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Neurodiversity Survey

M

MRomero

New Member
Hello everyone! I am a student at the University of North Carolina, Asheville. Several of us are trying to put together a development model for autistic children that is autistic-specific--meaning, their development is not simply compared to neurotypical children. To do this, we've made a survey to see when certain communication milestones are reached. We believe (and some of us have directly experienced) in a different trajectory that should not simply be considered a deficit/delay from "normal." Such a perspective needs to be integrated into the medical community, but it takes a good deal of empirical support! If you have a 5-10 minutes to spare to take this survey, we'd really appreciate it! I am happy to answer any questions.

Autistic Social Communication Questionnaire
 
What do you mean by "began to engage in back and forth conversation"? What counts as "back and forth conversation?" Examples would be helpful for a lot of these questions....I might be answering some of the wrong....for example:

What if you spoke in echolalia without communicative meaning or understanding but the echolalia you spoke was full sentences (like me)? Does that count under "began to say any words"?

And do snippets of songs count as phrases and full sentences? (I assumed they did but now I'm not sure.)

And the question about spontaneous imitation of someone else engaging in an activity -- does it matter if the imatation happens while the other person is engaging in that activity versus at some completely different time when the imitated behavior is not actively being demonstrated by anyone else?

For the one "began to repeat sounds or gestures for attention")? Purely for attention or also for the attention of someone getting you something you want or need?

For the "began to use hand or body gestures to get someone's attention" and "began to use words to get someone's attention" do you mean specifically like using words/gesture i]only[/i] to get someone's attention before actually trying to indicate why you want them to pay attention to you?
 
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Thanks for your feedback, and thank you for taking the survey. Those are all good questions. As you might expect, some questions about communication include grey areas, and part of the way this is structured is to get precisely the kinds of questions you asked. What are the blind spots of our "normal" developmental models? Echolalia and complete sentences is certainly one of those blind spots. The_Tortoise, if you have further feedback, I'd be happy to receive e-mails at [email protected]. As it is, I've added a box for feedback for any future participants in the survey.
 
You should be aware that some of these questions only can really give you data about modern children... I'm only 32, but where I came from there were no nursery type institutions at the time and we were only taught to read/write at age of 6 when we entered kindergarten for the first time. I also only saw my first computer when I was 10 as they were not present in any school before I moved to the UK, so did not learn to 'type' until then. So there are such variables you need to consider when taking data from autistic adults... Furthermore, I don't have children and cannot answer any of these questions about myself. I simply don't know.
Good luck with your study.
 
MRomero said:
Thanks for your feedback, and thank you for taking the survey. Those are all good questions. As you might expect, some questions about communication include grey areas, and part of the way this is structured is to get precisely the kinds of questions you asked. What are the blind spots of our "normal" developmental models? Echolalia and complete sentences is certainly one of those blind spots. The_Tortoise, if you have further feedback, I'd be happy to receive e-mails at [email protected]. As it is, I've added a box for feedback for any future participants in the survey.
Click to expand...

I waited to finish the survey until I got a response -- I just refreshed the page and have written stuff in the feedback box. Thanks for adding it! :)
 
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