New survey on diagnostic timing

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Hi everyone,

TL;DR version: if you're 18 or over, from the UK and autistic, please consider doing my survey - https://kentpsych.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1FU9qFuHxPWayEu. Thanks to Cornflake once again for permission to post this.

I have one final survey for my masters for which I need 3 times as many participants as my previous ones! This one has been designed based on feedback on my previous 2 surveys on this site (about age of diagnosis), so the horrible reading the mind in the eyes task has gone.

I also had a long battle with my supervisor about the AQ, the 50 questions about whether we'd rather go to the theatre or a museum etc... I won, mainly because I put an alternative scale in regardless of his angry remarks and submitted it for ethical approval! So, as I will have to justify this decision with something more substantial than 'everyone I've spoken to hates the AQ', I invite anyone to comment about the AQ. If you don't mind being quoted in my masters thesis (completely anonymously), please let me know.

So this survey is much shorter, 20 mins tops, and whilst you don't need a diagnosis to participate, you do need to be able to give an age when you started identifying as autistic instead of an age of diagnosis. Feel free to do this survey if you have completed one of my previous ones, you'll recognise some bits of it, but as everything's anonymous, your responses are just as valuable now as before.

The only difference in criteria from my previous surveys, is that you have to be from the UK, as diagnostic practices here are different from other countries. I appreciate that people move about in these modern times, so if you grew up in the UK or spent the majority of your life here, please feel free to do the survey.

Any problems, please feel free to message me here or see the survey information sheet with my email address. Thanks in advance!

I still need loads of people for this survey! It's much shorter than previous surveys and doesn't contain anything made by Simon Baron-Cohen! I was also hoping there might be more conversation about how awful the AQ and other screening tools made by non-autistic people that I could throw in the face of my supervisor... (he's actually a lovely man, my supervisor, but he is too much in love with the AQ and other tools!)

https://kentpsych.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1FU9qFuHxPWayEu

Just giving this one last bump as the survey will be closing on the 14th October so please spare a few minutes for a fellow autistic person! Thanks.

Not from the UK, but I can help with some comments on the AQ.

One of my biggest problems with the AQ is how often they structure questions as false dichotomies. The theatre vs museum question is a good example, but the best example IMO is the one about focusing on details or big picture. According to research by Dawson and Mottron, autistic people tend to be good at perceiving both of those, which is why many of us show a Block Design peak. So a lot of autistic people are likely to have trouble answering that question purely because it's phrased as a false dichotomy. Better questionnaire design would ask separately about whether they're good at details and whether they're good at seeing the big picture.

Just completed it, good luck with your masters.