Can One Purpously Influence The Results Of An Assessment?

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This is something that I am concerned about. My mind can sometimes see patterns so I maybe able to see through questions and influence results either so I am more NT or more autistic then I am. I don't want to do this either way but my mind can be playful in an inquisitive way etc... While I try not to lie, if there is an either or question where my real answer would have been straight down the middle and there is no middle option, my concern is my answer would be on the one side or the other depending on my mood at the time. This concerns me.

No, I have not experienced what being assessed is so in a way I just don't really know what is involved. I have a few ideas... Maybe answering lots of questions like the online quiz type of things?
I don't want to know directly as I could influence the result. I do not want to influence the results in any way.

Also, despite my general intelligence (I am by no means a genuis. Far from it! Haha! But I am intelligent enough to out think many if I need to), I have actually quite a poor vocabluary so if certain questions are asked using words I am not 100% sure about, I will take a guess rather then be embarissed that I don't really know what the word means. It is part of my character as I don't want to come accross as being stupid. This could also alter assessment results so is another concern of mine.

Any thoughts anyone?

I had the exact same thoughts! I had suspected to be on the spectrum for several years and decided to take the steps for a formal assessment. I tried to find a "specialist" in Autism and located somebody relatively close to me, This was about 5 years ago, he had me complete several questionnaires and did some interviewing and concluded that I was not autistic. I was pretty bummed and not sure how to process that assessment. One specific thing was he asked me how I interpreted metaphorical sentences (i.e. "rains cats and dogs"). I told him I obviously know what it means, but I do get visual images in my head of cats and dogs falling from the sky. He said if I understood the meanings I was not autistic. Now I know that is complete BS. It took me several years and I was pushed by a marriage counselor to get re-evaluated. Second attempt I found a psychologist that took a different approach. I went through a battery of standardized tests, IQ tests etc. It was pretty intense, some had nothing to do with autism at all, basically just tested my brain abilities, there was no way of faking it with these. I was exhausted on the second day. He combined these neurological assessments with the history and my answering of questions about childhood etc... I was pretty impressed with the workup, his conclusion was that I am definitely on the spectrum.
There are a lot of misconception out there what that means. I have gained a lot more knowledge and insight since my diagnosis. I think Adults can be very hard to diagnose because we develop coping and masking skills. Standardized tests can "break through" those masking skills and identify your strengths and weaknesses. I am sure you can influence the result of a quick 30 question self-assessment test, but it would be much harder to influence a formal assessment with hundreds of questions and skills tests. Of course in the end you need to also take the history and behavior assessments in consideration to see if it all matches up.
My diagnostician explained to me that there are usually two types of psychologists, those that test and those that ask questions, he said he was unique in applying both techniques and combining the results, he said most don't do that.
I cannot explain it as well as he did, but it made so much sense at the time.
As you know there is no lab test you can take to confirm autism, it is in the end an assessment of your brain functions by observation and testing. Before this I never understood the "spectrum" in it's full meaning, never made sense what "high-functioning" means. I now believe "high-functioning" is BS. Everybody has an individual mixture of issues in a pretty sophisticated three dimensional pattern. Social fuinctioning is a component, verbal skills, math skills, hand - eye coordination, all are factors.
Not all assessments are equal, the more complex - the better. I definitely would try to find someone who understands adult undiagnosed autism.

We have no choice here in the UK in that our NHS system does the assessment. It could be a six or more year wait in some areas. In others the wait could be only a year. It depends which area one lives in the UK and how long the queues are for assessment. My area has recently had an additional centre open somewhere which is running alongside the old one, so they do expect to be able to reduce the queues so people can be assessed quicker.
Thanks for your reply.

I am still a little unsure if I am on the spectrum or not, but many things make sense if I am on the spectrum which would puzzle me if I was not... But if I am not, then it opens a whole lot more questions as if I am I don't have many questions except to say "What happens next?"

The assessment isn't all question and answer or rating yourself on scales, MG.

The testing will involve performance tasks and many types of assessments regarding vocabulary or problem solving which are very different from AQ Test types of questions. The assessor will be watching for characteristics and patterns that you aren't aware of. If your testing is like mine, it will be double-blind with some answers scored by an online database unrelated to the assessment centre. You really can't sway this test because it isn't just based on your self-perception.

Why would you like or need an assessment?
Having a positive diagnosis gave me a possibility to "explain things". I feel I understand some things better. I often wondered why I am the way I am, why I don't have friendships like other people, why I obsess, why I can have meltdowns, why I have marriage and relationship problems, and many other why questions...
The flip side is that I worry I may be using it as an excuse now, to some degree it does let me "off the hook" by saying it is my Autism. The "spectrum" is somewhat of an oddity as it almost seems anybody can be somewhere on the spectrum.
Unless you need some kind of social security or insurance benefits you do not necessarily NEED a formal diagnosis. I have not made my diagnosis public and would worry about being labeled. Too many misconceptions about autism. I think many of us are very analytical (I am), weighing the pros and cons is almost always a struggle for me and few decisions come easy and fast.
What is it you want to get out of an assessment? How would it help you?
I have experienced the assessment with the outcome of "that's not it" and then it changed 5 years later. I wonder sometimes if I influenced the assessment. Once you read and study about autism you will see yourself if you fit criteria or not, I don't think a self diagnosis is really far fetch.
Have you read Attwood's book on Asperger's? I think he describes a frequency of 1:250 for ASD. If you have verbal skills, can hold a job, live independently you get labeled as "high functioning", that does not mean you may not suffer with depression, anxiety, and social integration issues on a severe level.
Society likes labels, it helps to determine your social status. I would be a bit concerned by being classified and labeled by the NHS. I did not make my diagnosis public and run around with "Aspie" t-shirts. It is a personal thing and helps me to understand myself better and hopefully make my life a little easier in the long run. It explains some things from my youth and makes me feel a little better about my past, some things were not in my control.

If you have a proper assessment you cannot fool it. It is designed so that you can't.

If it is done by a professional you should be able to be confident in the results. I am not a diagnostician and we cannot diagnose anyone here on WP but just from the conversations that you and I have had, I would be very surprised if you were not Autistic. So I think you will find that your diagnosis will be pretty straight forward.

Heck, yes. Before AS was an available DX, shrinks were one of the hazards of life (well, even more so) that I had to face for getting erratic test results. As soon as he'd start thinking I was X, I'd switch to Y, and so on, so he could never decide and just dismissed my case.

Thanks Skibum.

You know what the strange thing is... And to me this is strange as it has been quite a switch in perspective in my life as I knew nothing assuming I knew everything, and now I know more.....
Well, the strange thing is that when I came on this site I didn't know a lot and wanted to know about autism.... And now I know more about it, a thought has come to me... What is NT? I mean... I can't exactly go on an NT site and ask. HAHA! I have to laugh at my reasoning!
Researching into autism and finding out that it seems to fit my experiences, the thought came that if I am autistic, I actually don't know anything about NT's even though I thought I did? So the whole concept and role may have actually reversed?
This is like that parallel universe thing! Haha!
Maybe I should give my brain a rest as my thoughts are getting silly!

One thing I have noticed is that it takes a lot of time and thought to think about how one thinks and does things. Examining oneself is such a deep and fascinating subject, and if anything, I have learned so much in just doing this. If I didn't have the experiences and thoughts of you guys to ask things (Which on most other sites I would never have been able or brave enough to ask), I doubt I ever would have learnt so much. Thanks everyone! You're all brill.

I think it can be very difficult if the client has any vested interest in the outcome one way or the other, especially if they know a lot about which answers would indicate a positive result and which wouldn't. Any parts of the test that aren't self-assessed (question and answer, mostly) would be less prone to interference though.

A big problem I have with forced-response, reductionist questionnaires is that it's just not possible for me to give accurate, honest answers except "I don't know, it depends", which is often not allowed. To me, the truth is usually more complicated and nuanced than the questionnaire allows for, and I can get any result I like because to me it's usually valid for me to say "yes" or "no."

Luckily in my main assessment there was a lot of scope for me to explain myself when I was asked questions, so I was much more able to be accurate there. Even so, I knew that if I was declared not to be on the spectrum then I'd have had nothing to throw at my employers to make them ease off the pressure, though it could be argued that as the pressure was down to the more Aspie-unfriendly demands they were making of me, if I wasn't on the spectrum then I'd not have needed a diagnosis to protect me from such demands. I can't rule out that I might have been a little reluctant to say anything that might have made the diagostician think I wasn't on the spectrum.

Nonetheless, people have since told me that they can clearly see Aspie things about my behaviour when I've had no reason to pretend I was one thing or the other. I'm sure if I didn't have the condition pretty markedly, I'd not find so many things difficult that most other people just take in their stride, such as social fatigue. All in all, I'm in very little doubt that the diagnostic result was right.

I wouldn't worry, I'd just do my best, and if the result turns out to have been a little skewed, just readjust your ideas accordingly. Anybody who is so concerned about the risk of fudging it is unlikely to bias it too wide of the mark, I would think.

I had the same fears and was just totally honest about them with my psychologist. I agree with those who say the process with any clinician experienced in diagnostic testing will know how to allow for cognitive biases. Everyone masks in some way even just small omissions, and autism professionals are aware that we experience both a lot of shame (hence might try to hide parts of ourselves) and also have a tendency to hyperfocus on details (many of us develop a special interest in autism/autistic traits during this time).

I would just say that it's important to find a clinician who you're able to trust so you can be completely honest about all this stuff.