Online tests for adult diagnosis of Asperger's?

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I just retook mine...

Your Aspie score: 170 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 25 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie

Hunting, Social, and Perception were the only positive side on NT... Most of the answers were clear cut, but some where like - I like team sports? Is this playing them or watching. I don't like playing team sports, but I don't mind watching them.

AQ 41

Your Aspie score: 133 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 56 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie

I'm fairly certain I am an Aspie, but after a (sigh..) 2 hour conversation with my mother, her answer to every symptom was; "thats normal.". But towards the end of the conversation I think I made her think abit, and she could relate to almost all the signs I told her about. Some more sessions with my shrink will hopefully enlighten the matter somewhat.

Hi, I just took the test and scored : 149 of 200 on the Aspie and 96 of 200 on the NT. I don't know what that means?

The host at that site posts a lot of miscellaneous information and articles on his blog page. Here's the scoop on hunting:

Aspie hunting

Ordinary hunting is usually a group activity. Part of the tactic is to scare animals out of their hiding places so strategically placed hunters can throw spears at them (or use fire-arms in the modern variant), wound them, and ultimately, kill them from a distance. This type of hunting is erratic in nature, and usually has rather poor outcome and has to be carried out many times before it is successful. Many of today’s sport games resemble such hunting, especially team-sports.

The Aspie hunting group has caused lots of confusion among people that do Aspie-quiz. This is probably because hunting is usually associated with guns, throwing spears and killing animals at a distance. The questions in this category in Aspie-quiz give no associations at all to this kind of hunting.

So what then is Aspie hunting? The history behind the traits is pretty long. The habitat traits (like liking slowly flowing water) were introduced very early in the evolution of Aspie-quiz, but at that time was not thought to be hunting traits. The main traits, however, are more recent, and were used to evaluate Valerius Geist’s Neanderthal paradigm.

Geist’s Neanderthal paradigm was published in the 1970s and was a novel way to solve several mysteries about Neanderthal tools and why they selected the prey species they did. A central observation by Geist was that all prey species had fur. He therefore presumed that Neanderthal’s had used this property of their prey in their hunting tactics. The Mousterian tool-kit also seem to lack throwing spears, and instead contains larger tools that seems to work a lot better as stabbing spears. The rodeo-like injuries of Neanderthal are also largely unexplained by proponents that like to think that Neanderthals must have been hunting in the same manner as us, only less successfully, and with cruder weapons.

While Valerius Geists hypothesis goes a long way at explaining the archeology, it says little about the psychology and specific adaptations of Neanderthal. These aspects were researched in Aspie-quiz to try to confirm (or disprove) Geists hypothesis. There were a lot of predictions from the hypothesis that could be tested.

The following traits were predictions (listed with their predicted function) that were highly successful (correlated well with Aspie score and each others):

Walking on toes - related to sneaking
Enjoying spinning in circles - related to an animal trying to get rid of the hunter
Enjoying hanging upside-down – yet another way to stay on the animal
Having an urge to jump over things – related to jumping up on top of an animal
Enjoying digging - related to hiding a large kill
Mimicking animal sounds - a way of tricking an animal
Enjoying throwing small things – another way of tricking an animal that the hunter is somewhere else
Sniffing people or things – related to tracking
Enjoying chasing animals or people – close encounter hunting
Enjoying biting (people) – a paralysing tactic that Geist proposes
Enjoying making traps – this is an obvious addition to Geist’s hypothesis

A few of the physical traits got no relevance to being Aspie, but still correlated with Aspie hunting. Typically, these traits are believed to be part of the motor problems of Aspies, and thus have an inherit bias against them:

Being good at climbing
Strong grip
Strong hands

Some other traits also related to Aspie-hunting

Being fearless in dangerous situations
Highly variable activity level
Naturally communicating feelings with animals

It is notable that perception issues correlate closely to Aspie hunting. The relation here seems to be obvious. Highly sensitive senses is important for passive hunting, especially hearing (sounds that animals make), tactile (vibrations that animals make) and smell (tracking an animal). Acute vision and detail perception are also related to finding signs of an animal that are not required with the usual hunting method that favors getting an whole picture of the environment. These things also extend to paranormal experience.

Additionally, many stims (Aspie-quiz defines these as Aspie communication) are related to Aspie hunting. For instance, spinning in circles, walking on toes and mimicking animal sounds could be characterized as both stims and hunting-related traits. The relation here is probably that Neanderthals adapted their nonverbal communication to their prey animals, and thus gained increased hunting success by being able to better understand their prey. This is also why Aspies today say they can both naturally interpret animals and cannot naturally interpret neurotypical humans. The communication traits are based on a difference, not an absence. There are also nonverbal communication traits that seems to be shared among Aspies, and that can be used to identify Aspies.

The habitat traits (that correlate with the pure hunting adaptations are these):

Liking slowly flowing water
Liking mist or fog
Enjoying woods

From these we can presume that Neanderthals probably selected their ambush places near water. The like for mist and fog could be a hunting preference, or it could be an adaptation to living near glacials, which would produce mist / fog. We can also presume that Neanderthals hunted in forrests, not in open environments. Their tactic would be far more successful in a forrest than on the open plain, and similarily, the modern hunting tactic is more successful in a relatively open terrain.

Other types of traits can also be associated with Aspie hunting. For instance, it is not a long-shot to propose that special interests and the splinter-skills of Savants are related to passive hunting. Passive hunting requires lots of creative talents and persistence for success. Obsessions can also easily be entered into the equation. Once a hunter has found a successful way to bring down a prey, he/she is likely to keep to it, and only modify it slightly to make it more successful. The erratic methods of modern human hunting do not lend themselves to doing things in the same way, and thus such obsessions are absent in neurotypicals. Neurotypical people instead have people obsessions, as these are central for group-hunting.

In sumary, understanding Aspie/Neanderthal hunting seems to be central for understanding most parts of the autistic spectrum.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 at 6:47 am and is filed under Neanderthal theory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Moi?

Your Aspie score: 176 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 31 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie

If I misunderstand you correctly, you are saying that Aspies are the result of the interbreeding between homo sapiens and neanderthals?
Some might take that as an insult..


To me, this is flawed logic. If I hunted animals with fur, it would be because I needed the fur for sleeping arrangements or clothes.

I'm not sayin' nuthin' at all. That was taken verbatim off the website of the guy with The Aspie Quiz. Several posters here questioned what "the hunting business" was all about. I just explored his website a little bit further. As far as I can tell, he's a Swede named Leif Ekblad.

Your Aspie score: 167 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 42 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie


Kind of feel happy to understand myself yet at the same time frustrated that my parents had my brother diagnosed at 16 and he is 26 now; yet they never bothered with me, considered it or given that they deal with the autistic spectrum on a daily basis with him as well as my mum working in a special needs/autism role....pretty sad when they have always made me feel guilty for 'having more opportunities than your brother'

and at the same time somehow

I asked four male friends to take the Aspie quiz just so that I could see how I stacked up compared to them. The results were very enlightening:

Friend one: Aspie 36/200 NT 183/200
Friend two: Aspie 35/200 NT 170/200

my score: Aspie 94/200 NT 90/200

The big surprise for me was friends three and four:

Friend three: Aspie 98/200 NT 137/200
Friend four: Aspie115/200 NT 105/200

Now the big question - What the **@@! ! does all of this really tell me?

PS I would have interpreted my score as "borderline" Aspie, but I have also received a Asperger's diagnosis and was told I was "solidly on the spectrum" although the professional making this statement did not attempt to quantify it further.

Aspie score 146 of 200
NT score: 64 of 200
Very likely an Aspie

I'm a psychotherapist (LCSW) working in California and have noticed a lack of awareness and good referrals for diagnosis and support of Aspergers in my area. (I once worked with a psychologist who maintained the belief that borderline intellectual functioning was a hallmark of Aspergers and would not listen to a lowly MSW intern's input.) Testing seems to be very rigid and possibly tied to the fact that there are limited resources for support of autism-spectrum diagnoses which are usually provided by the Regional Centers in California who tend to only honor their own testing. (Seems to be more of a gatekeeping mechanism than accurate assessment.)

I've been very interested in working with autism-spectrum clients for years now. For some reason their thought process and perceptions just made sense to me while observing the confusion of my colleagues. I've often thought of myself as a translator of behavior and thought process to these colleagues who tend to struggle with an personalize odd or defiant behaviors. I've worked with youth and adults I've been sure fall somewhere on the autism spectrum only to be told they do not meet criteria despite they present with symptoms far more prominant than what is portrayed in the media regarding Aspergers. (Ever have anyone ask you for a manual on how to talk to a girl or speak only in Legend of Zelda metaphors and odd sound effects with no awareness that you may never have played this videogame series?)

My wife recently picked up the book 'Best Practices': Learning To Live With Asperger's by David Finch. I noticed he was a comedy writer for Second City and thought that to be an odd profession for someone that "should" have difficulty with emotions, reading people, emoting, and finding humor that a general audience will identify with. It got me thinking about myself and how I view the world so I did a search for the online quiz he references, which I think is the Aspie Quiz he references in the first chapter as they both have exactly 150 items for scoring. Honestly I was amazed at how I scored but it explains a lot. I once told my parents when I was ten that I was not their child but an alien sent down to observe human behavior. I can be suggestible if I don't have my skeptic hat on. I obsess over Star Wars and loved the detailed intricacy of playing D&D as a child. The Big Bang Theory reminds me of myself and my friends albeit I'm least like Sheldon and most like Leonard. I was fascinated with Temple Grandin ever since I saw a documentary on her. I can only do one thing at a time and need large chunks of time for a task to get into the groove. I can't filter out background noise to save my life and am probably not hearing you unless I'm looking at you. Sometimes I get in trouble at museums because I get too close to the paintings on account of how I'm more interested in the texture of the strokes than the whole picture. ( I have an affinity for taking abstract close-up photos of texture and my wife has to remind me of taking photos of the family when we're out.) I have also been formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder since the age of 18 and I notice there is quite a bit of overlap with the characteristics I scored particularly high in.

I've always thought my ability to empathize and connect with others (again I'm a therapist) would be an automatic rule-out for Asperger's but as I look to literature and assessment tools outside of the United States I'm not so sure. I've also worked damn hard at developing this skill to decrease my social anxiety (present when depressed) as well as contain my social behavior (which becomes more of a struggle when hypomanic).

Sorry this is so long but it's such an exciting topic to me and again explains a lot.

My friend. If you practiced in the Philadelphia, I would be trying to get on your counseling calendar in a heartbeat. Your reply made perfect sense to me.

My curiosity at the moment is understanding if I am "solidly on the spectrum", as told to me by an LCSW who saw me for one appointment and gave me three tests to fill out, or if based on the 150-question Aspie Quiz I'm more of a "borderline". The only thing I can think of is that even thought my Aspie score was low - 94/200, my NT score was even lower - 90/200.

Also, the fact that I could find four male friends willing to be guinea pigs and take the quiz for me keeps on telling me that maybe I'm not too deficient in casual social skills. The consistent theme from male friends has been "You? Asperger's? No Way!" The message from my wife I'm trying to make sense out of is "this helps to explain what I've suffered for 30 years."

Sounds to me like your eyes are "extra sensitive". Either that or you live somewhere with very bright sun - FL, Calif, Oz.

I score somewhere between 130 and 150, though a significant portion of the my NT points are in the suspicious hunting category. I can't see myself hunting much of anything since I hardly ever go outside. I do tend to play stealth-based characters in rpgs if that has any relevance. I also hunt for scholarly sources in databases.

Of the various theories that I've heard of, Intense World seems the most intuitive. Unless I am misunderstanding, the claim that autism exists in all mammals would seem to contradict the Neanderthal gene explanation. If it is something that naturally occurs in mammals then it would seem less likely that it would have come about in humans solely as a result of interbreeding with Neanderthals. What are other thoughts on this?

I also found that the comparison questions were at times hard to answer since I don't know how other people see me or how they experience the world. Sometimes I can recall instances where I've thought things like, "Everyone else seems perfectly happy to be milling around in broad daylight, but to me it feels like thumbtacks through my pupils." But for other topics it's a bit ambiguous.

I got very similar results and was a bit mystified by the "hunting" category, but if you look at the detailed report, you'll see it's just whether you fall into the aspie side or the NT side, not how much of a hunter you are overall but whether you have fundamental characteristics of a passive/lone hunter or cooperative hunter (ie how eagles hunt vs how wolves hunt)

The aspie side of hunting is stealthiness, chasing, a preference for environments that would be preferred by a lone hunter, etc. The NT side is about cooperative hunting aspects, like 3-dimensional awareness, reception, transmission, and recall of data and messages, and so on. Seems to also involve skill with symbolic representations of all types - letters, numbers, maps, etc.

Kind of explains quite a lot to me actually. I scored very very high NT for hunting, but very very aspie for social. I've always been good at the actual work when working with others, always frustrated that others don't seem to have the same sort of group coordination awareness that I do, and yet really poor at the social aspects of being around others. In fact I always attempt to head off personal interaction by drawing people into the work, and whenever I have to do stuff with family or friends, I'm always so relieved when there's some sort of work or task involved to focus on.

Does anyone else find it ironic that the rdos test is a long form, and one question asks whether you have trouble filling out forms...?
I took the test five times because for some questions, I was unsure whether to rate them a 1 or 2.
The scores I got each time were: 82/102 - 97/94 - 102/87 - 118/78 - 96/90. I am diagnosed, but some people have expressed an interest in undiagnosing me. I'm not letting them...

"Walking on toes - related to sneaking"
People that walk barefoot don't slam their heel down when walking, they place there wait down on the ball of the foot. Heel walking is a shoe wearing thing.

"Enjoying spinning in circles - related to an animal trying to get rid of the hunter"
Please explain this connection because I can't see what the arguments is supposed to be.

"Enjoying hanging upside-down – yet another way to stay on the animal"
What kind of animal are you going to hang upside down on?

"Having an urge to jump over things – related to jumping up on top of an animal"
I've contemplated ambushing animals from a tree so I'm not going to argue to hard here but I still think it's a stretch.

"Enjoying digging - related to hiding a large kill"
I love digging but I have never put my food in the hole.

"Mimicking animal sounds - a way of tricking an animal"
maybe

"Enjoying throwing small things – another way of tricking an animal that the hunter is somewhere else"
What? that's a huge stretch. And I've hunted a LOT and never used a tactic like that. Once wild animals are aware that something is around you're done. Doesn't matter if it's pinpointed you or not.

"Sniffing people or things – related to tracking"
Some animals you can smell when you get really close but if our ancestors are anything like us smell is not a very strong sense

I hunt a lot. I hunt with a bow and I do it by stalking my pray. As a hunter with real world experience I know that understanding your pray, remaining unnoticed and patience are the biggest part of hunting. Perhaps this used to be different but it seems that we know so little about neanderthals that we can barely make a guess as to how they acted let alone use that information to diagnose people today. I'm not saying people with AS don't have the traits listed just that you cannot connect them to the hunting instinct of our ancestors. (assuming we have some neanderthal ancestors)

My partner is NT and scored NT on the test. It rather amazed me because I too thought it was impossible to come out as NT on the test. Apparently not .