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Another one of those quizzes. This one tests your "autism quotient", and while one doesn't put much store in pop-quizzes like this, it does raise some interesting questions for self-examination, which I find the value of a quiz like this.
Autism is a syndrome which results in aversion to social interaction. It is essentially a brain disorder that affects three crucial areas of development: communication, social interaction, and creative or imaginative play. For some of us, withdrawing can be exacerbated by our work or home situations. We all need to make effort to maintain and develop our social skills. Different personality types adapt much more easily than others.
Because our youngest child was born at about 24 weeks' gestation, he was vulnerable to autism, which occurs more frequently in extremely premature infants. It needs to be remembered that autism is largely a social-interactive disorder, and is not directly related to intelligence in academic areas. Many people with autistm are quite brilliant in certain spheres. You may remember the film Rain Man, the story which revolves around Dustin Hoffman's character's autism.
I have always been somewhat shy and introverted (though I know a few people who would dispute that!), and have had to work hard from time to time in this area. Being in pastoral ministry has pushed me at different times and in different ways in this area. While I rated a 15 on the quiz, I would probably have rated much higher at earlier stages of my life. This might indicate that autism is within the control of the person, but nothing could be further from the truth - therein lies one of the problems with quizzes like this: you don't wake up one day, stick your head under a pillow and become autistic. It is much more about capability than level of present function.
We were lead to think in earlier days that our son might have been autistic, but there were other physiological aspects which impacted upon his social interaction. A more social being you'd be hard-pressed to find now!
If you want to practice your social skills, there are plenty of clubs (and churches) which welcome new members and provide a place for developing new friends and meeting new people. Life's too short to waste away on one's own.
Posted by gary at January 11, 2006 03:45 PM
Ah, you beat me mate. I only scored 11. Must mean I'm a social animal!
Posted by: Mark Holt at January 12, 2006 09:50 AM
You're always a pleasure to be around!
Posted by: gary at January 12, 2006 10:01 AM
I scored a 7! Yay!
Posted by: Megan at January 12, 2006 11:24 AM
Hi Megan... good to hear from you! You scoring a seven is no surprise... I always remember you as a shrinking violet :-)
Posted by: gary at January 12, 2006 12:49 PM
I scored 10 which surprised me - I've always seen myself as a bit of a wallflower. I guess having a very extroverted husband and daughter has given me many opportunities to learn to refine my social skills. Still, my psychology teacher's brain always queries the validity of questions in surveys like this (as much as I enjoy doing them). I have taught a number of boys with Aspergers - lovely, lovely boys...all very different but all very characteristically aspergers.
Posted by: Kirrily at January 12, 2006 03:09 PM
Keep that suspicion of such surveys Kirrily... good to hear from you! I appreciate your comment that the boys were "all very different". It serves as a nice counter to the belief that all people with a similar diagnosis are the same. It might be that we are all individuals after al1!
Posted by: gary at January 12, 2006 04:26 PM
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