Took the ADOS test this week. How did I do?

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My psychologist is finally back from her vacation and on Friday this week I saw her for another assessment session. This time there was another psychologist there as well and I was filmed while taking some kind of test. After googling it this morning, I figured out it was probably the ADOS test. Now, I have no idea how people on the autism spectrum are "supposed to do" on the ADOS test and I don't know how NTs usually do either. Perhaps you could tell me what you think of my performance (sorry if this is a stupid post but I'm too curious to wait until I get the actual results)? Besides having to answer questions I got a few practical tests as well:

1. Some sort of puzzle test. One of the psychologists gave me four puzzle pieces and asked me to solve the puzzle. I asked if I should put the pieces on the paper with the pattern or beside the paper. I don't remember what she answered but I put them on the paper with the pattern anyway. I kept telling her that "I've only got four pieces so it's not possible for me to solve this puzzle" but she just kept looking at me like she expected something so I did what I could with the four pieces and told her about having too few pieces once again when I was done. After a while she asked me if I wanted more pieces. I said "please", she gave me the pieces and I finished the puzzle. It wasn't until much later that I realised that I probably should've asked for additional pieces.

2. I was supposed to look at the pictures in a children's book and tell her what was happening in the pictures/what the story was about. I think I did really bad on this one. I kept stating the obvious: "well, these are frogs on flying lily pads", "now they're apparently flying into some sort of residential area", "ok, now they've somehow gotten into an old lady's house and they're watching television though I don't know why or what they're watching. Oh and there's a cat observing them." Etc. The psychologist had to ask me questions to keep me talking. She for example had to ask me about the old lady:

Psychologist: does it look like the lady cares about what's happening?
Me: no, it looks like she's asleep.
Psychologist: I think so too. How'd you think she would've reacted if she was awake?
Me: well, she probably wouldn't be that calm.

3. I had to look at a couple of pictures and tell the psychologist what I saw. They were quite detailed, which I noticed right away, but I only said a few sentences about the picture as a whole (I didn't really mention all the details even though I definitely noticed them). One picture was of some sort of vacation spot with loads of people doing vacation related activities. This happened:

Psychologist: what do you see?
Me: various vacation activities.
Psychologist: when I look at this picture I think of it as Hawaii or something. It looks like Hawaii.
Me: there's no way of knowing that's Hawaii unless it says "Hawaii" somewhere in the picture but it's doesn't so there's no way of knowing.
Psychologist: that's true. Are there any of these vacation activities you like or dislike?
Me: I like tennis and sailing. I used to sail a lot as a kid. I don't like flying though. Very scared of that.

Etc.

4. Had to demonstrate how to brush my teeth. Hated that exercise and it took me over 5 minutes to get started because it felt so freaking awkward. In the end I talked really fast and showed it really fast. I didn't actually show them how to brush my teeth, only the steps leading up to that (putting toothpaste on the toothbrush, turn on and off the water etc) and then I said "and then I just brush my teeth."

5. Had to draw five objects out of a bag and make up a story with those objects. Couldn't even do that test. I drew five objects, lined them up in order of size, looked at them, saw them for what they were and couldn't go on from there.

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The things I remember I was asked about during the conversation was what happiness feels like, how I feel and what happens when I'm angry, why people are married and if I want to marry my boyfriend, how you can tell the difference between a friend and a boyfriend, how I feel when I socialise with friends, if I was bullied at school, what I like doing on my free time etc. I generally had a hard time answering all questions that had to do with emotions since I find it difficult to describe emotions. I tried to answer all questions but I feel like maybe I didn't do that well. I don't know. It was easier to talk about things like books (when I answered questions about what I like doing on my free time).

There's a lot more that can be said about these tests and I've only told you some of the things that were said during the session. Anyway, what do you think? How did you do on your ADOS test (if you've taken it) by the way? What exactly are they looking at during the test? Also, for years I've had this huge fear of faking/lying/exaggerating things and even though I had no idea what ADOS was before taking the test, my brain keeps telling me things like "what if you faked things?", "what if you did bad on purpose?", "what if you're faking having AS?" etc. Has this happened to some of you as well?

This one isn't so clear but it seems to me that you were expected to ask for more pieces, and what they wanted to know was whether or not you had the executive functioning necessary to look at the problem outside of "what can I do with these pieces" and say to yourself "obviously there are other pieces".



You didn't show much imagination in your assessment of the pictures, didn't display any interest in metaphorical meanings or what the pictures could have meant about some fictional story. She wanted to see what the pictures provoked out of you and you simply stated what you saw, you were not communicating any further thoughts about the pictures.



This one is very telling. First you didn't feel like there was much to say about the picture, and you pointed out in a matter of fact fashion that there was no way to tell it was Hawaii. This displayed a lack of imaginative play, and a lack of the urge to communicate any impressions you had. Then she asked you something about yourself and you found it easier to think of things to say, which you shouldn't feel bad about as solipsism/being-self-absorbed is a symptom of being on the autism spectrum and not necessarily all that bad. For many it can be helped and it is simply it's own state of being, solipsism doesn't make you bad or inferior.



Most folks not on the spectrum would be comfortable showing a psychologist how they brush their teeth as it is a simple activity. That it took you five minutes to get started speaks volumes, you must have been pretty uncomfortable.



In this one they disregarded self interest,and the ability to communicate and understand emotions and impressions, and they simply isolated your ability to participate in imaginative play. The average person could have imaged that this tooth pick is this, the paper clip is a guy named johnny, etc. and would have been able to tell a story about Johnny walking down the street with his dog to a friend's house, or whatever else popped into the person's head. You had trouble thinking of anything at all when the average person wouldn't have had to think very much to come up with a playful story.



You did just fine, and stuff like difficulty describing your emotions and finding it easy to talk about your special interests are both typical of autistic people. Don't get down on yourself when you did what you could, they are there to figure out what's going on, help you deal with your difficulties, and not only that but just because you are different doesn't mean that you don't have anything to offer. You're not uninteresting, not a sick puppy, there are things you are good at like things to do with your interests and there are unique things you can offer everyone else if you just believe in yourself.



1. I think you are on the spectrum. What I can't say is exactly where you fit on it, whether or not you have Asperger's or HFA, or if the psychologists you went to use the current DSM and they will just say that you have ASD.
2. You clearly weren't faking anything. The symptoms of autism are too clear and peculiar, and you displayed too many of them, for you to have just faked it. If you were just trying almost on a subconscious level to seem autistic it wouldn't have been that easy, and even if you were to learn about autism and make an elaborate effort to seem autistic I doubt any neurotypical person would recognize or even be aware of all of the symptoms you displayed and be able to fake it.
3. I laid out as best I could remember what they were looking for when I went over the details of the test. They were looking for things like imaginative play, easiness in engaging with your interviewer, solipsism, how easy you found it to think in metaphors, your ability to recognize, understand and communicate your emotions, and also a few things I didn't mention like how much eye contact you made or how monotone your voice was.
4. When I took the test I performed in a similar manner to yourself. One difference was that I understood a bit more of what they were expected, like for example I tried to come up with imaginative play when they wanted me to tell a story, describe the series of pictures, or what I saw in an individual picture. However, even though I had a bit more of an idea of what they were trying to get me to do I still found myself about as unable as yourself to easily express my emotions and impressions, and easily imagine abstract ideas.

Thanks for the reply, Lukecash12. It was interesting to read about your thoughts on the whole thing (I hope I'll get some other replies as well since it would be nice hearing other people's views on the matter).

I just hope I didn't come across as rude or disinterested or something during the session. I know I was skeptical about certain things (the tooth brush exercise for example) but that's only because I felt very uncomfortable and anxious.

remember, these kinds of tests are not ones that you "pass" or "fail". they are for evaluation purposes, so don't worry about if your responses were "as they should be", because they were - they were how you respond and react.

it's not like doing a math test or history test, where answers are either right or wrong. it's more like testing a water sample to see what's in it.

You didn't "come across" a certain way at all. The psychologist wasn't there to judge your character qualities, in fact she wasn't there to judge you at all. Her job is to help you understand what is going on and to help you improve your life. What she was looking for were symptoms of a disorder, not character qualities. Considering that she conducted this test, that means that she is experienced in this and thus well aware that your symptoms and your character qualities are separate things entirely. You are interested in what you are interested in, if you want to find it easier to take interest in other people and in a meaningful way that is what she is there to help you with. However you feel that your symptoms are hampering you, or not hampering you, is up to you and your psychologist is there only to help.

When I finished my ADOS test (btw this was not very long ago, it wasn't my first diagnosis but it was the most helpful) they weren't very busy so I got my diagnosis back in pretty short order, which was nice. Along with a written summary and my diagnosis (HFA) I received a number of references to things like group therapy sessions, knowledgeable psychiatrists with offices closer to my home, and an invitation to come back if I wanted. These were all beneficial for me.

So my main point is that you needn't have any anxiety over this, you needn't be self conscious and last of all you don't need to judge yourself on your performance during the test.