Executive Functioning and Verbal Memory test

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verbal memory: 79th percentile
executive functioning: 10th percentile
I thought I'd do better on the verbal memory, but the executive functioning was no surprise. The flashing colors really messed with me, too.

Aspie Quiz
155 Aspie
55 NT

Verbal memory 34 percentile, average
Executive functioning 12 percentile, low average

I should say that I did the first bit of the test, went away for about 2 hours, then did the rest so the verbal memory bit should probably be higher.

Verbal: 111 - 77th percentile
Exec.: 94 - 34th percentile

Verbal Memory:

Percentile 61 <---originally I was looking at something different, rofl

Average

Executive Function:

1 percentile

Very low

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And here I thought I didn't have any executive function issues.

I'm tired and have no idea how you guys score this when you say 3rd percentile etc so:

Verbal Memory: 56, 111, 77 - Above average
Exe Fun..; 47, 94, 34 - Average

In the executive functioning test i sometimes impulsively pressed the wrong button. "Press left! NOOO... damn body"

Impulsiveness and impulse control are affected by executive function.

That part of the test is similar to but much shorter than another test they do while checking for ADHD. It's two 10-minute tests, one to test attention, one to test impulsiveness.

When i was being tested for ADHD i had to sit on a computer for 15minutes hitting the space bar everytime a letter flashed on the screen. I was told to not press space when the letter X appeared. It was very difficult for me not to press space once it came. I was told however that people who do not have adhd also struggled to skip the X'es.

I was googling autism and executive functioning and came across an interesting research paper that was evaluating the diagnostic suitability of various executive functioning tests in help evaluating autism/aspergers (at http://www.iapsych.com/articles/hill2006.pdf). Here's the important conclusion:

So, it looks like the Six Elements task of the BADS and on the Hayling
test are *the* tests to take for evaluating executive functioning for evaluating the likelihood of possessing autism. I wonder what those tests are like (I wonder if they're similar to this one?)?

From the paper:



Hmmm... I wonder how I could get a hold of these tests? Or, possibly, if I learn a sufficiently great amount of information about these tests, I might be able to create an online clone and we could then norm that on AS and NT individuals and then the internet will then have one, or two, more tests available for the purposes of effectively diagnosing the likelihood of having autism! Oh gee, the possibility excites me.

Btw, I posted an "NT thread" for score comparison at http://personalitycafe.com/cognitive-fu ... t-t-f.html . It turns out 2 out of the 3 NTs, so far, are in the average range while the last guy (At this point in time) did "really really badly" on the switching attention part (He didn't want to divulge an exact number.). So, even though the number of tested NTs are small at this point, it appears there's a definite difference between the "normal"/"low score" ratio between NTs and "official AS individuals" on the switching attention task, suggesting that an executive functioning test would be useful for diagnosing autism/aspergers. I'm not sure how good this particular test is compared to other executive functioning tests out there.

I'm really interested to understand the correlation between Exec Dysfunction and AS.
Taking this test only piqued my interest further, being that there was such a wide discrepancy between my two scores, and there seems to be a clear pattern of low executive functioning amongst people here.

If I pay attention to it, I can feel the lag in processing that occurs with specific tasks or environments. This test was a fantastic example of that.

Can anybody hypothesize what extremely low verbal memory scores and high executive function scores imply?

being a calculator?
I would guess: poor or impaired short-term memory, due to... injury, drug use, or plain genetics. Something like that...

I was going to guess poor verbal working memory, as you need verbal working memory to properly encode the words into longer-term memory storage ("Short term" memory supposedly lasts for 2-5 seconds or some such.), whereas, the other parts of executive functioning are spared.

However, I'd suspect if you tried the test 4 times, and your scores varied from the 2nd percentile to the 97th percentile, that's what we call the practice affect. To minimize the practice affect, you should wait a month before taking the test again.

Btw, I'm still suspicious about the seeming group discrepancies in verbal memory between older and younger testers. It seems statistically significant enough to suspect that their age-related score adjustments might not be adjusted well enough.

I just culled the verbal scores for the "older testers" and here's what the results are:

Official AS (name - estimated_age; verbal_memory_score)
------------------------
wavefreak - 50; 1
verdandia - 40; 1
kon - 60; 1
apple_in_my_eye - 42; 1
raquiGirl - 38; 90

Unknown
--------------------------
ojani - 38; 32
Rhiannon0828 - 42; 79

It appears there's a definite group difference in verbal scores among the older "officially diagnosed" group as compared to younger testers who usually score between the 30-90 percentile. I suspect their score adjustments for older testers are off by quite a bit, unless there could be an explanation why there'd be a large percentage of older users on the board with lower scores. (Maybe the older aspies who are more verbally skilled are too busy in the "real world", whereas a lot of the younger people on the boards tend to be students so there's a more normal distribution among younger forum users? Or maybe older users tend to have a more severe form of aspergers than younger users?)

Does anybody relate to these?

-have trouble paying attention to and remembering information presented orally, and may cope better with visually acquired information
-have problems carrying out multi-step directions given orally; need to hear only one direction at a time
-have poor listening skills
-need more time to process information
-disliking locations with background noise such as bar, clubs or other social locations
-a preference for written communication (e.g. text chat)
-having trouble paying attention and remembering information when information is simultaneously presented in multiple modalities

P.S. I'm still in my 40s. I wish I was in my 60s as I'm looking forward to retirement.

swbluto,

I'm 41.

- Yes, all the time.
- Yes, all the time.
- Yes, all the time.
- Yes, all the time.
- Yes, all the time.
- Yes, all the time.
- Yes, all the time.

Verbal memory: 86th percentile
Executive Functioning: 34th percentile

I have HFA.

My scores were:

Verbal memory: 77th percentile
Executive Function: 32nd percentile