Sensory Perception Quotient

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I am by no means an expert, i haven't even been tested yet (december 8th) but i would consider myself rather sensitive to a lot of these subjects too and I got a low score, i even then did an exaggerated answer to try and get a higher score and it only raised a few points. I dont get it at all, maybe its just got a problem with the scoring. My friend did the test who is not ASD and she scored i think 41 too......doesn't seem right.

I just answered every question as though I was extremely sensitive to everything, and only got 47.

Exactly. And the test doesn't account for those who have major sensory hinderances in only 1-3 of the 8 senses. They could score similarly to NTs despite having more problems. Those with problems in all/most sensory areas would get really high scores, but that's not realistic for everyone with sensory problems. The choices that are Strongly Agree/Disagree should definitely be worth more points, maybe 2 or 3.



The test measures both hypo- and hyper-sensitivity, so sensitivity alone won't give you a high score. But correct me if I'm wrong.

46.0, probably because I have poor hearing, compared to excellent senses of smell and touch.

53.0 <-whatever
My sensory integration deficits are diagnosed as severe-moderate by an OT.

Ah, OK, I think I see what they were trying to do now, but I don't think it worked very well. Perhaps it would be better if it were separated into two tests, one measuring hypersensitivity and the other measuring hyposensitivity.

If I were creating a test for sensitivity, I would create different sections for each of the senses. So that if you highly sensitive to light but undersensitive to sound the two would not cancel each other out.

I would also give different scores for a strong or a minor response. I would probably use I always agree or I sometimes agree because we know that sensory experience can vary, that is part of SPD. It is also very confusing that some of the questions are phrased in the negative and some in the positive, so I have to read the question twice to make sure which way round it is, then juggle double negative in my head ....I disagree that I wouldn't hear means that I would hear... oh wait did that say can or can't..... ARgghh!

I would also use more specific questions. When I read 5 grains of salt in my cup of water my first question was "how big is the cup?" Or how well I could hear a leaf on a quiet street depends on how far away it is. And whether you can hear the bass in music depends on how you've set the different levels.

Also, it's hard to test whether these are processing issues or just receptive issues- like not being able to read a street sign could just be an indication that you need glasses, not that you have SPD.

I agree with all your points.

And furthermore, to take one example, not only is the question about noticing 5 grains of salt in a cup of water too vague, but I seriously wonder how many people answering that question actually know whether they would be able to taste the salt at that sort of concentration. I suspect that many people who answer that they can taste it would actually not be sensitive to an increase in salinity of such a low level. Have they actually thought about what the salt level in the water they normally drink is, and what percentage change would result from adding 5 grains, before answering? Let alone whether they have tried performing the experiment before answering! Really, they are probably just responding with a rather generic "I'm sensitive to flavours" kind of answer, rather than an accurate and considered response to the actual proposed conditions of the experiment.

And what, for example, about being able to taste the difference between two pieces of dark chocolate? What assumptions is one to make about the two pieces? From the same bar? From two different manufacturers? Are the cocoa percentages assumed identical? Etc., etc. How can one possibly answer such a vague question?

I looked again at the paper by Baron-Cohen et al. where they described the SPQ, and as far as I can see they make no mention of that SPQ scoring key. Instead, what they say is that they scored the answers by assigning 0 = strongly agree, 1 = agree, 2 = disagree and 3 = strongly disagree. Then, somewhat buried elsewhere in the paper, they say that they apply this scoring for those questions where agreeing means high sensory sensitivity, and then they reverse the scoring scheme for those questions where agreeing means low sensory sensitivity. So the lower the final total score, the higher the sensory sensitivity, and vice versa.

I now strongly suspect that the person who created the online test at http://aspietests.org/ misunderstood what the scoring scheme was meant to be, and as a result produced a more or less useless test which, as we have been seeing, gives everyone very similar scores regardless of whether they have high sensory sensitivity or not. The creator of the online test might, perhaps, have used the "scoring key" at http://docs.autismresearchcentre.com/te ... ingKey.pdf to implement the scoring. Whatever that key was intended for, it certainly doesn't seem to lead to any kind of sensible scoring scheme for the test, if used in that way.

I rescored my answers to the test after reading through the paper again. The paper includes a table with all the questions, and the following note at the bottom of the page: Italic items are linked to high thresholds (hyposensitive). Non-italic items are linked to lower thresholds (hypersensitive).

Rescoring by applying a Likert scale of 0-3, and reversing the scale for italic items, yielded a score of 96 for me. This makes a little more sense than the current scoring method for the aspiestests page, and puts me slightly higher than average ASD, but below normal NT.

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Rescoring using the proper scheme described in the original paper, I got 88. That compares with an average of 97.5 for ASD males, and 110.06 for control males.

It is a pity that the person who implemented the online SPQ test evidently used some completely haphazard scoring scheme that bears no relation to the intended scheme.

I've sent an email through the aspietests site this morning to see what rationale they used for the scoring. Perhaps they will be able to explain how they set it up and why, or if the scoring is in fact wrong maybe they can fix it.

Did you ever hear back from the aspietests site? For fun, I tried the experiment of responding to each question on the test with an answer that would score a 1 according to the scoring system in the scoring key. Sure enough, I then got a score of 92, which is the maximum that would be possible with the scoring key.

So indeed, it seems clear that the aspietest site has accurately implemented the scheme in the scoring key, even though that scheme clearly does not make sense, and it is totally at odds with the (perfectly reasonable) scoring scheme described in the original paper.

No, I haven't heard a response yet.

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