The responses to the original post and the Wired article both bothered me. The reason why is remarkably difficult to express. I'll try anyway. 1. The only context Wired gave was that a significant number of members of an autistic group scored above 32, vice 16.4 for the general population. I couldn't find any information on the original article that stated in what context the "quiz" was used. 2. There does not appear to be an indication that this is anything more than a "ranking" of whether or not someone prefers routines and is remarkably good at creating new ones or not. Letter-perfect bureaucrats (or, as Wired says, software programmers) would score remarkably high on this. I'd doubt that all bureaucrats or software programmers are autistic, though autistics may be attracted to such fields (A does not lead to B, though B may lead to A). 3. There are primarily two types of questions - ability to create "order" out of "chaos" and adaptability to unpredictable situations, with ability/preference for order and lack of adaptability both leading to a higher score. My problem is that diplomats who are remarkably adept at names and faces will score approximately the same as chaotic social recluses, and both will score as high as the general population. I find this unsettling for some reason. 4. Numerous people's comments about scores changing over time seem accurate and further troubling to anyone who wants to link high scores to autism. A child would probably score very poorly on adaptability questions - does this mean that all children are autistic? In sum, I think that the test may have its place in autistic diagnosis, but I think that people (and Wired) may be reading too much into it when they consider it a spectrum. I think that it's a good indication that autistics tend to prefer routines and little more. Hayden Who does fine at parties except when people tell him he looks like the youngest guy in the Pentagon, that he's younger than he sounds on the phone, or that he shouldn't be old enough to need to shave :-P
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