WAIS test waste of time?

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Just interested how many people have been diagnosed with Asperger's via the WAIS test. I was put through it several years ago and the results were negative for AS. Like, did anyone sit the WAIS and got a negative result, but were diagnosed correctly with different tests? Or did it's results correlate with other tests?

Okay, how an IQ test is supposed to diagnose Asperger's, I have no idea.

I've taken the WISC and the WAIS. Both times there was a pretty decent Verbal/Performance gap--in childhood, the gap was huge; now it's just noticeable. Maybe that's what they were looking for. But it's not present in all cases of autism. In fact, the WAIS score isn't even on the diagnostic criteria, except for technically being included in the "no developmental delay" criterion.

They assume developmental delay for a score of 69 or lower, so you have to score 70 or higher to get diagnosed with Asperger's (plus having no problems with language or verbal communication). But if you scored lower, then you'd just be diagnosed with some other kind of autism, instead, and that's essentially the same thing.

Anyway, you can pretty much ignore the test results except for the way an unusually low or high subtest might point to a particular strength or weakness. The IQ tests are all normed for neurotypicals, and when they're used on people who have atypical development--such as autistic people--they're pretty much invalid.

Agreed. I find that whatever test I take I can answer each question both "yes" and "no" depending on how it is intended. Tests are usually an exercise in mind reading, not logic.

The only thing that matters is to have a nice range of responses (not "strongly yes" for everything, regardless of whether that is true) because otherwise the computer won't like it. Also you have to spot the trap questions (where they think they are asking the same question in different ways to find liars) otherwise their algorithms break. The trap questions are worded slightly differently, so you can legitimately give different answers, but most test scorers are not too bright and do not see this. They can only see their intended meaning (it's mind reading again) so you have to give them what they want or they cannot cope.

That is an example of why I say AS is not a disability: being different is the disability. The real problem is not fitting in, hence not being able to communicate, hence getting frustrated, angry, despairing, etc.

People are just different.

This is what I was talking about though. From what I can gather Asperger sufferers generally score higher than average in the Block subtest but lower in the comprehension tests. The shrink I saw was doing research into AS in prisoners and just agreed to test me as I had nowhere else to go, rural area and that. He did explain why he used the WAIS test, and I'm pretty sure Tony Attwood said it has the ability to distinguish between different ASD disorders. I'm not sure about all that. But was just interested in how many people got a positive or negative AS diagnosis through the WAIS compared to other tests. I myself do not believe it could be accurate at all. But that's a subjective viewpoint I won't elaborate on right now.

From what I understand, if you score highly in certain areas(general knowledge) and really low in certain other areas(practical use of knowledge), the disparity between the results is indicative of some sort of developmental issue. Thus, if you score a certain way it's likely that you have some sort of "problem."

Not sure what you're saying. Spot the trap questions to skew the results purposefully? Or spot the questions because that's what the test expects you t o do?

Neither. If you are the kind of person who sees alternative interpretations, you have to spot them or else the test will not work. For example:
Question 35: "I prefer to do X"
Question 72: "I feel comfortable with X"

To the person setting the test, these are asking the same question in different ways, in order to trap people who lie, or answer randomly. However, "prefer" and "feel comfortable" are not the same. I would prefer to freeze to death than burn to death, but I would feel comfortable with neither.

Most tests are poorly designed. You have to engage in mind reading to infer what the tester expects. If you simply tell the truth then the tester may think you contradict yourself, and conclude you are lying.

All communication is like that. We have to adapt to the audience.

Yeah ok. So subjective analysis of results is still a major problem so all tests are a waste of time unless there's only one person in the world that carries them out. Back to square one.

Despite lol'ing at your example, I feel like you're making it overly complicated. Doesn't answering it the way you interpret it give more information then changing it for someone else?

I prefer to be left alone-- Y or N
I feel comfortable with other people-- Y or N

Answer 1: Y
Answer 2: N

It's black and white questioning. Seems like, unless you're in two different minds as you go through the test, your answers would remain consistently one way or the other. If the one giving the test and scoring the test is NT, then they'd use their ToM to infer that you like to be left alone.

I don't know, maybe I'm getting the wrong idea about this.

I took the WAIS to be tested for dyslexia but now they are saying that to have a learning disorder you can have average to high IQ.
I need to find that article. I was skimming my Facebook news feed on my phone.

Because I scored over 90 they said I couldn't have dyslexia. You had to score 80 or below to have it.
Funny thing is it was my autism symptoms that got me diagnosed with severe stress, severe anxiety and severe depression.
Never try to get diagnosed by a psychologist!

I have a nice psychiatrist now who diagnosed me autistic and ADHD and lets me talk about my interests.

Definitely! But I have tried being honest. It only confuses the people who mark the tests: my results appear random, but I have good reasons for every answer. I feel sorry for the markers. It seems cruel to be honest, and worse, it leads them to make recommendations that are completely wrong.

I have never done a test that is marked by a skilled professional, so hopefully those tests would be better.

Well who are all these unskilled professionals adminstering tests? Seems like the tests you're taking shouldn't be taken seriously anyway then.

Perhaps, and this is just a crazy idea, you write your answer, then write the explanation for your answer. If they STILL don't get it, perhaps a P.S. after the explanation where you explain that you think this test is BS and that they should make less stupid tests.

Or maybe stop contradicting your own answers for the sake of good reason/intention. Since you're already in hell I shouldn't have to tell you what the road to hell is paved with. =P

The only personality or IQ tests I have ever done were either at school, at work, or online. They are all low cost, mass produced tests, marked either by computer or people with little training. For anyone who is unusual, these tests are only useful as a warning about how other people judge you.

I am sure a professional test, conducted in person by a skilled person, would be much better. How much better probably depends on the tester, and on how those results are interpreted by the less skilled people further up the chain.

I did the WISC-III and had fun. Other than that I had fun doing it, it probably was "a waste of time". The psych later pointed out that scoring lower on certain subtest compared to the rest come from my ASD.

According to her and some other sources, a high score in vocabulary supposedly is typical for those with AS = those with autism with excellent language. Well, I thought that is a very stereotyped interpretation. I even have a language impairment which I don't think is the same as "excellent language".

On the other hand, I did get to observe some children with autism whose strengths that probably stemmed from their autism showed in the WISC.

One child with AS (PDD-NOS would have been more appropriate) scored in the borderline intellectual functioning/mild mental retardation range on most sub-tests but easily hit the ceiling on block design. Fortunately, the diagnostician elaborated greatly on that splinter skill upon realising how much fun the child had on solving the puzzles!

I assume the WISC and WAIS can indeed point out strengths that are closely connected to a person's ASD, but I think that for these to show, a careful and diligent interpretation of the results is in order.

I wonder what they mean? I use many obscure terms and read a great deal into sentences (often far more than the speaker intended), yet I have trouble remembering simple words.

My experience with the WAIS was certainly not from a "skilled professional": I was guinea-pigging for my husband about 1970, when he was working on his Masters to become a Clinical Psychologist, taking a Psychological Testing class, and my results would, of course, have been good for nothing. He and a study buddy, taking a different sort of test from each other for the same class, concluded that they both had brain damage. They were genuinely sweating it, until they talked to the teacher the next day and discovered their errors in scoring. He did eventually become a skilled professional.

There were some things the WAIS didn't allow for then. For example, there was one auditory short-term memory section in which the administrator read off strings of digits, progressively increasing in length, and the subject needed to repeat them back to him, both forwards and backwards, until one was missed. The catch, in my case, was that I was working as an old-fashioned bookkeeper at the time, no computer, minimal adding machine, and moving long strings of digits symbolizing money from one paper ledger to another, holding them in my short-term memory while moving them, many times daily. The penalty for a miss was severe (I was checking after writing), working in ink: if I made a mistake, I had to do-over after I found the reason why the books weren't balancing. So, I learned to do it. I was a highly trained and skilled professional in retaining strings of digits short-term! I knocked the top out of that section, getting to a string length that nobody was supposed to be able to do, where the test quit giving increasing strings. The test-writers hadn't counted on testing working bookkeepers. (And just for the fun of it, I had memorized pi to 30 places when I was in High School, committing it to long-term memory. I can still rattle off that.) Actually, I knocked the top out of the whole test, all sections. Too bad it wasn't valid, and we knew it wasn't. I might have made the Guiness, when they put the first one out-- but I wouldn't have done that well if he _had_ been a skilled professional at the time. I had, of course, taken other IQ tests before that. Tom found a couple of child volunteers to guinea pig for him for the WISC.

I wonder why they're still using such an old test? Maybe it's been improved from experience. I hope so.