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Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): Compendium Thread

Mythopoeika said:
Here's what I do...
I click on the What's New > New Posts menu option.
This gives a list of all the Fortean threads that have new stuff (but excludes the Chat and Mainstream News Stories threads).
From the list, I have a look at only the ones that interest me.
Then I click on the Forums > Mark forums read menu option to clear the list.
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I have been here long enough that I often don’t get past my alerts.:) Then, if I have time I go to new posts and then I’m off down more rabbit holes:rollingw:
 
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I didn't know women could be autistic until recently and as a kid I didn't know that autistic people weren't always the same as that kid in my class who really needed help with coping with the normal school day and didn't get it. (Apparently he became a brilliant pool player after school.)

I think I may be autistic or something like it but I haven't been diagnosed as I am trying to get over the fear of reaching out and speaking to someone. However, I think I have always had an idea of what my strengths and weaknesses were. For example, I'm good at art but I just knew I would not be able to do the networking, task organisation and freelancing required so I chose to do art in my spare time and a different career in my day job. I love putting order into chaos and eventually I became an data protection and information manager. It's perfect. I put information and data into boxes and guard them during the day and then at night I draw whatever the hell I like without having to worry about whether it will sell.

So I don't know if I would have turned out differently if I had had a diagnosis in earlier years. But maybe I wouldn't have spent so many hours agonising and hating myself over how useless at Peopling I was. Maybe I wouldn't have spent so long trying to be something I'm not. Maybe. Being a young person maybe I would have done it anyway.
 
staticgirl said:
But maybe I wouldn't have spent so many hours agonising and hating myself over how useless at Peopling I was. Maybe I wouldn't have spent so long trying to be something I'm not.
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Beautifully put. This encapsulates why many of us support early diagnosis.
 
From Fesshole on Twitter -

I work in aviation. Most people would probably be surprised by how many neurodivergent people work in the industry. In the nicest way possible, you're basically being kept alive by a load of people with autism, whose childhood obsession with planes has become their career.
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Could somebody please explain what the diamond/kite-shape thing signifies? I'm not good at understanding results of the various kinds of tests or graphs.

1706792467607.png
 
Perhaps it represents a particular individual?

The chart seems to suggest that someone can be 'more autistic' in some traits (say language) whilst 'less autistic' in other traits. In other words, that autism isn't a simple sliding scale between 'less' and 'more' but actually a set of multiple scales upon which people can be more or less.

Putting myself on that chart, then, I'd get a different shape pattern to most other autistic people (and obviously all neurotypical people).

I think one also needs to be careful not to read 'less autistic' as 'more able/ more skilled'. I, for example, have very good language skills, but the way I communicate is still quite autistic. I'm highly skilled but also quite neurodiverse in the way I talk and tell jokes and understand others use of language and so on.
 
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each colour is an axis - representing a function. So green is executive functioning and so on.

You answer various questions and then your answers are scored and added up, the total for each function being plotted on the relevant axis.

The person illustrated has exceptional sensory skills, very good language skills, average motor skills and poor executive functioning.

Three things to note

* I have no idea what happened to the scote for perception. I think that the person making the picture didn't understand what they were drawing?

* Terms like average seems to relate to normal- or NT people.

* You can find an version of the test here :)

https://embrace-autism.com/aspie-quiz/
 
Ah, I'm sorry, D - I should've explained that the picture is just a random one, not my own results.

Thank you, and Frideswide too - I'll have a go at that test. :)
 
Here is my current one, just done at the link above. This version uses a typical/atypical division which I think is better than the simple one pictured above. If anyone wants to try it out, don't sweat over the questions however tempting it is to do so.

1706798348914.png
 
I just did mine too. So now I'm going to try to figure both yours and mine out. :D

'Your score: 112 of 200
79% probability of being atypical (autistic/neurodiverse)'

1706798903378.png
 
A question about traits in me which I suspect may be connected to my (likely) ND:

Mirroring behaviours - when around certain people, or even after watching some films or listening to some music, I find my personality, speech patterns, body language, interests, emotions etc becoming more aligned to the external influence around me.

Non-standard gender identity - I don't 'feel' a gender as strongly or surely as others seem to; I feel 'outside'

Ambivalent sexuality - changing/variable sexuality and long periods of asexuality or disinterest in sex, but also sometimes fixated interest in sex; confused sensory issues over sex making it mostly a 'meh' experience

Rotating fixations on hobbies - I will get super into something for a period of time (whether days or years), and then my interest will wane and I'll be crippled by boredom then find a new fascination, and so the cycle continues

Oversharing and over-honesty and transparency - generally finding honestly and transparency more palatable than dissimulation (a trait which can make me vulnerable or exploitable and which I should have learned to be careful about but haven't much)

Oddly highly sensitive to some emotions, whilst being high tolerance to others - For example, I'm extremely prone to fear (leading to things like hypochondria and anxiety), stress (connected to physical ailments like IBS, eczema, headaches, psoriasis, etc), and depression, but seem to hardly feel things like jealousy at all.

Are these the same for others?
 
Yithian said:
My favourite question from the test:

View attachment 73503

A) Only in forests, mountains and ancient buildings.
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What an interesting question.

I can create that sensation whenever I desire, and it's connected to my objectum sexuality and tulpa lovers, and probably explained my sensation of god when I went through a religious fixation.

Is that not something everyone has?
I guess most ND people don't have that sensation.
 
Delightful said:
Non-standard gender identity - I don't 'feel' a gender as strongly or surely as others seem to; I feel 'outside'
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I don't think I really understand what this means properly.

In my case, I am white, and male and heterosexual, but I've seldom 'felt' any of those things in any strong sense: even when in situations where I'm the only one of each of those things in a group. For various reasons, this is often the case for the first two categories, but it makes little difference; I consider them almost as rarely as I consider my height or the fact that I'm right-handed: very seldom.

To be clear, I am fully aware that I am all these things, but I feel simply that I'm 'me', and it's almost inconceivable for me to be 'me' and yet different in these categories: I am a bundle of preferences, but only the totality defines me.
 
I just don't seem to fit with many of the 'classic' symptoms e.g. am more likely to be silent and still rather than restless or fidgety. This isn't the right time for me to over-analyse.
 
Steven said:
I just don't seem to fit with many of the 'classic' symptoms e.g. am more likely to be silent and still rather than restless or fidgety. This isn't the right time for me to over-analyse.
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@Steven, remember that these "symptoms" are only a picture in time.

They are fabricated terms which are used to try to describe differences in order to (sometimes) make measurements that can be defined for research or diagnoses. The words are not people, or more succinctly, you.

Our moods and thoughts and perceptions change constantly. Don't concern yourself about the box that you feel your answers don't put you in. People are not boxes:)
 
Delightful said:
A question about traits in me which I suspect may be connected to my (likely) ND:

Mirroring behaviours - when around certain people, or even after watching some films or listening to some music, I find my personality, speech patterns, body language, interests, emotions etc becoming more aligned to the external influence around me.

Non-standard gender identity - I don't 'feel' a gender as strongly or surely as others seem to; I feel 'outside'

Ambivalent sexuality - changing/variable sexuality and long periods of asexuality or disinterest in sex, but also sometimes fixated interest in sex; confused sensory issues over sex making it mostly a 'meh' experience

Rotating fixations on hobbies - I will get super into something for a period of time (whether days or years), and then my interest will wane and I'll be crippled by boredom then find a new fascination, and so the cycle continues

Oversharing and over-honesty and transparency - generally finding honestly and transparency more palatable than dissimulation (a trait which can make me vulnerable or exploitable and which I should have learned to be careful about but haven't much)

Oddly highly sensitive to some emotions, whilst being high tolerance to others - For example, I'm extremely prone to fear (leading to things like hypochondria and anxiety), stress (connected to physical ailments like IBS, eczema, headaches, psoriasis, etc), and depression, but seem to hardly feel things like jealousy at all.

Are these the same for others?
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Honestly I don't see that you are any different to the vast majority of the population. Behaviours, feelings, emotions etc vary over time and circumstances for most people and if we were all identical it would be incredibly tedious. That' s not to say I'm dismissing how you feel about yourself, but as I age rapidly I've stopped over analysing myself and feel better for it.

As for the oversharing thing I think this is more a female trait than for a bloke. (on this subject Ms P often says I'm a closed book - I try not to be but oversharing is not in my nature). I suppose what I'm saying is don't beat yourself up about who you are!
 
PeteS said:
Honestly I don't see that you are any different to the vast majority of the population. Behaviours, feelings, emotions etc vary over time and circumstances for most people and if we were all identical it would be incredibly tedious. That' s not to say I'm dismissing how you feel about yourself, but as I age rapidly I've stopped over analysing myself and feel better for it.

As for the oversharing thing I think this is more a female trait than for a bloke. (on this subject Ms P often says I'm a closed book - I try not to be but oversharing is not in my nature). I suppose what I'm saying is don't beat yourself up about who you are!
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Oh I don't beat myself up. I'm quite happy about most of the things I am :)
Though it surprises me to think that I would not be considered different to most. From my experience of people they are clearly different to me, and a fair few are happy to tell me so.
 
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