Question regarding the validity of aspie quiz

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Hi, I am poor and can't afford an official diagnosis. So I was looking or an accurate online test for autism and found the rdos aspie quiz here: https://rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php. In this quiz I got these results

How can this happen? I struggled to make a single friend in my life, have been bullied everywhere for being socially slow. I always suspected that I was autistic. Now this test says I am likely NT. I was honest while answering also. Can I trust this result?

It’s just an online screening test. Not even close to an official diagnosis (that’s my opinion).

Usually, the diagnostic process takes like 5 hours.

The Aspie Quiz takes like 15-30 minutes. And there’s great potential for confirmation bias—more so than the official diagnosis through a certified clinician.

These online tests are only effective as screening tools. It's ridiculous to even expect them to be "reliable" in the sense of it being a diagnostic tool on a par with a thorough assessment by a PhD psychologist.

That isn't even an official screening test that I'm aware of (I research age of autism diagnosis).

The much hated Autism spectrum Quotient is the most reliable and it's free online (do the 50 question one, not the short one) or the RAADS-14 is good, but not necessarily free.

It's very difficult to diagnose ASD unless the client is an extreme case.

Screening tests are just screening tests, not even supposed to be all that robust - I don't know how anybody can answer that Baron-Cohen AQ test accurately, with its forced-response, highly reductionist questions, though if you go for an official diagnosis they might well give you that one first and turn you away if you don't score high enough. Personally I do better with the Aspie-Quiz, probably because it's less forced-response and reductionist, and has a lot more questions. Maybe other people have a different thinking style to mine.

Professional diagnosticians have certainly been known to get it wrong too. Unlike a missing limb, ASD is still a very subjective thing, like most spectrum conditions where the individual traits vary widely from person to person, and whether or not a trait becomes apparent depends a lot on the particular demands of your environment. I heard they were looking at brain scanning with a view to using those as a more objective diagnostic tool one day, but I've heard nothing about it for years. When I told my GP I wanted a diagnosis because I wanted to know if I'd got ASD or not, she said that even then I'd never know for sure.

Even so, when I was positively diagnosed I took it as being likely correct, and as I found out more about the condition it wasn't long after that I became pretty certain. So many things about me began to make sense that most of my residual doubt fell away. Of course a diagnostician only has a few hours to make the decision, and might not be so motivated to get it right as the client. Luckily, as far as I know I'm fairly honest about myself, with no great need to pretend to myself that I'm anything other than what I am, to play down my weaknesses and play up my strengths. And I've had years to think about the nature of ASD and the nature of myself, and how the two relate.

Whenever I've taken the online tests (I haven't taken one in years), I tended to score "in-between." I have equal amounts of neurotypical and autistic traits, according to these tests.

I do understand that it's expensive to get an adult autism evaluation, but I still wouldn't grasp on straws, and attempt to use the online tests as an adjunct to a formal diagnosis.

Please don't be disappointed that you got those results. They're not proof that you DON'T have an Autism Spectrum Disorder---just like they're not proof that you DO have an Autism Spectrum Disorder.

What I would do if I really wanted a formal diagnosis: try to make myself one of the subjects of a research study pertaining to autism.

As the others have said, you cannot rely on those results. The online tests are interesting and suggestive but not definitive.

Another online test you might find interesting and suggestive, but not definitive, could be:

https://psychology-tools.com/test/autism-spectrum-quotient
And, since you are apparently not professionally qualified to do the assessment (neither am I!), maybe you should consider the possibility you are not Autistic? Psychology seems to have an alphabet soup of possible diagnoses. Maybe you have something more interesting than Autism?

Were you a young child when you were diagnosed?

No, I was nearly 29.

Edit. The psychiatrist said that it seemed obvious to her. Maybe she had the confirmation by reading the text I wrote and the scores to the online tests I brought because the other tests she sent me were returned only after the diagnosis arrived.

The best way to determine if you are on the spectrum is to get a diagnosis. While those tests are useful for screening (And only in a limited capacity), they can not truly assess whether you are autistic or not. Several disorders have tons of overlap with Autism, and you can be misdiagnosed as Autistic if you have any of those disorders and get a bad assessment.

It is possible you have a different condition that is similar to Autism but is not Autism. ADHD, for instance, has a ton of overlap with Autism, and is frequently comorbid with it. But a person who is simply ADHD will not score the same on the AQ or Aspie Quiz. There are a lot of things that could be the reason why you score low on both tests. Perhaps you are not Autistic.

But then again, it is entirely possible you are.

I score a 34-36/50 on the AQ test (I can't seem to get anything lower than a 34 even if I try to answer things slanted differently). I had several friends, who are definitely NT, and a couple family members take the test. The highest any of them got was a 20 (The lowest was a 7, which was my mother).

That doesn't mean I *am* Autistic. And it doesn't necessarily mean that a person who scores low is NT or Allistic. There are exceptions and outliers and people who do not fit the standard criteria.

Yet the only way to know, for sure, is to get an assessment. And even that is not 100% accurate. Bad Diagnosis can result in someone being labeled incorrectly...plenty of stories exist about people who were labeled as ADHD but in the end had Autism, or vice versa. If a diagnosis doesn't *feel* right, then it is possible you do not have that diagnosis.

I say "Possible," and not "For sure" because some conditions are ones where you might feel that way BECAUSE of the diagnosis. Bi-Polar disorder, for instance, frequently feels misdiagnosed because the person swings from one extreme to another, so when they swing out of depression, they feel like they are "cured" and stop using meds. Or vice versa. or they get into a manic mood that has them denying they ever had a condition.

No matter what, you should *always* work with a psychologist or therapist to figure this out.

There is a movement that encourages adults who *think* they are Autistic to self diagnose, because many of us have slipped through the cracks. There is no tangible upside to doing so, but if you feel better because of that, the idea is that giving some peace of mind by allowing self diagnosis is beneficial. Some people are ok doing that. Some people are not. You have to contend with people who will doubt your diagnosis if you decided to "Self Diagnose," and that is true here as it is anywhere else. I Identify as Autistic, but I am not diagnosed, and I may be 100% wrong. I am sure that rubs some people the wrong way, those who have been diagnosed and lived with a diagnosis their entire lives. Some are ok with it. And in either case, I have to be sure to say, "I could be totally wrong," and carry that extra addendum until I actually get diagnosed (And then I know either way).

But at the end of the day, as others have said, you can't rely on an online test to give you full answers. I took the test to see if all this hub-bub about how I might be an unidentified Autistic Adult had any validity. Turns out it does have some merit. And I am trying to find out for sure.