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(RAADS-R) test

Easter

Well-Known Member
I just started to try this test out as I only just heard of it.... it is annoying the hell out of me and I am on question 1.

The 4 answers for every question are a choice of:

1.True now and when I was young
2.True only now
3.True only when I was younger than 16 < !!!!!!! That is false now then???
4.Always true.

First 'question' is ' I am a sympathetic person ' How can I answer that with those 4 possibilities?
1.True now and when I was young, but not tomorrow....
2.True only now.... this very second! because yesterday I wasn't and tomorrow I won't be either.
3.True when I was younger than 16, I can't even remember that far back and why not any other age?
4.Always true..... Who the hell is always sympathetic apart from that crazy NT , Mother Teresa ????

If there is data accumulated from this test , IMO it will be complete nonsense, it is completely vague and couldn't possibly give any indication of what a person is like due to the fact it is based on time and why is there not a number 5 question -- Always false?

I can't do the test basically as i find it bends my mind.

17) Others consider me odd or different. Always true yesterday but never true today.
18) I understand when friends need to be comforted. True only when I was younger than 16.... doesn't make sense AT ALL

Blah BLah Bollox
 
I had a lot of trouble with this test, too. I remember my childhood perfectly, in the sense that I remember other people, environments, the flamin' wallpaper we had on the landing, etc etc - however, trying to remember my perspectives as a child eerily caused me to draw blanks. :s

A lot of the questions confused me, too. I had to get my wife to explain a lot of them to me, and even she was a little confused at some of them.

I wound up scoring a 171, which seemed enormously high, but then again, every test I took seemed enormously high in my eyes.
 
Haha, "you over analyze the questions". Therefore you must be aspie! Problem is these things are always written by NTs. They don't think the same.
 
I can't recall the times I actually had issues with questions like this for assessments.

A lot of questions were either weirdly worded or the answers just left something to be desired for.

On the topic of the RAADS test. "True when I was 16 or younger" vs. "True only now". What's between the gap? I'm not 17 anymore. "Now" to me is almost double that age.

Furthermore, I think the notion of "I can't remember that far back" does hold some truth to it. My memory isn't that poor, but I wouldn't be able to accurately (and let's face it, if you can't be accurate there's no use in doing a test) tell if I actually was sympathetic in my teens. I can't recall how my mind exactly worked back then, perhaps even less in retrospect with added aspieness and life experiences.

The last time I did a RAADS (and stumbled upon many issues) answer 4 was "Always false" (I took this test here)

The problem I have with a test like this is that a lot of questions revolve around understanding how others might see you and how your actions are placed in context towards others. It's hard to define sympathy towards others without some kind of grounding. The moment I have to look up the definition of sympathy I think the question by itself already failed. And it goes downhill from there.

"Others consider me odd or different." might be true, but who says these people are the benchmark of normal themselves? It does impose a certain sense of cultural influence on being an aspie as well as the place where someone grew up.

I've addressed this once and I'll do so again. A lot of tests revolve around assumptions and at some point ambiguity. I'm not entirely sure how that's a good test for aspies.

Yet Zurb does address something relevant here. The fact that we overanalyze these questions says something about us as well.. perhaps that says most about it even.
 
It sounds as though you may have Aspergers.
Probably too literal and over thinking this. At 16 because it is the average age that most go through monumental changes from youth to adult. And this may be intentionally vague, as NONE of us are something ALL of the time.
Just as with life, RELAX, and do your best.
 
I hadn't had much sleep when I was looking at it to be honest, it stressed me... It is funny to think that my struggles with the test point more at me being an aspie, even though I couldn't complete it, the irony :)
I will have another go at it today but it still seems a bit silly to me and I get the feeling I will be stumped again... Maybe some people on the spectrum should work on inventing a better test? :0)
 
I hadn't had much sleep when I was looking at it to be honest, it stressed me... It is funny to think that my struggles with the test point more at me being an aspie, even though I couldn't complete it, the irony :)
I will have another go at it today but it still seems a bit silly to me and I get the feeling I will be stumped again... Maybe some people on the spectrum should work on inventing a better test? :0)

It's just a test. Not a definitive explanation of your neurology. I just see them as a diagnostic tool to help- not confirm.

I wouldn't give them any more weight than that. The way I see it, the factor that carries the most weight in this equation is your own intuition of whether you believe yourself to be on the spectrum. Something that comes in time with a lot of research in the absence of a formal and professional diagnosis. Don't allow the process to stress you. It's just a voyage of self-discovery. ;)
 
It's just a test. Not a definitive explanation of your neurology. I just see them as a diagnostic tool to help- not confirm.

I wouldn't give them any more weight than that. The way I see it, the factor that carries the most weight in this equation is your own intuition of whether you believe yourself to be on the spectrum. Something that comes in time with a lot of research in the absence of a formal and professional diagnosis. Don't allow the process to stress you. It's just a voyage of self-discovery. ;)

Yes, I did take it a bit too seriously... I am yet to have another go as I scanned it again and it looked really long, will have to find the right time.. or forget about it :) one or the other is bound to happen :)
 
With tests like this one, the important thing is not so much the truth of your answers as much as it is how your answers compare overall with people on the spectrum and off the spectrum. In other words, don't spend a lot of time thinking about whether your answer is correct. Just pick the one that seems closest to what you think is right. If your answers are similar to what other Aspies say, then that is a sign you are on the spectrum.

The most maddening assessment like this that I ever took consisted of a series of questions along the lines of "If you won $1 million would you A)give it to charity, or B)give it to your mother." There was no "C)spend it all on booze and sex." Again, they weren't looking for a truthful answer so much as how my answers compared with other people like me. My shrink told me the test revealed a lot of useful traits about people.

I don't know about this RAADS-R test. I scored 156, which would indicate a strong likelihood that I am on the spectrum--and I think I am. But I noticed that the average scores for NTs, both male and female, were well above the threshold values. So that would seem to suggest that more than 50% of the NT population would be told they should be evaluated for AS based on the test results. I don't want to take the time to read the paper, but it looks suspicious.
 
The test is annoying! There were so many where I wanted to answer "Yes, but I normally suppress the urge to...etc" or "Yes, difficult but I catch up, etc". I could easily have answered "No" in those cases because I am only capable of maintaining a real-world presence by dealing with discomfort, distractions, and minor set-backs in my own understanding of people.
My usual approach to communication barriers these days is asking people to clarify things for me regularly, and they seem to like answering me because I don't come back.
My RADDS score was horrible... 173 overall!
 
148.
But I really only answered "Yes, Always" or "No, Never". The greyscale of young and old is just too tough. A very harsh Yes or No too. There was an awful lot of the questions where I wanted to answer "Sometimes" "A Bit" "Usually". So I went ruthlessly boolean. True or False.

The test in of itself did not stress me. I know it's just a test, and I made personal rules to deal with its weird choices. I have a flexibility that the test implies that I perhaps should not have if I am truly Aspergers.
 
179. The question I hated most was "I would rather go out to eat in a restaurant by myself than with someone I know." I would rather not go to a restaurant at all.
 

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