Are there good tests? All tests that I have done so far don’t make sense, the questions are general and hard to answer. I don’t go to social events and I don’t meet new people often so I can’t answer how would i feel about it and they don’t give an option to skip the question. And how am I supposed to know if people around notice small sounds or not? Such questions don’t make sense to me. Deepseek bot told me that not understanding how to answer tests might be a trait by itself. Do you have any good tests for potential autistic person to do to figure out more about themselves?
I hate that most of these tests only have 4 options, Fully or Partial Agree/Disagree. Sometimes, the most correct answer for a person is “Neither” or “Depends” - or the question should be made clearer. Even a professional will just try to say “think about the most common situation”, which doesn’t help.
“I enjoy social occasions” -> Depends. What sort of social occasion? Game night? Church meeting after mass? Party at a friend’s? Family dinner? Going to a bar with music I don’t enjoy?
This is my uninformed, dumbass opinion: psychology/psychiatry are still in their baby steps in actually properly diagnosing neurodivergences in adults. The tests (which are these big folders that psychologists have to pay for, like WISC-IV or NEPSY-II) feel like they can only properly diagnose ‘mericans, because some of the questions’ “average answer” will vary significantly on different cultures. There’s also the whole problem of constant use of computers/phones/social media that creates several symptoms that are common in certain neurodivergences, so all this tech might be increasing the number of false positives or actually causing divergences on brains that wouldn’t otherwise
Sometimes I wonder if general questions like that aren’t. Like I hate going out for pretty much any reason, so logically there are people that love going out for any reason at all.
Not understanding the questions is very much an indicator.
If it is an option, ask to take these tests together with a professional during assessment. They can both clarify the questions and will also make note of your approach to the test which is strong data.
yeah this would be the best option, my friend also told me that this kind of tests are supposed to be made with help of a professional
Keep in mind that modern medicine is still catching up to reality when it comes to actual lived experiences of Autistic people, and that ableism around this often invisible disability can be difficult to overcome.
I’m linking the site that I got the most use out of when I was first looking into getting tested, but keep in mind that they are asking about your entire life, not just recent events. There’s over 20 tests on this one page, take breaks if you feel overwhelmed.
Example: You mentioned hearing things others can’t. At any point in your life, going back to early childhood, could this apply to you?
I have Autism and ADHD, and frequently I cannot tune out certain auditory stimuli no matter how hard I try, and it can affect my concentration and emotional regulation to the point of causing a breakdown. Common noises that affect me are electrical buzzing/higher frequencies that most people can just tune out without thought, or the low rumble of diesel engines. Most people can hear the truck idling outside only if they concentrate, but for me it’s impossible to ignore as soon as they’re on my street. To me, those noises are subtle torture.
Try not to spend more than 3-4 minutes on these questions, and try not to put too much weight on them; they are self-reporting tools to give you a sense of how Autism may be/has previously impacting/ed your daily life. Remember that it is a spectrum; not every question will apply to you and scoring higher or lower on these just means there are INDICATORS, and different criteria will be used if you seek out an official diagnosis. The current testing criteria for licensed professionals is the DSM-5. Your lived experiences and feelings are valid. If you haven’t already, Unmasking Autism by Dr. Devon Price is an excellent book to start your diagnosis journey, and there’s exercises and resources within the book itself. Make sure to screenshot your results, too, so you don’t lose them.
thank you, i have made 2 tests from this website and i made CAT test also which i found more useful than others and easier to answer questions. I will take a look at the book as well. When i try to think about childhood i start to feel like i cant remember anything 😅. It feels like a full time job trying to figure out all these aspects and traits, not only of myself but also of others cos I have no clue for example how other people can hear truck on idle, as you said
Embrace autism is free and good as it also offers a CAT-Q masking test. So its main AQ test is better at detecting underlying autism and then the masking test can explain why it took you and the people in your life so long to even consider autism as a possibility.
Also now offer adhd tests apparently.
They just want a burner email and they don’t spam
I’m sorry I can’t answer your question, but I’d like to know as well. So far I have found that most tests I’ve looked at were quite vague, as in I was often tempted to reply with nuance when the test expected a binary answer. There’s this same problem about figuring out intentions : the intentions of test questions themselves are sometimes hard to understand.
Which online tests have you done? I’m assuming from the screenshot you’ve done the AQ test (which is one of the more scientific ones) and looked at the others on the Embrace Autism website.
I would also not rely on any LLM for advice in this regard. There’s a lot of misleading and plain wrong information on the Internet and much of it has likely been incorporated into the major LLMs.
I have done 2 tests from that website with 10 and 50 questions. I have done tests from some other websites but they were similar. I didn’t look into some other tests yet, deepseek suggested to take RAADS-R, CAT-Q and Aspie Quiz, but i didn’t look them up yet
The RAADS-R is worth doing and it is used in formal diagnosis here in Australia. https://embrace-autism.com/raads-r/
Thank you, i will do this one too
