests reveal as there is no absolutely objective truth in this process. They are trying to arrive at a sensible and defendable opinion. They will be observing how you go about doing the tests rather than what you actually produced or what answers you gave to the questions.

I had these at my assessment. It does seem odd and childish, but they are designed to highlight certain aspects of your thought process such as the ability to use imagination and non-rigid thinking in the case of the task of creating a story out of 5 random objects. Like a lot of psychological tests, they are designed in such a way that they are simple enough for the participant to understand and yet not too obvious as to reveal what their purpose is. 

I did not do any such tests at my appointment, so it strikes me as odd that there does not seem to be a standardised approach to autism assessments. I can't comment on the tests as I have not seen them. My parents and I were interviewed and I had to fill in some questionnaires. That, plus an Ed Psych report from childhood, was enough evidence for the team that assessed me.