ArtemisSo shit like this is why autism goes undiagnosed & unrecognized so often.
These will be true of *some* autistic people, but it really has nothing to do with anything.
And that's not even mentioning the fact that a lot of questions ignore the possibility that an autistic person may also have ADHD.
Like "It’s important to me to carefully plan any activities I am going to do". Ummm. I have ADHD, motherfuckers. Of course I don't carefully plan all my activities! How tf would I manage that when I'm fucking impulsive as all hell?
I do carefully plan A LOT of my activities, but "all/any" is so silly. It doesn't just ignore ADHD. It ignores the fact that people don't always act the same way in every situation.
It's so weird to put things in such absolute ways.
But the people writing diagnostic questions for autism don't consider that the person answering them might be obsessed with nuance & accuracy, which seems like a failing.
Diagnostic questions for autism are indistinguishable from Buzzfeed quizzes in my opinion. You can often tell what answer you should give to get a specific result, but the actual question is nonsensical.
I also think that they don't realize a special interest can be ANYTHING, including, say, an interest in emotional well-being & nurturing relationships.
The Autistic Innovator 
@artemis Those questions read more like one of those what is your personality type quizzes.
@AutisticInnovator
Yeah, I had to leave the website I was on to do some Googling to confirm that they do indeed seem to be authentic questions that may be used in some settings to assess autism.
Because, yep, they are absolutely personality questions.
Franchesca@artemis @AutisticInnovator been through the diagnosis process twice now, these are absolutely the kind of things they have to ask, but the specialists who run the process are (in the Netherlands at least) very good at getting the context around it to understand the why and see if it really fitted or not.
Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
Dave Alvarado@artemis this right here is why we are so much better at diagnosing boys. Girls being especially interested in relationships is just girl-coded behavior. Boys staring for hours at trains is weird.
@artemis Let's imagine a perfectly round autistic person in a vacuum...
Lydia Conwell@artemis I don't think I'm autistic but whenever I've done those online tests I've come out as: Might Be Autistic.
There are questions like: Do you find background noise distracting/intolerable?
Who like background noise? Who wants to listen to the soothing sounds of a car engine idling out the window?
WearyBonnie@artemis
As an undiagnosed Autist who masked very successfully all the way through school, uni, work etc, I am pretty good at appearing neurotypical in a lot of situations. Put me somewhere where I've not had a chance to develop my "what is the next appropriate response" algorithm though, and my brain/face just bluescreens 😅
As an undiagnosed Autist who masked very successfully all the way through school, uni, work etc, I am pretty good at appearing neurotypical in a lot of situations. Put me somewhere where I've not had a chance to develop my "what is the next appropriate response" algorithm though, and my brain/face just bluescreens 😅
Alex P. 👹