• Replies 16 replies
  • Subscribers 27 subscribers
  • Views 10938 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Children's tests used on adult assessment?

Technophobe23

I've raised this before but so far, I still don;t know what the situation actually is.  

On my first assessment (clinical psychologist), I was give two tests that seemed to me to be designed for young children. One was a picture book, with castles and a dragon, with no words. The task was to try to tell a story as the pages went by.

The other test was a small collection of objects placed on the desk (eg: a Matchbox model car, a rubber band, a coin, some wool, a stick - that sort of thing anyway). The task was to use some/all of the objects to construct a sstory.

At my second meeting with the clin psych (CP from now on to save typing!), I asked whether they had been tests designed for children and I was told that they were not - they were designed fro adults, and the tests for children are simpler.  That's what I was told.

The CP told me that although, at out 1st meeting, I had shown some signs of AS I had also shown some quite strong negative signs. When I asked in what way, I was told that I had done "too well" in the tests.  I did say that after 55 years I have learned quite a lot in life, and that they weren't exactly difficult. But no way of knowing what imprression saying that made.

So, to get to my point / question:

Does anyone know about these tests?  Can anyone say whether they are meant for children or adults? Does anyone think (as I do) that for a CP to apparently be leaning toiwards a negative diagnosis based largely upon being too good at these tests just wouldn't be right?

Somebody must know the answer! I've been trying to find anything on Google but I'm at giving up point - not a thing I can find.  I want to know because if they are aimed at children (and they certainly seem like it to me, though I'll keep an open mind), then their validty must be questionable applied to me.

Parents

  • 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.

Reply

  • 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.

Children
No Data