What does it mean if you are in-between NT and Aspie?

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I just joined this forum a few days ago after one of my recently diagnosed friends and my therapist both made comments that I have autistic traits. I have been talking with a few of you privately, and you wonderful people have been a massive help! But my current problem is... I have just as many traits related to ASD as I do NT traits, and I'm not sure where to go from here.

My Aspie-Quiz results:

Your broader autism cluster (Aspie) score: 109 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 107 of 200
You have both broader autism cluster and neurotypical traits

It seems from this that I don't fit in with NTs or with you guys; quite a disappointing result. So I'm asking; are there other conditions that might account for this? The only thing I have been officially diagnosed with by my doctor and therapist is anxiety/depression. I believe if I was to have an official ASD test done I would probably fall just short of qualifying for a diagnosis. I thought I was close to finally understanding why I don't seem to ever fit in with "normal" people out in the world, but now I'm not so sure. Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

It should be noted that although we have a lot of fun with this test, it is not scientific. Neurological testing done properly by experienced diagnostic professionals will be much more useful in determining actual strengths and weaknesses which make up autistic development. Our neurological development is uneven, so any given individual will have high and low performances in a very wide range of functioning definitions. Neurotypical development shows a much smoother line of development with skills and weaknesses much more similar and more equal development. picture a graph like a gently rolling hill (NT) instead of peaks and valleys like mountains( ND). Self tests are very useful, but they are only a glimpse of possibilities and should not be depended on as accurate indicators. Best wishes!

When I did that test myself, my Aspie score was only a little higher than yours, and my NT score only a little lower, so I understand how you feel.

For me, even though I am around the borderline on some of these tests, I do strongly identify with so many of the traits and difficulties of being Autistic, meaning that I have already self diagnosed and self identified, because everything suddenly made sense to me when explained in terms of the characteristics of Autism.

In some ways this is enough for me, but I am on the waiting list for a formal diagnosis.

When I take the test I get similar scores. A hundred some in the NT category, and 100 some in the aspie category.

Not the usual almost 200 for one thing, and near zero for the other. And I get the same in-between statement as their conclusion as to what I am.

And when I take the test I imagine that I am taking it as my grade school kid self when I was more autistic in behavior than now. So it should be skewed towards the autistic. But it still comes out in between.

But when I took the official, real, exhaustive, battery, of real face-to-face tests conducted by an actual doctor I was officially diagnosed as being aspie.

So "what it means" could be that you're not in-between, but are also on the spectrum (are autistic, or aspie).

Last edited by naturalplastic on 01 Jan 2022, 11:24 am, edited 2 times in total.

Welcome to the club! According to a lot of things, I may be in-between, but at some point I chose to identify with autistic/aspie and started to adopt some of the things I read about. I learned that it was a good explanation for myself! I could just be someone in the middle, but no one likes being stuck in the middle and having no one to relate to, so I kind of chose to call myself an aspie. I was finally professionally diagnosed a few months ago.
I would advise you seek an evaluation, if you can. The results may surprise you.

When you put it that way, it does make sense. When I think about my skills/traits/behaviors in terms of Autism things do seem to make more sense; why I like certain things and not others, why certain things really bother me, etc etc. My problem is I would really like to have an official test done, but I'm scared of what the result would be. If I didn't "qualify" under their diagnostic criteria I would be crestfallen.


Hello fellow waiting list buddy! I am in the same exact scenario that you are. Whenever you have your test you should make a post about it, I would love to know the result


Knowing you get the same results on the self evaluation and have also been officially diagnosed is very comforting to hear. I think each day I am leaning more towards getting an official test. I'm not sure when you had your test, so if it was many years ago it's OK if you don't remember the specifics, but if you do, how much did it really differ from self evaluations?


I think you just convinced me... I've had no one to relate to for 26 years, so even if there is a chance that I'm on the spectrum I should probably schedule the test. Have you made a post about your experiences being formally diagnosed? If so can you point me towards it? I would love to hear! Or if you haven't, do you want to describe how the process worked? How was it different from self evaluations? Did you feel relief to finally have your suspicions confirmed?

I would recommend using the AQ test as a criteria whether to seek a diagnosis. I think the aspie quiz gives a mushy answer as to whether to seek a diagnosis. The AQ gives you a yes/no and if your close and still feel you're ASD you could discuss that with an evaluator. That said, I am still self diagnosed but have no concerns that I could get a diagnosis.

I can't remember if I made a post about my diagnosis, I don't think I made an official one. How it worked for me was my mom told my therapist about how she thought I was autistic and wanted a diagnosis, she gave us a referral to a place where I could get diagnosed, there was a little over a month of waiting time I think? It took a while because my mom is lazy and wouldn't fill out the paperwork quick enough. This was expensive, though, more than it should have been. At least I got in faster than it would have been if it was cheaper, but I did feel bad for spending my parents' money.
I had been stuck with "adjustment disorder" as a placeholder diagnosis for the longest time (given by multiple therapists who had no clue what was going on) I knew the diagnosis was fake and called them out on it, I figured out they were giving it to me because it was temporary and they would actually be fired if they didn't give me a diagnosis and lie that it fit me. Therapy seems like a cult when things like this happen, as when I directly questioned them on it, they seemed to go off on some strange speech about their "clinical expertise" about diagnosing people. After that I was like "okay" to get them to stop. Now I'm worried they're checking my social media or something, as one seemed persistent about knowing what my online nickname was. Now I'm going off topic.
I had to go there, the building was very sus as it was also a school/preschool. I did all my testing in one day. Finally the woman doing my evaluation came out and we went to a conference room in the school. This is the second time a therapist has talked to me in a school conference room. Why do they love conference rooms so much? Anyways, it kinda creeped me out how enthusiastic she was, so I turned my chair away from her and avoided eye contact, knowing it would give me plenty of autistic points. Then I had to do these IQ test things, where I had to make shapes with blocks. Also I had to do lots of puzzle things, these "balance the scale" things that confused the s**t out of me, remember the order of pictures, and those kinda things. It turned out my IQ was 101, completely average. Oh, and I thought I was doing great on these timed test things where you copied symbols, because I thought I was so speedy, turned out I was low average on speed, so I did pretty bad on those. Should have known, all comments from teachers on my report cards were just "very slow and careful, hard worker, follows directions perfectly".
All my results were something average, so this wasn't what determined my diagnosis. Then we took a break, where she gave me cheez-its and a water bottle and left for a few minutes. Also, we did this "remember numbers in your head" thing, which I knew I sucked at, as I never memorized multiplication tables, and have to write down absolutely everything while sewing, because I will forget the simplest numbers.
After that, she asked me about how I liked school, hobbies, etc. I expressed that I am now homeschooled because school made me cry and that I hated all my elementary school teachers. I'm still convinced they were out to traumatize us, and were just jealous of my self confidence and how I always avoided my classmates and only picked a few I liked. Now I don't really have any hard feelings for any of the kids that had to endure our elementary school, actually I feel more connected to the kids that were in my class. I also told her about vintage ocean liners, a past special interest that I'm still into, knowing it would give me plenty of points.
This is getting long, lol. After that I had to do things like play with toys, make up stories, which I think I can be pretty funny, and my stories make her laugh. I can actually generate new ideas on the spot, one time I did a comedy skit for a small talent show in my choir class, with no plan in mind at all, I had been observing the other kids and added some things that I knew they thought was funny. One of the reasons I doubted being autistic, as I can pick up on things and apply them to appeal to a certain audience. That's why I'm an author and aspire to be an actor, or to write scripts for dramas.
Also I had to look at a book with no words and narrate the story, which I did so reluctantly, as it was about frogs, and I felt like I was too mature for it. Then I went home. She was writing and staring at me the whole time, so expect that.
I could identify when I was "acting autistic" and stuff, but didn't necessarily control it.
A few weeks after that I got the results. It sucked to wait for them. I think I posted about it. She tried to gloss over it, but finally said that I was autistic. I was super happy.
About a month later I finally got the full report. Slightly disagreed with some of it, but good enough.
Now I'm hot from typing up a storm. This took me over 30 minutes to type.

Thank you Cora, that was fascinating to read. I've looked up some information about the tests that they do to in this process, I remembered reading about that frog story.

This is the part that worries me -

I completely relate to this, and I'm not sure how to overcome this aspect of the assessment. I know why they are asking each question they ask, and why they are performing X or Y test. And even if I don't know why, all I am going to be doing while answering a particular question or completing a particular task is trying to figure out the reason behind this question or what the trait is that they are trying to determine with this task, and what answer they are looking for. I feel like I have done too much research at this point and now my results are going to be tainted. Like back when psychologists used to use the Rorschach ink blot test, and they were very careful about not releasing the pictures to the public because they wanted your authentic original reaction to them when they administered the test.

I'm afraid that if I wanted to go in there and get a diagnosis of NT I totally could mask well enough to fool them, or the opposite if I wanted to get an ASD diagnosis. It makes it so hard to find the truth. I'm almost a little jealous that you were diagnosed so young; I think the older we get the harder it is to separate our true authentic characteristics from our learned behaviors. I almost need the person doing the assessment to have a super-human capacity for reading between the lines.

This is why I sometimes still think I'm faking. Ever since I discovered this, I knew I was probably faking. I'm probably one of the most likely people to fake it. I have researched so hard. I had a phase where the only thing I did was research what was wrong with me. So I know everything that's going on. I feel like an evil mastermind. I know exactly what to do to fake effectively. It seems like I can predict everyone's next move. Apparently I read people's minds as a kid, because I have said exactly what my mom was thinking out loud, and scared her.

You might find these interesting:

-=-Mango Clinic: "Decoding the Overlap between ADHD and Asperger’s Disorder"

-=-WebMD: "Conditions That May Look Like Autism, but Aren’t"

And a diagnosis is not a requirement for fitting into WP! Welcome!

I'm sure that I don't have ADHD. One of my best friends does have ADHD so I'm very familiar with it. I checked out the other link but it's all relating to diagnoses in children rather than adults.

I know that a lot of people on here have self diagnosed and they are confident that they are on the spectrum and don't feel any need to get a formal diagnosis, but I'm not like that. I don't 'trust' my own opinion if that makes sense. And whenever I take self diagnosis tests I always end up in between like the result I posted above.

Thanks for the welcome! Talking with people on here has given me way more perspective than any of the solo research I have done.

I appreciate your distrust of your self-assessment. I had the same reservations.

I knew I had Autistic traits but I did not know if I had enough of them to qualify for the diagnosis. That is why I got a professional assessment—so I wouldn't have to always qualify my statements by saying "I think I am but I am not certain..."

In my case it turned out the professional diagnosis was Autism Spectrum Disorder, Level 1 (Mild) but I'm sure I couldn't have been far from "has many Autistic traits but does not satisfy the DSM-5 criteria for an Autism Spectrum diagnosis."

Either way it would've been nice to know what I was saying was correct. And either way I would've thought it was interesting. And either way it would've been more than enough to hang out on WP—where even polite and interested NTs are welcome.

I take it from this statement that you might be a more balanced person than me. I enjoy your clinical assessment of the situation. If you had been diagnosed or not diagnosed it would be "interesting" for you and nothing more. I wish that's how I could view the situation, but it's just not the case. Landing on that grey area of "has autistic traits, but doesn't meet the criteria for autism" would be incredibly depressing, and I really would not be sure where to go from there. That would be the worst case scenario.

I'm so tired of having to pretend to be like the people I live/work with. Having an official reason as to why what's going on in my head is so different from what's going on in the heads of the people around me is the main reason I'm pursuing an assessment. Whether it's ASD or something else isn't relevant to me. The problem is after extensive research, ASD is the thing that seems to fit the closest.

I know I've said this before around here, but I really feel like whatever I have is something that has not been named yet by science. And we are still years out from a proper classification for whatever I have. ASD is such a recent diagnosis, but that doesn't mean it was any less prevalent throughout human history; we just didn't have a name for it. They way I feel is similar to the way someone in 1900 with ADS must have felt. All the same traits but no name to describe them.

Two statements I wouldn't say to just anyone:

-=- I hope they diagnose you as having an Autism Spectrum Disorder.

-=- I hope you stay on Wrong Planet.

My score looks similar to yours. I can relate to APD from the link of conditions that can be mistaken for ASD. Who knows if that is relevant to you or anyone else.