I have also been diagnosed, but with a score of 29, I tend to sway towards the fact that I am just a socially outcasted weirdo. >.>

Hm.

AQ: 42
FQ: 16
EQ: 7
SQ: 85

It would not really surprise me if I did have Asperger's or HFA or something similar (I'd kind of expect it, I think, but I don't really know), but at the same time, the numbers from these tests (just as a very general marker), at least the EQ/FQ seem to be a bit more towards the extreme than I think I find myself actually exhibiting in real life. I can think of a few reasons for this, probably including some level of cognitive bias. Taking these factors into account, I would think my "objective" (as objective as something like this could possibly be) would still be well outside the "normal" range, but certainly not as far.

I cannot actually picture referring to myself as having any sort of autistic spectrum disorder without actually receiving a proper diagnosis, though, even with supporting evidence. I do, however, recognize that I think and interact with people in ways that most definitely differ from the norm, which has caused things to turn out very not well with people in the past. In a general sense, though, this difference doesn't always have sufficient negative effects to cause me significant worry. I've toyed very briefly with the idea of trying to go through a proper diagnostic process to either verify or refute this, but the combination of my lack of motivation towards anything psychological and the overall lack of notable suffering caused by anything that may be there.

Despite that generality, there are a number specific circumstances that cause me great anxiety and cause real issues for me. One big one is calling people on the telephone; it absolutely petrifies me for no precise discernible reason. Beyond the actual inconveniences caused be this, the lack of understanding why this happens is absolutely frustrating, so I end up both anxious and angry at myself over it, which is unideal. This is kind of a specific instance of my general anxiousness with inciting social interaction in any real form, outside of people I am very comfortable with (though, strangely, I find it more difficult to call people I know than people I do not, which is basically the opposite of just about any other communicative medium, e.g. email, face-to-face). There are a few other select things that cause me great anxiety, but eh.

Also, I find that I can write forever about stuff that I get in to (even when no one cares, sometimes not even myself), but when it comes to speech I tend to be very quiet and mostly listen and/or think to myself when placed in social circumstances. This is mostly because I tend to think a lot about word choice and sentence structure while typing/writing, and I can go back and edit stuff, neither of which are exactly workable in normal, spontaneous conversation. It would seem this essay that I did not actually intend to write has kind of demonstrated this.

For some reason, all I could think about when I took the EQ and SQ tests was that they seem to be a good indicator for what Jungian functions a person uses (read: EQ being a test of Extraverted Feeling and SQ being a test of Extraverted Thinking).

I could go into why but I think I would bore people.

/derailing

Only person I've ever met in the flesh that was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome was possibly the most insane and violent person I've ever met... So is it a little weird to be somewhat surprised and unnerved that so many people here are getting such high scores on the tests?

Personally I always take any tests such as these with a pinch of salt, unless there's a qualified doctor or some such giving their own test I'm not sure they should be trusted.

Being violent is not necessarily a part of being Asperger, though.

You can be violent and be diagnosed, but that you are diagnosed is hardly the reason. You can also be violent without being diagnosed, it is unrelated

I am not insane and violent

A friend of mine has a young son who is diagnosed with Asperger's. He's very gentle and comes across as introspective, though self-absorbed. However, he does have problems socializing with others and acting inappropriately in school (i.e., not stopping talking when something interests him). It strikes me as more important for children with Asperger's to be diagnosed so they can get the educational and developmental support needed. On the other hand, I think that once you are an adult who is functioning fine in society, there's no reason that Aspergers should be seen as a problem unless there's other things going on that should be addressed.

QFT. Nothing beats talking to a professional, or studying up on the subject yourself. There will always be someone who gets the wrong result on these tests, because there will always be variables people don't take into account.

SQ in particular struck me as an odd test here. It judged how you work with systems, how you manipulate them, how much attention you pay to detail, how captivated you are by how things work. Personally I abhor that. I hate organization, I hate procedure, and while I do focus in on certain things, I certainly pay more attention to the big picture than the little nuances. Now, do people with Aspergers act as this test describes? Yes. Do all people who act like this necessarily have Aspergers? No. Consider this test as looking for squares (the shape, not the dork synonym ), and Aspergers is a rectangle.

I think you got that backwards. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

Technically speaking, all retangles are squares. Those four siders, they just don't know how to get out and have some fun. Really, no social life on em.

I think the analogy works. There are so many different ways to have Asperger's, and this test looks for one of them.

New favorite person ever.

And Pheebsy, I was saying that what the SQ test looks for can be applied to people who don't have Aspergers.

This sort of observation is general enough that some people without the condition still can have these behaviors. But if you have Aspergers, you will have these behaviors. Aspergers is a very specific form of this square. Hence, rectangle.

My analogy makes sense, dangit.

Fair enough, I can easily accept that he was an isolated case or that it was completely unrelated.

But yeah, these tests are generally at least a little off. I do remember things like the autism spectrum test and the general neurosis test, both said I'm pretty crazy in all regards (the general neurosis test said I had like seven severe conditions), yet this one gives me a relatively 'normal' score of 26. I'm willing to believe this one is more accurate than most such tests, though.

I wouldn't take qualified doctors as an authority either. When dealing with psychiatric diagnoses it is best to consult multiple doctors that went to different universities and are of a different age group.

For mental tests, this one has 0 value for diagnosis for the following reasons:
- questions are to obvious giving people an (un)concious impulse to answer towards a result they want/expect.
- to few, a quick evaluation of personality by computerized tests requires hunderds of questions. More reliable requires thousands and various retestings. Even so these test have 0 value in diagnoses and should only be used for 'cheap' screenings in recruitment (eg military, police, A&E workers, etc)

To be honest those questions reminded me of sensation quizes like 'what colour are you' and 'what WoW race are you'.

As towards people suggesting 'learning' about a disorder to see if you have it, worst advice ever. Learning is of course good however it does not make you capable of diagnosing yourself (or even others). When nurses, doctors and paramedical personnel get their classes on psychology and psychiatry, a frequent occurence is that these students believe themselves to have one or multiple disorders (a popular one is schizophrenia) while in reality they are 'mentally healthy'. Some instructors/professors will use this in their classes to point out that self diagnosis is more often then not, counterproductive. This is also why every questionaire concerning personality or mental disorders requires a 'is the subject aware of how the test works' factor, the more aware you are, the less value the test has.

I've read that most psychologists are bad at diagnosing it. Someone like you describe probably has other issues or a wrong diagnosis. Violence nor insanity are not symptoms.

The ones I linked to were authored by one of the most well known Asperger's psychologist in the world and are used by professionals around the world in several languages.

Some people asked, "What does it mean?" Here is an explanation of the first link, and also here for a brief explanation of another two.

me too..

I got 27 (fave number yay!) but then again, my answers are a bit affected by the fact that I have an inkling of what answers correspond with which..so I'm not so sure. I'm a mix between intro/extro-vertish behaviors most of the time.

I agree. Even tests to accurately assess dominant temperaments require a good booklet of assessment questions, and such tests only delve in mere analysis of normal behaviors and does not extend to dissecting such behaviors. Also, with regards to psychologic conditions, most of us manifest signs and symptoms and may have a 'subclinical' form of a condition or two. It's considered normal even in mentally healthy persons. The line is drawn on when manifestations and their intensity are taken as clinically significant to be clustered as a mental illness and, as with everything that deals with elements mixed with the qualitative part of our brain, such things aren't easily measured and assumptions are usually formed with confidence after some series of assessment and evaluation.

Mine too. It was super hard to contemplate the questions and actually answer accurately.