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I sure would have failed that tests if my IQ test is any indication. My IQ test shows a good range of even and non-splintered skills.

Other syndromes possibly could show the same differences, but I wouldn't know. I'm only quoting what my psychologist told me.

My psychologist also looked at my life history briefly and asked me whether I had special interests and food fads, but there really wasn't much focus on my social skills or life history.

I suppose the simple asnwer to your original question would be to say that psychologists are taught to look for things that other people wouldn't notice, so even if he appears normal, that's only because we don't know what to look for?

Yes maybe you right. And someone can improve social skills so much that no-one can see what the person is feeling inside.

Then this test could have been a problem for you, although I do think it was more specific than a standard IQ test.

It was different from an IQ test in the way that I wasn't given a set number of questions to answer withing a certain amount of time. There was no time limit. I could take as long as I pleased on every task, and there was no set number of questions. Instead, we'd just carry on until he was satisfied that I'd reached the limit on how much I could do. We could have gone on for hours had I been able to do more because he had alot of stuff with him.

I know that he was an actual Autism psychologist, who worked with autistic children and adults on a daily basis, so I trust his tests. He was certainly right when he told me that I had a severe lack of creativity (which I'd been trying to tell people for years!) after the block test which showed that although I could often work out the problem quickly and with ease, I only could find one way to do it, and if that way didn't work, I was completely lost. I was relieved when he said that because finally, someone had confirmed what I had been saying since I was a kid.

That's true. Although I have my social difficulties, I have learnt over the years some dos and don'ts. For the most part, people think I'm normal, or just shy (which I am), so I can do basic things like buy something from a shop, or ask for directions, or sit an interview one on one, but when it comes to my peers, making friends, or dealing with college life, I still have alot to learn.

I think I may have an idea of what the test were like/what he was trying to test. How you described it the tests were done to focus on you, how you solve the test more than that you solve them in a specific way. (Which would just be the case with an IQ test.)

I may be wrong, but my idea just sounds so logical hehe. I often get told that my solutions are 'atypical or unusual'.

Unusual, but interesting.

I have the impression that it would be beneficial to have a professional who practises both this way of diagnosis and testing and the more common way of interviewing next to each other!

I imagine it would make it easier for patient and professional.

Some people probably explain themselves better and don't do as ASD as expected on the test. While other are the complete opposite. Currently all the people who can't explain themselves perfectly by words in a way the professional understands may end up misdiagnosed or go undiagnosed.

I know this is a tangent, and I can't watch the video right now, but I have noticed a lot of people don't know what an autistic person looks like.

I mean... okay, I don't notice every single autistic person, especially the really well-disguised ones. But so far when I have guessed that someone is autistic, I have not been wrong.

However, the signs of autism that I notice, seem invisible to a lot of other people.

I remember having a conversation with someone who claimed I didn't "look autistic" when I was not stimming. And I realized to that person, "looking autistic" meant "stimming a lot". Whereas, to many other people, I look autistic even when I don't stim, because I have blank facial expression (except during short periods of having expressions) and unusual patterns of movement. And most autistic people don't stim all the time, so "stimming a lot" can't be the same as "looking autistic".

And I remember several people that I have noticed they were autistic within seconds of meeting them, and they were professionally diagnosed, but other professionals would see them for an hour and say "no sign of autism".

I don't just notice things like stimming, although I do notice that, and I notice various well-disguised forms of stimming, such as the ones my friend does, which she adapted to be anything that can be hidden under a desk, because of Catholic school and having visible stimming beaten out of her.

I also notice physical stiffness, a certain set of unusual walks, using as few muscles as possible to get a job done, pausing or balking at thresholds (either well-hidden and seconds long, or much longer than that), facial expressions that look either wrongly plastered-on or blank or unusual for the situation, head pointed in different directions than usual, avoidance of direct eye contact, etc. I notice unconscious echopraxia.

I notice things like a voice with a monotone, or with pauses in unusual places. I notice the person sounding like they are distanced from the words they say. I notice echolalia, including kinds like my father has where he hides it by moving his lips without any sound coming out. I notice, when they are having conversations, a tendency to get the timing "wrong" by typical standards, and other unusual aspects of the way they talk to other people that have to do with topic, timing, not noticing certain things, etc. I notice a tendency to laugh just after other people start laughing, and to have an unusual laugh, or laughing over-hard at something to "prove" that they understand the joke. I notice a particular sound of suppressed panic in the voice when things change or go wrong. I notice stuttering, cluttering, and other speech impediments. I notice a total failure to speak, too.

I notice a tendency for everything the person does to be slightly out of sync with everyone around them. Similar to what a friend of mine said to me when we were 12 and both ignorant of autism: "I think if you walked into a room full of people, you would be the only one walking at a different pace, whose heart rate and breathing weren't synced up with everyone else, and whose movements didn't look like anyone else's, etc." Something like that.

I also notice attempts to mask this involuntary not-fitting-in, by doing things to voluntarily not-fit-in, and a fear of being discovered.

And I notice them noticing things that other people miss, this being one of the biggest signs I can see that someone is autistic. An entire group of people will be focused on one thing, and an autistic person will be noticing and reacting to all sorts of things that the others are shutting out. A lot of the body language I can read in autistic people, when I can read it, relates to this trait of noticing many things and physically reacting to many parts of the environment, instead of filtering all but a few out and filling in the blanks in one's head.

Also, other people can fail to notice the autistic person, who becomes effectively invisible. I have seen autistic people saying things loudly and clearly and other people talking over them, not out of malice, but out of totally not noticing that a person is right in front of them and talking. I still don't know why entirely.

And I notice shutdown and things like that, either partial or full, mild or severe. And overload, again even in mild forms there are clues a person is overstimulated.

And there are a lot more things I notice, both in passing autistic people and non-passing autistic people. With understanding that whether someone passes has as much or more to do with environment and expectations than anything inside that person's movements and activities.

It seems that a lot of people have a much narrower view of autistic people's movements, and thus they can't actually pick most of us out as autistic. Whereas I can often see if a person is autistic or otherwise neurologically atypical, pretty quickly. Not always, but way more than most non-autistic people (and some autistic people) seem to. It seems like most people just look for a couple things and then forget the fact that autism affects so much more than one or two things about a person's appearance.

AS is a joke, its a fake diagnosis, get real. there is no such thing, its just human behavior

Thanks for that tangent Anbuend. I've seen you mention the subject before and always wondered what you could see in autistic people. A lot of it describes me pretty well and you're right, most people wouldn't notice that stuff. One question though, do you see anything unusual in autistic people's eyes? For me that's an obvious sign (but I've mentioned it on these forums in the past and no one else seems to relate) - I can't even really put into words what I'm seeing though. I see the same thing pretty consistantly in the eyes of people with adhd too. I don't think it's necessarily even something that I'm physically seeing, it's more the way parts of myself react when I look at the other person's eyes. And I usually have no problem at all making eye contact with people with autism/adhd, it happens very naturally, but I can't do it with NTs. Have you ever noticed anything like that?

He has a rigid posture, he has an impairment in eye contact, he sways a little when he walks (I'm guessing that he'd keep his arms close to his sides as he walks), and he has troubles with speech around 50 seconds in (pauses and words mixed up).

This is actually a good example of someone who has AS, and "appears" relatively normal to most people, but he's not "normal" at all.

I never knew I did this until I listened to recordings of myself hanging out with my friends.

"I don't remember repeating him...did I say that? That's my voice, I must've said it..."

I think I only do it when it's something I find funny.

I never noticed my inability to regulate my volume until then, either =/

It's better to shut the f**k up and let people think you're an idiot than to speak and remove all doubt.

Anbuend, you just described me in precise detail (at least 90% of what you said), even the bit about invisibility. I am frequently invisible even to people that are mostly nice to me. It doesn't matter how loud I get (even though I'm usually quiet) , how clealy I speak, how relevant I'm being, or how I repeat myself the way people often do when they're no longer being listened to. It's just like I'm in another dimention and I can only observe.

My uncle, who works with a young aspie, has a basic understanding of what it is but doesn't know anything about my own strong suspicion that I have it, I don't think would recognise it in me on his own, and most likely wouldn't believe me if I told him. He is only slightly more informed about it than the average person.