Wheelwright and Baron-Cohen's paper about the BAP

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Defining the broader, medium and narrow autism phenotype among parents using the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), Sally Wheelwright et al, Molecular Autism, 2010, 1:10

[Thanks to Kraftiekortie for getting me interested in this. I couldn't find an easy self-test so I'm reading papers to see if there's something easily adaptable]

"The BAP is...a set of characteristics that index familiarity and/or genetic liability to autism" (p. 1)

First discovered by Kanner. Measured by the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) Broader Phenotype Autism Symptom Scale (BPASS) and the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (BAPQ) (p. 2). The BPASS looks easiest to be made into a self-test...I'm not sure the SRS is autism-specific enough. I don't know why that's even included.

This paper is proposing that Wheelwright and Baron-Cohen have their own test...no surprise. The full AQ is 50 questions, which is actually the online version. Wow, that's the only version.

This paper proposes that anyone can take the AQ.

Broader Autism Phenotype (BAP) scores are 23 to 28.
Medium Autism Phenotype (MAP) scores are 29 to 34.
Narrow Autism Phenotype (NAP) scores are over 35. <-I guess this is "real autism"

I just took the AQ over again to see what mine was. Here's the AQ if anyone else wants to check. My score was 12, which was "low average." The lower the score, the more neurotypical.

I don't like the AQ because it has many misleading questions, such as making you choose between a museum and a theatre, with the theatre being the "neurotypical" answer. That's BS, as you aspies/auties with interests in the theatre know. I would be equally interested in both so it would depend on what kind of theatre and what kind of museum.

There's also nothing to account for behaviors you might have had when you were younger and have grown out of. I had more manipulative, clique-ish, bullying type tendencies when I was little that I grew out of because I was influenced by good people. I've also been influenced a lot by autistic people, which has changed my behavior and the way I see things. The same is true for autistic people influenced by neurotypical people. I like the RAADS-R better, because it lets you select options like "true now, true when I was younger, and true now and when I was younger".

The only thing I like about this is the idea that there is a border identity area where people are "kinda autistic." But clearly this idea was Kanner's, so not new. I'll hunt up Kanner's paper next. I'll make another post if I find anything significant or what looks like a good self-test for the BAP.

My Score 37

I was young so long ago it is difficult to answer those questions.

Most of my life I would have answered do I understand others intentions incorrectly. It became obvious I was below average in this skill only when I looked back on my life post diagnosis (2 years ago today).

I consider the AQ a BAP test, not an autism test.
It focuses on a particular kind of BAP, the nerd type.

I agree.

The only thing I really like about the AQ is that it's quick. It's good to take along with a longer test so you can feel more solid about the results.

I like to keep up with Wheelwright and Baron-Cohen because they influence common knowledge about autism. You can trace a lot of fallacies back to them. Like about autistics not having empathy. Other people showed that they were not correct but they had bigger names so their findings are what's stuck in popular understanding.

Were it defined as they suggested here, with multiple gradients for the results, I would likely have fewer issues with the AQ. As it is though, I think the RAADS-R is the better screening test (neither is supposed to be used for diagnosis), and it does not take significantly longer to complete.

The AQ is actually at least partly responsible for my diagnosis being 3 years later than it would have been otherwise, as the first time I took it, I scored below the "cutoff" of 32.

I prefer the RAADS-R myself. I'm not surprised you got an off score. I think it scores me as "less neurotypical" than I am because of the way it has that weird nerd stereotype. I'm a nerd NT. And I wish it included things about stress and exhaustion and when do you feel those things because that seems to me to be a hallmark of autism in adults that is often overlooked.

I'm not sure RAADS-R is improvement on AQ.
The way the questions are worded is too general, and it is super obvious how to answer to get high autistic score.

I think the best screening questionnaire (but not for adults or from first-person perspective) is MCHAT.
It asks about specific observed behaviors.

Yeah that's the problem with all self tests. You could purposefully or accidentally mess it up by giving the "correct" answers.

It would be good to combine some of these self-tests with observational tests. A close family member or friend could help with the observational part if you didn't want to go to a professional.

The AQ test freaking sucks when it comes to identifying people as autistic or not, I got a 27 seven while a non-autistic friend of mine got a 49. The aspie quiz is much better, we both got middle range scores.

37 which surprised me...
I was expecting a lower score because I seem to be atypical in some areas of autism...
It would have been easy to push the score higher on some questions if I wanted to do so (which I didn't).

In the absence of some really good screening questionnaire for adults, it would seem people must make do with the vague indications they get from imperfect tests and quizzes and then trust in the judgment of a professional who makes direct observations over an extended period during the assessment.

My husband and I took our 18 month old son in for his check up yesterday and they gave us an additional paper to fill out. It was the MCHAT! What a coincidence! I had a lot of thoughts while filling it out.

-Both my pediatrician and my husband are aspies so it was funny that this was part of my son's "health" screening. If he failed, oh no, I guess he'd have to grow up like his dad or be a failure like his pediatrician

-I could have easily made my son either autistic or neurotypical because I know too much about autism. As it was, I had to make myself sit and think about each answer and discuss it with my husband to make sure I wasn't being biased

-Nowhere on there did it say that it was an autism test and no one discussed the results with us

He had all neurotypical answers except one. He does like to make strange finger motions near his face.