Are you autistic - The Inquest

Didn't see it. I was more pissed off that Benidorm gave way to some crap called The Full Monty Live.

The questionnaire was called "How Autistic Are You" and was available for a month to six weeks last spring.  I saw an article in a newspaper that directed me towards it.

One was given scores thus:

Section                         Total score Your score All males All females  Autistic Male  Autistic Femle
Sensory Perception         30                                 15.29        14.71           17.43               18.97
Higher scores indicate hypersensitivity (i.e. the ability to sense stimuli or to distinguish between different stimuli) and lower scores indicate hyposensitivity (i.e. difficulty with sensing stimuli and distinguishing between different stimuli). On average, adults with an autism diagnosis score higher on this questionnaire (indicating they have higher hypersensitivity) than adults without an autism diagnosis.

Social Interaction             20                                    8.75           11.96           2.58                 4.14
On average, females score higher than males on this questionnaire. And on average, adults with an autism diagnosis score lower than typical adults.

Organisation
& Routine                          20                                   7.78            5.38           10.63               9.67
In general, males score higher on this questionnaire than females. And on average, adults with an autism diagnosis score higher on systemizing than typical adults without a diagnosis.

Autism Spectrum
Quotient                             10                                   3.2               2.3               7.8                  7.6 
Theory and research suggest that autism is a spectrum, with autistic traits across a spectrum appearing in the general population. That means, to a certain extent, everyone has a degree of autistic traits.
Scores on this test indicate the degree to which you self-reported elements of autistic traits. On average, males score higher on the questionnaire than females. If an individual scores more than 6 out of 10, it is recommended they consider more specialist diagnostic assessment. There’s no blood test you can do for autism. Instead, specially trained doctors and psychologists administer autism-specific behavioural evaluations.

I was mainly disappointed with this. Certainly, it was nice to get actual perspectives from some autistic people. And my husband, NT, said he found it very insightful until the very rushed ending.

I quite enjoyed the attention given to the fact that the spectrum isn't a line and that all autistic people present their traits differently, but I was disappointed with the science behind it. As you said, there were no NT examples for comparison when tasks were shown - the whole show was very much "you did this, which is what autistic individuals do", with no reference to what a neurotypical person does differently.

Having been amongst those that took part in the survey, and had the opportunity to speak online with Simon Baron-Cohen at roughly that time, I was also disappointed with the reference to survey results.

"We think this...did you survey find that?"
"Yes."
"And we think this. Does your survey agree?"
"Yes."
<END>

They presumably had a wealth of categorised data, and yet the survey was only really mentioned in passing.

And the title had me concerned before I even saw it, as though it would encourage anyone to adopt the label. I certainly felt that it seemed a little as though it was promoting autism, at times, rather than providing objective detail. Still, I did like mentions that you can't be 'a little bit autistic', even though most people watching would probably have thought "Well, I do that sometimes..".

Good in parts, but it could have been so much better. Still, it's something better than nothing and certainly wasn't negative.

The several referrals to 'a lost generation' bothered me, too. When I talked to my mother yesterday (before the show) to tell her of my strong suspicions that I'm autistic, she said she'd often suspected it about herself too. That's two generations in addition to the 20s/30s generation I think they were referring to.

I thought it was good, generally. It was titled "Are you autistic?" so I thought it would be for people who want to find out more about autism, to see if they think they are autistic - I waited for the bit that explained what it was in a nutshell, but the only bit I got was the woman who invented the play-acting, when she said that people with autism have difficulty intuiting what other people are thinking and feeling because they struggle with having a mental model of someone else. This gem was hidden away in the second part, almost an aside. It would have been brilliant if someone had said at the start "autism is x" and just delivered a few sentences about what it actually is. I felt that, if the intended audience was undiagnosed people, it wasn't made clear enough what it actually is, which is probably what they were waiting for. It was almost an unspoken assumption that everyone watching knew exactly what it was.

(I just read this back to myself and, lol, it sounds like I don't have a mental model of what other people actually want!)

When they did the speed-dating and they interviewed the men afterwards and said "all the girls had autism, could you tell??", the men didn't explain to us what they understood autism to be, so I didn't really get how they would have "detected" if the girl had autism or not.

I really liked the two people they were following around. The part I found most enjoyable was when they were being interviewed and especially the final section where they went for their diagnoses (also it doesn't escape me that I found this the quietest part of the show, the speech was very gentle and there were no distractions in this section, compared to the more busy earlier sections). Listening to them describe their lives, then get their diagnosis, I found that very...not sure what the word is...enjoyable? Relatable, maybe. Watching the lady look lost when her friends were doing small-talk, and saying "I've finished my activity now, so I'm basically ready to go". Yes. I think that described it more for me than anything else!

The section when they were made to do a task which changed halfway through, I laughed and thought "that does not bode well" and the lady acted exactly as I do, unable to backtrack. It's like you're doing a task and you're a train, and if you have to switch to doing something else, you have to slow the heavy train down, wait for the engine to full stop, then switch the junction, then slowly start the engine up so you can slowly start chugging up the new track. But then you're away on one focused thought and nothing can stop you and you do the task really well.

In all I'm glad it was made, the only thing I would have changed was just to make it more prominent for people to understand exactly what autism is, just a few simple statements at the start, and maybe some examples. I find trying to get other people to actually understand what it is is really hard.

Also, where was this survey where they had 750,000 replies?? I never heard of it. That's a really big number.

And the "lost generation" thing, I agree that they should have specified that the "generation" they're talking about is actually "20-100", it's not like it's just 20-30 year old's and everyone else is fine. It's an entire human lifespan.

I'd like to see more TV programmes explore autism, but pick lots of people from the spectrum, such as what life is like for someone who is non-verbal, versus what it's like for someone who is able to get through life generally okay, versus someone who is high functioning or has a savant ability. It would be too obvious and mainstream to just pick the extremes, I want to see other people represented and also the positive side. The show did a good job of showing the positive side, and I'm glad they barely mentioned savants for a first show, but you do have to show it in all it's glory so you can put the positives in perspective and also be able to compare the positives with the advantages we have over neurotypicals.

I can make these little snippets up easily!  Glad you appreciated it!

I know of 5 people who took part in that survey.  Our results were 1 entirely NT, 1 slightly less NT, 1 just in the range that Autistic people are found in, and 2 very high scorers in all parts of the survey - one of whom already has a diagnosis.  We'd have liked to see more analysis of that data in the show!

Myself, my wife and NT daughter watched it.  We enjoyed it, although as the show progressed I got more and more angry with the local NHS trust - as almost every thing they wrote in my non-diagnostic letter was negated by the programme.  The two people up for diagnosis both had normal speech patterns and intonation, were in relationships, coped with life.  The 'coping with unexpected change' sandwich task struck a chord with me: at work, if I'm in the middle of processing one order and the phone rings with another order, I stammer and mutter and tell them they'll "have to wait until I'm finished otherwise I'll get in a pickle". And as for wanting to change an order... Argh.  But I'm the quickest person in the office at doing the work unless I get interrupted.

I found the term 'a lost generation' a little misleading.  It implied, given the presenters, that people in their 20's have missed diagnosis, whereas in reality, people much older than that are more likely to have missed out - more than one generation.

Trainspotter said:

A society that supposedly welcomes truthfulness and open speech is greatly phased by someone autistic who tells it as it is.

Oh, that's good. I might steal it (but would credit you). 

There's a song in there, I think. 

I must admit I was slightly disappointed by this programme. What I most gained from it was a better understanding of the way autistic women present themselves in public so I take back my previous comment that masking is more an NT trait than an ND one. That was an incorrect assumption on my part (from a male perspective) based on last nights programme. The claim of 750,000 participants in the survey seems incredible to me. However the conclusion that many more people are actually on the ASC spectrum than are aware of it is probably true. The worst aspect of the programme in my opinion was the incorrect links made to mental health issues by the CH4 presenter who clearly was confused about the nature of Autism.

Overall in my opinion it was a very limited insight into Autism but a start.