Severity level test

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I just found this test that attempts to identify your severity level with "PDD" (doesn't specify between autism, aspergers, etc).

Just a note before you take the test though: the first thing gives a link to a pop up for "how to rate"--you should use this for every question because what YOU think is severe or mild might NOT be severe or mild! It will tell you exactly what it means for every question. I would have put severe for most of my answers had I not followed the guide for each question (and sometimes I would have put mild when I should have put moderate). Anyway, I did it accurately with the guide.

http://www.childbrain.com/pddassess.html

I just retook this test in light of some new information I got today from my Mom. My original score was: 159. Now it is 170, which suggests Severe PDD.

Last edited by littlelily613 on 16 Apr 2011, 3:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I got 102, Moderate PPD. This test is meant for little kids though, so it's hard to answer for myself, since I'm 17, and don't remember my child-ages at all.

Even though I am 28 and the test is meant for children, I took it anyways and got a 145 (moderate PDD). When I was 5 I was diagnosed with moderate high functioning autism so I guess it was accurate. I do some of the bizarre things as an autistic child does anyway.

Yeah, but a lot of the questions apply to me still, and the rest, I either remember from childhood or I was told.

164: Severe PDD

55 - mild. A few of the questions I wasn't really sure how to answer for the same reason dunbots explained.

I just used my age and if i had ever done any of the stuff but grew out of it, I ticked resolved.

If you don't understand the questions I'd suggest to definitely click on the links for the traits -- that goes to this page:

http://www.childbrain.com/pddassess2.html

Which explains exactly how to score these things, to a degree of detail that even I found fairly easy despite being horrible at most rating systems. I did have to guess a little on things where like... it would talk about "tantrums" but not shutdowns in response to a certain thing, or it would judge entirely on outward appearances (because it's meant to be scored by someone outside the person) rather than by how much the person really liked or disliked something. I sometimes went both ways on it (towards the inner effect on me, or towards my outer behavior) based on my understanding of exactly what they were trying to get at.

I could only do this as a range because my traits vary a whole lot and aren't stable like some people's. So my score range from the "mildest" to the most "severe" was 190-225 ("Severe PDD").

Here's the actual score ranges for each "severity level" for anyone curious:

0-49: No PDD
50-100: Mild PDD
101-150: Moderate PDD
151-240: Severe PDD

Honestly I think that if I rated myself on this at different years in my life the numbers would be going up and down and up and down all over the place, this isn't something that's going to be stable. I also am not about to go around calling myself "severely autistic" just because of how I scored on this, just because I don't think it's actually possible at the moment to rate a person's level of autism given that we don't know what autism is. But as a list of observable traits I certainly find it interesting (and would be curious -- if I could handle the color scheme long enough without getting a migraine -- to actually create a graph of my level ranges throughout my lifetime, because I bet it would show how much or how little various things were obvious at any given time, if nothing else).

109, Moderate PDD

Of course, it was just for curiousity's sake. Also, one can be severely PDD (ie. have severe Aspergers) without being what most people would consider to be severely autistic (the general connotation of that, in my experience, would be a nonverbal, low-functioning person with autism.) I do feel I am moderate-severe without benig low-functioning.

this time i got 84

Also, just out of curiousity...how did you get a score range? I thought it only gives one number.

Oh, I'm not about to call myself mild either. I just don't think we know how to measure severity yet, and I think autism is too complex to reduce to a single number on a scale (whether it's this one or conventional ideas of HFA/LFA or something else). I've thought about trying to draw something representing skill ranges throughout my lifetime of many different skills and present them to anyone who asks me how severe I am, but I have never been able to actually manage to do it. A lot of people (including some professionals) do call me severe, LFA, or both, I just tend to resist the classification because I don't believe in the classifications in general. (Many levels at once, all moving... maybe that, if I had to do anything.)

At age 53, this test seems a little pointless, but I scored 119.basing my answers on what I remember as a child.

127 - Moderate PDD

Many of the traits seem to be superficial observations.

106 - Moderate PDD

I had to guess a lot on the questions, because I didn't have temper tantrums- I just shut down completely most of the time.