New study finds online self-reports may not accurately reflect clinical autism diagnoses

[u/antonyderks]

https://www.psypost.org/new-study-finds-online-self-reports-may-not-accurately-reflect-clinical-autism-diagnoses/

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[u/tryntafind]

Based on the comments I’ve seen on multiple subs a lot of people aren’t reading the study very carefully if at all. It did not involve self diagnosis at all. It didn’t even include an online autism test.

They were comparing the performance a group of diagnosed autistic people against two groups who had scored certain levels on the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (not an autism test). They found that the ASD group and High-scoring BAPQ group performed differently, even though they were reporting similar traits, suggesting the traits reported in the High BAPQ group may have had a different origin than the traits observed in the ASD group.

The fact that ASD and non-ASD people perform differently isn’t a surprise, and we already knew a lot of ‘traits’ may overlap with other conditions. And maybe the BAPQ isn’t very good at detecting autistic traits. I think the concern is that because there has been so much more research done on online platforms the researchers wanted to examine whether data gathered online is of the same quality as in person. But in any event, it had nothing to do with self-diagnosis.

I’m skipping over a few things I haven’t reviewed in detail, like the tasks assigned by the researchers to assess all three groups, but maybe we can still discuss this without the arguments on the other subs.

[u/_afflatus → u/tryntafind]

I dont know if I didnt comprehend the article right but I thought the thing you were skipping over was that socially anxious/avoidants, in particular, have a similar presentation as autism but a very different internal mechanism (psychological vs neurological). Other than that, I think you summarized the article well, and it did frustrate me how much people either failed to read the article or didn't at least try to comprehend it.

ETA: The avoidants/socially anxious recognize their outward symptoms mimic autism's social experiences (and thus might feel like they may engage in rigid/repetitive behaviors), but what must be looked at is the psyche because the reason they look similar comes down to the internal. Autism is neurological, and avoidant/anxiety disorder is psychological. It's a better way to determine which kind of therapy would work for an individual with differential diagnoses.

[u/Ok-Yogurt87 → u/tryntafind]

*slowly putting down whetstone...

Oh yeah doctor, I concur!

[u/Muta6 → u/tryntafind]

Okay but “Self-diagnosis” is in fact based on self-reporting of symptoms

[u/Muted_Ad7298]

It’s an interesting study.

Though it’s been well known for a while that social anxiety disorder and ASD have overlapping symptoms.

Here’s more information on the two if anyone’s interested.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-016-2978-z

[u/wanderswithdeer]

This is interesting. I do think that the broad, varied nature of Autism has to pose a challenge to researchers and that it does somehow need to be addressed.

I also think that test sounds like a poor representation for real life, though. I'm professionally diagnosed and not one of those people who gets told "but you don't look Autistic", but if I were given a multiple choice test (which is what I take this to be?) and asked to choose the most friendly or appropriate responses, I could probably do quite well at it. When I'm expected to quickly formulate a response on my own, especially in an overstimulating environment, then my conversational difficulties become apparent. Surely that is true for many of us?

[u/elkab0ng → u/wanderswithdeer]

I masked for decades. Social interactions have always been a nightmare - having to modulate the tone of my voice, reminding myself to look at each person's face and try to make sure my expression is somewhere near correct, and just being completely drained and wanting to hit myself after a few minutes of it.

A multiple-choice test, I can work that. There's usually only four answers, at least one of them is "very incorrect", one will offer an answer that would be correct if there was a mistaken assumption made, one is close to the correct answer, and what's left is the correct answer.

And that last paragraph more or less describes how I managed every social interaction for 50-ish years; identify the incorrect results, eliminate them, and choose the correct response a high enough percentage of the time to be perceived as enjoying the interaction. I did that well enough to sustain a career for a long time, but eventually I was absolutely empty.

But if I could skip my next social interaction and take a multiple-choice test instead? oh hell yes.