Please remove this quiz. It’s been up for years despite numerous comments from actual Autists decrying its validity. Running a mental health resource site is serious business. I have found ADDitude to be very helpful in the past but items like this absolutely tank its reputation.

It’ss very common for autistic women (& some men) to ‘mask’, which means they pretend to be neurotypical. So, for example, I wasn’t bullied at school, nobody would think I’m a crazy professor, I’ve taught myself eye contact and small talk. Basically I can trick people into thinking I’m neurotypical. It’s incredibly stressful to do and has a huge impact on mental health and does not mean a person is not autistic. Because of masking, autism cannot diagnosed by how other people see you or how you present yourself to the world.

Some autistic people are very good at maths and music, but it’s not a means of diagnosing autism.

I do find metaphors confusing, so I don’t understand what a memory like a steel trap means – who uses a strange metaphor in a quiz aimed at autistic/possibly autistic people?

“When you’re having a conversation with someone, do you prefer to look at the wall, their shoes, or anywhere but directly into their eyes?” This question cannot be answered with “very often, often, etc” – You give three options, but how can I choose one in the answer?

Some of this stuff – lovable professor, gifted musician, mathematician, who trips over things and says inappropriate stuff on social occasions and has no understanding of embarrassment – is like a stereotype from a film or tv show. It made me laugh that you think this is an actual way to diagnose autism. Possible autistics, do yourselves a favour and get a proper diagnosis!

As for “Is your memory like a steel trap?” Um, I’m autistic, so why on earth would you put some weird imagery into a question unless you don’t understand autism at all? I spent ages wondering what on earth this might mean. Stuff gets into my mind and can’t get out again? My mind springs closed whenever I hit on any info? I’m in middle age, so I sort of know that this probably means that you are asking if I am good at holding onto information. But then I’m middle aged so I no longer hold onto info like I did 30 years ago… Maybe it’s just a stupid question.

Was I bullied as a child? No, because I am great at pretending to be normal. That doesn’t make me neurotypical, it makes me APPEAR neurotypical to many people.

Do friends refer to me as an “eccentric professor”? No, of course they don’t because they’re adults who don’t talk like children in a 1970s movie.

I really think this questionnaire is dangerous. I’m autistic and have enough knowledge to see the shortcomings, but for others it might put them off getting assessed professionally. Some people experience decades of misery and inability to understand themselves or be understood because they haven’t been diagnosed. Please either direct people to more reputable tests like AQ or RITVO, or get this one re-written by someone with knowledge of autism.

Let’s look at this question:
Do your family members lovingly refer to you as the “eccentric professor” of the family, even though you don’t work anywhere near academia?

Hi. If you knew anything about Spectrum people you would know that we are very literal. No one has ever called me The Eccentric Professor. They may have called me terms that imply the same but that exact verbiage has never been used so I have to answer never. I left someone on the Spectrum was called exactly that phrase they’re going to select never. You might want to learn a little bit about ASD. That’s not the only question with that kind of problem.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Something has indeed gone wrong with this self-test. We have an updated self-test for adults here: https://www.additudemag.com/screener-autism-spectrum-disorder-symptoms-test-adults/.

Penny
ADDitude Community Moderator, Parenting ADHD Trainer & Author, Mom to teen w/ ADHD, LDs, and autism

as sports itself i cant deal with but games like board games and computers games i love and they only mention sports items but have the word games in the question, been suck for ever

The same thing happened to me. I took it only one time though. I won’t do it again, then it becomes manipulative. Get your tests right, authors. There’s no excuse for mistakes such as this in this type of self-test.

I went through this test several times with no answer. Frustrating