A brief anatomy of Asperger's

[catsidhe]

VERBAL SUBTESTS
Subtests	Ability Measured	Scaled Score
Vocabulary	Word Knowledge, memory, verbal experience	18
Similarities	Verbal reasoning & concept formation	16
Arithmetic	Use of basic maths skill in problem solving, numerical reasoning ability.	13
Digit Span	Concentration & attention, short term auditory memory, working memory	8
Information	Ability to acquire, retain and retrieve general factual knowledge, long term memory	16
Comprehension	Verbal reasoning & comprehension, ability to evaluate & use past experience, social knowledge & judgement in practical situations.	14
Letter-Number Sequencing (Supplementary)	Sequencing ability, mental manipulation, attention, short-term auditory memory, visuo-spatial imaging	12
PERFORMANCE SUBTESTS
Picture Completion	Visual perception & organisation; concentration & visual recognition of essential details.	7
Digit Symbol - Coding	Speed & accuracy of visual-motor coordination, attention, paired associate learning	14
Block Design	Analysis and synthesis of abstract visual information, nonverbal concept formation, visual motor coordination	19
Matrix Reasoning	Visual information processing & abstract reasoning	14
Picture Arrangement	Non-verbal reasoning ability, planning, social knowledge & judgement	18
Symbol Search (Supplementary)	Visual discrimination and matching, speed & accuracy, attention & concentration	16

Scale	Score	Percentile	Range
FULL SCALE	133	99th	Very Superior
Verbal IQ	127	96th	Superior
Performance IQ	132	98th	Very Superior
Verbal Comprehension Index	140	99.6th	Superior *
Perceptual Organisation Index	121	92nd	Superior
Working Memory Index	106	66th	Average
Processing Speed Index	128	97th	Superior

* I suspect this should be “Very Superior”, given that it's the highest score the test can return.



What does it all mean?

Well, for a start, a Neurotypical result is to score roughly the same across all tests. A bit of variation, of course, but within a given range. Someone maxing the test at one point (as I did in Vocab and Block Arrangement), mixed with relatively low scores (such as Digit Span) is seen as a telltale marker of Autism. The doctor was further struck by the way I answered some questions. With the Mental Arithmetic one, I was hampered by my Auditory Memory: which is utterly, utterly useless. Even for the simplest questions I had to ask him to repeat the question at least once. Once I actually had the numbers, the arithmetic was usually straightforward, although I did have to speak the steps out loud. If they were written down, they would have been the work of moments.

And when I did get an answer wrong, it was informative how I got it wrong. In the general knowledge test, I got the question “Who wrote ‘Faust’?” wrong. Technically. My immediate response was “which version?” and my eventual answer was “Well, you had the Tragicall Historye of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, and a couple of hundred years of German tradition...”, when the ‘correct’ answer was simply ‘Goethe’. It's not that I was wrong, per se, but...

Again, with a reasoning question “You are lost in a forest, what do you do?” The doctor was struck that my answer began “It depends: how big is the forest?”

I can't really say much about the tests I did well in: they were just easy. For me. Apparently I did the Blocks in record time, and was one of only a very few to even get to the third page of the Symbol Search, let alone with the accuracy I achieved.

He also mentioned that there was a pattern of impetuosity (right or wrong, I was quick to decide on the answer, even if the answer was “I don't know”), and cognitive lock (when I had decided on an answer, it was quite hard for me to see alternative answers or ways of looking at the problem). The former is characteristic of Executive Function disorder, and the latter of the characteristic Autistic ‘lack of imagination’. (Which is not to say that Autists aren't imaginitive, but that we tend to lock on a track and follow it deep, rather than look around for other approaches. This may be the source of the infamous perseverance, but that's just my own speculation.)


When we had the interview, it was almost a formality after that test. That I had a childhood history of social isolation and anxiety, &c, &c, &c, was just confirming what everyone in the room already knew. As it turns out, the symptoms I thought I'd need to focus on for the diagnosis – face blindness, Central Auditory Processing Disorder – weren't even brought up until almost the end of the interview, by me.

So there you go. It's not just my word for it.

Comments

[tangent_woman]

Well fuck me gently with a chainsaw my goodness! those results are even more like mine than I had expected.

Your working memory index, which is your relative deficit area, is 106 which is 'average'. I'd thought that when you described your working memory score as being "literally in the moron range", you meant literally in the range of the clinical definition of "moron" which is... *Googles* 20-49, so a long way below the 106.

For the record, my processing speed index is 96. Also in the "average" range. I do not consider it to be in the moron range, but it's clearly low enough relative to my other abilities to foul the rigging in interesting ways.

Not wanting to hijack your post, but contemplating the merits of posting my corresponding scores in a comment here. Would that be of use or interest, do you think?

[catsidhe]

I was taking that from the Digit Span test, as being a purer test of Auditory Working Memory, and my memory of that being 8/18, where normal is 8-12ish. And Moron is in the 51-70 range. And I didn't actually have the numbers to hand at the time.

Where the index came back into the merely average range, I take as the effect of having learned workarounds in the last few decades. And of the tester giving me a leg-up by repeating the question until I had remembered it well enough to comprehend and answer.

I always wondered why I had so much difficulty with the oral part of learning and speaking foreign languages. Now I know. It's because I literally can't hear the other speaker, and even then can't hold onto enough of what they say to be able to even start translating.

Thus the only answer I was able to give in my year 11 Japanese oral exam: wakarimasen -- “I don't understand you”.

[catsidhe]

And, yes, go ahead and post your results if you like. The more the merrier!

[tangent_woman]

I'm going to wimp out and just post my corresponding scores to my own blog with just you on the filter.

I'm not so much fearing the appearance of bragging or what not, more anxious about revealing more than I need to in a place where everyone can read it. The odds of a prospective future employer identifying such a comment with me are remote, but erm... six degrees of separation plus a healthy dose of paranoia makes me not want to post it here.

[catsidhe]

Fair enough. They're your scores, share or not as the whim takes you.

[catsidhe]

On further thought, something the doctor said on the Auditory Working Memory thing was that it was only massive overcompensation in other areas which brought the general Working Memory back up to average, and further, that it was mainly the Auditory working memory which brought several other Indices down.

So to that extent, it really is a pervasive disability, which I have moderated through other cognitive paths. It's like someone scoring well on a navigation test, and concluding that they can't be blind, when actually they're echolocating, or really good at extrapolating from what little they can see, or similar. And never having had a useful Auditory Working Memory, I simply never realised that it wasn't normal to struggle with it, and just spent most of my life wondering if waitresses all have super-powers.

[tangent_woman]

Yep, yes and yeah re: workarounds by funneling available inputs to alternative handlers to glean the closes approximation of the information that can't be gleaned through the missing conventional means.

Friggin' exhausting.

Probably explains a lot of AS burnout and fatigue, and the need to cocoon ones self away from high-intensity inputs and high-requirement environments like noisy socialisation spaces.

[usuakari.livejournal.com]

Interesting reading.

And I don't even remember you doing Japanese in Year 11, which perhaps says something about my brain...

[alliette_d]

I should get my results back from my sister who did that test for me as part of a uni project. The test couldn't return my overall IQ score though because there was a very large difference between several of my IQ scores.
Namely, the verbal and comprehension IQs were above the range assessable by the test, while performance IQ was in the mid 90s. I can't remember where working memory was but I think both it and the processing speed were in the above average range, but not by a huge amount.