Addressing the first point, I want to make it clear that although people usually use "on the spectrum" with the best of intentions, autism isn't a dirty word. Nor is being autistic a bad thing. Autistic and autism are perfectly acceptable words to use to describe somebody who genuinely is autistic. Similarly, I wanted to give my point of view on when people say "We're all a bit autistic" or "We're all on the spectrum." These two statements at first glance appear to mean the same thing, but they really don't. The way I see it, everybody is somewhere on the spectrum, such is the nature of diversity. But with that said, it doesn't mean everybody is autistic - whether that's supposedly a little bit or a lot. Neurotypicality (I hope that's the right word!) in relation to the autism spectrum just means that the person's traits sit within the "normal" range and that they have a round profile (more on that later). It doesn't mean that their traits are nowhere to be seen on the spectrum. A lot of people may have a couple of traits commonly associated with autism such as a lack of social skills, or sensory issues, but what makes somebody autistic is their different brain structure causing a high number of these traits and a high intensity of them. So if somebody says to me that we're all on the spectrum I don't have an issue with that - in fact I completely agree. But if someone tells me that we're all a little bit autistic, that's not true. You're either autistic or you're not, there's no "little bit autistic" or "very autistic" and just having a couple of quirks doesn't mean you're autistic.
Moving onto the spectrum itself, a lot of people think that the spectrum is linear (a straight line from one extreme to the other). I know I did when I first realised the possibility that I might be autistic. In actual fact the spectrum is best represented visually as a circular graph. When you plot a person's traits on the graph you'll usually find that autistic people's traits make the graph spiky which represents their heighten skills, their deficits, their heightened/lowered senses, and any number of other factors that often vary wildly. Whereas neurotypicals will tend to show a more consistent and rounded graph as their traits and abilities are a lot more rounded. To demonstrate what I mean, below are screen shots of the results from an autism quiz that me and my wife both took a few years ago just to compare. The first one is mine, the second one is my wife's. You can see that hers is much more rounded and balanced whereas mine is more spiky showing my atypical tendencies.
[Image description: There are 2 images here. The first one is a graph showing my results of the quiz and shows that I have a spiky profile which I've always thought looks like a whale's tail. The second picture is the same graph but showing my wife's results instead. Hers is more round and consistent than mine.]
Although this test is in no way diagnostic, the graph that it gives of the results is very useful for explaining the spectrum and showing how spiky a neurodiverse profile is compared to a neurotypical one. While I admittedly don't know too much about other neurodiversities such as ADHD, dyslexia and so on, I think that their profiles would most likely be similarly spiky in comparison to neurotypical ones. Hopefully these graphs also help explain how although we're not all autistic we are all on the spectrum. I once posted on Instagram to demonstrate the spectrum using PlayDoh but it didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. Even so, feel free to search back through my Instagram to find it if you're intetrested.
I hope this has clarified something that is often confusing and busted a couple of myths in the process. Please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.
What assessment tool did you utilize? Have you compared other people's results? Did you use any other assessment tools? Are you willing to share the assessment tool?
ReplyDeleteThanks for you insights.
Thanks for sharing, I don't remember doing this type of quiz. I was assessed by Speech and language therapists when I was at primary school, which gave me a educational statement of what I needed, and what the diagnosis was. Sometimes a paper diagnosis is very useful than graphs :)
ReplyDeleteNic | Nic's Adventures & Bakes
The visual representation is really interesting. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete