Under diagnostic evaluation: "When learning do you focu

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I just came to think about one question I got under my diagnostic evaluation, the question was from a standardized interview for diagnosing Asperger's but I cant remember which, and went something like:

"When trying to learn new things do you focus on facts or try to understand the broader picture"?

First he had to repeat the question and then I answered something like "Isn't that essentially the same? - You start to learn facts about something in order to understand the broader picture". My psychologist thought for some time and then agreed that it was a good point. After some discussion I don't remember, we were not able to conclude on the question and he just said that he would not score me (meaning, that he considered it normal).

For some reason the question is still in my mind so I wonder what you think about it?

(Btw When I came home and asked the same question about myself to my wife I got an "YEEEES you always obsess on the insignificant details!! !" - so I guess it's a reason why a lot of clinicians wants you to bring someone who knows you lol)

Well, try to view it this way: NT's usually don't bother with facts, they just go with a general impression about the whole.

That usually seems to work out OK, but you only have to read some helldesker-support forums (i.e. forums where helldeskers go for emotional support) about how this can go horribly wrong.

I think the question was trying to ask "do you often miss seeing the forest because you are focused on the trees?"

I have a hard time with this, personally. I tend to get stuck on details that do not add overall value to the project on which I am working. My secretary always says that the last 5% of a project takes me 80% of the total time used for the project.

I think it was a badly worded question.

Surely what he wanted to understand is where you start from? Do you build up the big picture by assembling the facts and details to start with, or do you first somehow intuitively glimpse the big picture, then go on to fill it in with facts and details in order to confirm what you first saw?

[quote="ghostar"My secretary always says that the last 5% of a project takes me 80% of the total time used for the project.[/quote]

"The last 10% of a project takes 90% of the time" is a general rule of thumb about projects, nothing to do with Aspie-ness.

Aha, I get it know. Thanks for explaining. - Still seems a hard question to answer about oneself though, but I guess that can be said about most of those. At times (Don't get me wrong, I was actually very satisfied with my psychologist) it felt like the questions really was "Do you use some faulty reasoning or do you prefer the best one?". Where faulty was the thing that would point to Asperger's. I mean if I knew that I was, for exampling studying wrong I would have changed it by now.... Maybe you just have to know yourself better than I do lol.