Conversation

Notices

1. Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Nov-2023 10:28:37 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

   Tried the RAADS-R autism self-eval. Interesting! The interpretation is confusing:
   

   25 You are not autistic.
   50 Some autistic traits, but likely not autistic (yet some autistic people score as low as 44).
   65 The minimum score at which autism is considered.
   90 Stronger indications of autism, although non-autistics may score as high.
   130 The mean score of autistic people; strong evidence for autism.
   160 Very strong evidence for autism.
   227 The maximum score autistic people acquired in Ritvo’s seminal paper on the RAADS–R.
   [9]240 The maximum possible RAADS–R score

   
   Is "not autistic" 25 and below? I guess, because if it's 25–50, what is below then? I guess "some traits" is 50–65? But what is 25–50 then? Are they supposed to be overlapping so that 0–50 is "not" and 25–65 is "some traits"?

   embrace-autism.com/raads-r/#te…

   • Nate :verified: (jeang3nie@social.linux.pizza)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Nov-2023 10:28:34 UTC Nate :verified:

     in reply to

     @clacke that's not too dissimilar to myself. On my mother's side of the family there have always been a lot of brilliant people, a lot of odd people and a few who had obvious differences from "normal".

     My mother has a cousin who is autistic and developmentally delayed. Since that was my first experience with Autism, that is what I thought Autism was when I was younger. It never occurred to me that it could apply to me until I was an adult and began some serious self reflection.

     Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 likes this.
   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Nov-2023 10:28:35 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to

     • Nate :verified:

     @jeang3nie I've felt adjacent for years and definitely recognize some of the habits, preferences and coping mechanisms people are regularly sharing.

     Lately I'm suspecting my whole family two generations back may be a little bit on the spectrum and that's why I felt normal growing up and I think I'm just the worst of us at masking maybe because I felt so normal and also I'm the spoiled decade-younger sibling with basically my siblings as extra parents, so I got away with everything, while my parents are A+ at masking because they grew up in the 40s.

   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Nov-2023 10:28:36 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to

     My result:

     Total:
     56

     Language subtotal:
     3

     Social relatedness subtotal:
     35

     Sensory/motor subtotal:
     7

     Circumscribed interests subtotal:
     11

     
     Super interesting! I don't have very much in terms of stimming or difficulty reading people, but I do feel a difficulty connecting with people who don't have a favorite topic to infodump about and I don't get why people with somewhat similar interests to me aren't as interested to deep dive and know everything. But some of that might be more ADHD-like than ASD-like, possibly.

   • Nate :verified: (jeang3nie@social.linux.pizza)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Nov-2023 10:28:36 UTC Nate :verified:

     in reply to

     @clacke I do think you'll get a better picture by taking several off the self evaluations on the embrace-autism site. I think you'll probably get an even better picture by talking with autistic people about shared experience. If you follow the #actuallyautistic hashtag and begin interacting with the people you come across you're likely to find that you have a lot in common with some of them if you are also autistic. I definitely have, and it's also been a life changing experience for the better.

   • Nate :verified: (jeang3nie@social.linux.pizza)'s status on Tuesday, 07-Nov-2023 10:32:10 UTC Nate :verified:

     in reply to

     @clacke in hindsight, all of the signs were there from a young age. I didn't speak until I was three, used to stim like crazy and have always had special interests. Plenty of other signs as well, but nobody connected the dots.

     Part of me still occasionally wants to be upset with my parents for being clueless about it when I was a child, but I can't blame them really because I was so good at masking. As I've gotten older, I feel a lot less need to do so. I'm in a place I'm comfortable being me.

     Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 likes this.