It is not a tool to diagnose yourself or someone you know, but it does give interesting result readings and information.
The programme is hosted by Anna Richardson
who meets leading experts to explore deeper into autism.
When J was a toddler, and he was not reaching communication milestones, our journey began. As is usual, it started with a hearing test to rule out hearing loss as a reason for his lack of speech and understanding.
I have mentioned before in my blog, that we then saw a specialist who saw both myself and Joseph in her office for around 15 minutes, and handed me a leaflet about autism, and telling me that is what he had.
I went home a little shocked and in denial ( denial from not knowing anything about autism ), and got out my huge A-Z family health book. Under autism was a small paragraph telling me what J would never be able to do or achieve - No marriage. No relationships. No career or job. Unable to live independently.
That was it. There was nothing at all positive or inspiring. It was incredibly negative.
That was all the information I had. A leaflet informing me the same as what the A-Z family health book was telling me. The Internet was not as freely available and reliable as it is now, and I had no way of accessing anything on line - and I doubt there would have been much anyway, as there was no real hub of social media and information portals. Back then it also took five minutes to download anything as well. It was almost archaic as to what we are all so used to now.
We moved soon after, and the new GP we registered with said a snap diagnosis like that was not the norm and we would have to attend a weekly assessment session at a child centre, for a year, before a formal diagnosis was given.
The weekly sessions were hard in some parts for me, as I attended classes to teach me more about autism, (whilst J was being observed in their play room) and the reality of a new world of special needs was daunting and intimidating.
As is obvious by my whole blog (!), J was given the diagnosis of autism.
Since that time, 13 years ago, a lot has happened in the knowledge, and acceptance of autism.
Television dramas feature characters with autism or Aspergers, there are thousands upon thousands of support groups for parents who have children on the spectrum, Joe Bloggs in the street has heard about it, and most probably knows someone who knows someone who has ASD. This is a big leap from the closed door, dark room feeling back then, but there is still so much to explore and discover, and of course we can never stop educating people about autism, and indeed any special need.
This is the link to take you to the Channel 4 website that is hosting the test. We can only learn and develop more understanding around autism, by research and study, and the more people do this, the more we can discover.
Below is the blurb I have copied and pasted from the website. I did not write this, alter or modify any part.
How Autistic Are You?
Think you might be autistic? Struggle with social interaction, maintaining eye contact, or understanding the expressions and gestures of those around you? Do you have difficulty understanding other people’s feelings and managing your own? Or perhaps bright, loud or crowded places make you anxious? Maybe you feel like you don’t fit in…. like your brain is wired differently to other people. If any of this strikes a chord with you, then you’re not alone. Theory and research suggest that autism is a spectrum, with autistic traits distributed along a spectrum in the general population. This means, to a certain extent, that everyone has some degree of autistic traits.
How Autistic Are You? is a new Channel 4 programme from betty aiming to demystify one of Britain’s most misunderstood neurological disorders. Featuring leading experts and people from the autistic community, the programme will present a new way for viewers to visualise where they are on the spectrum of autistic traits, and a team of autistic people will also take to the streets to try to teach the public what it really means to be autistic.
To help our understanding of how autistic traits are spread across the general population we would like your help with some research - we want to know what autistic traits you have. Professor Simon Baron-Cohen is a world-renowned pioneer in the field of autism research with over 30 years experience. He has authored over 400 scientific papers on his ground breaking research and is the director of the Autism Research Centre, at the University of Cambridge.
As part of their work at the Autism Research Centre Professor Baron-Cohen and Dr David Greenberg have designed four short questionnaires (40 questions in total) to identify different autistic traits. The first three questionnaires examine your behaviour across three areas of autistic traits – Sensory, Social Interaction and Organisation & Routine. The fourth questionnaire examines your overall number of autistic traits. It is important to understand that none of these tests will diagnose autism – only specialist doctors and professionals can clinically diagnose autism. These tests will only help to identify traits.
Once you’ve completed all four questionnaires, you will receive a score that will reveal how you may compare against the general population and the autistic community. You will be asked at the beginning of the test if you are willing for your data to be used anonymously by Cambridge University as part of their ongoing academic research into autism that will also feature as part of the programme How Autistic Are You? You will not be asked for your name or any contact details as part of these tests.
The anonymous data will be used within the television programme. We will group the results together, such as male versus female ; occupation breakdown; diagnosis and by UK region – no individual results will be revealed. Cambridge University will also only publish anonymous results. Further details of betty’s privacy policy can be found here and details about the Autism Research Centre can be found here.
Taking all four tests will only take you five minutes in total. You must be 16 or over to take the tests.
