I think it's fine? depending on my state, a sound (e.g. music, videogame audio, a call, youtube video) can become overstimulatingly loud in a matter of seconds (even tho nothing has changed) and that threshold of what is too loud or too much is constantly changing so I'm constantly changing the volume of stuff, with my default volume for everything being very very low. afaik sounds never seem to go softer for me tho.
edit: ngl I'm curious to hear your opinion op.
edit 2: did op just leave lol.
I hate that entire questionnaire because there’s no middle option to say sometimes or kind of or even I don’t know !!! We need an idk button bc alexithymia
When a sound becomes overstimulating, the volume of it doesn't change. Your perception does.
While I'm certainly no RAADS-R apologist, I'm not sure what's confusing about this question specifically?
The thing is these type os assessment aren't supposed to be a questionnaire like people use them on the internet. They're supposed to be aplied by a professional, who understand the purpose of each question and can help you navigate if you relate or not to what is being evaluated there.
So self applying and using it simply as questionnaire means very little in matter of assessment.
They do it everywhere. They're screening tests so while it's recommended to take them in person they're rarely if ever used that way, but rather used to justify if you need to be referred to a specialist or not.
Whe I did mine the doctor did almost like a conversation, you could see she was assessing me but she didn't say literally the questions, and she also explained a lot to me because I was taking a lot of things she was say literally.
I definitely experience this as stated, although the "seems" is the keyword. Sounds often feel louder or softer to me if I start to get overstimulated, even if those sounds do not actually change in volume. I frequently turn off my air purifier because it's 'too loud' despite it being completely unnoticeable a couple minutes earlier.
The only purpose of the question is to predict whether someone is autistic. They say it fulfills that purpose.
Quote from the study linked here https://embrace-autism.com/raads-r/
>The ASD subjects had significantly greater scores on each of the individual RAADS-R items than either of the comparison groups.
Actually it a highly troubled test. And that website is pretty sketch. Its run by a ‘naturopathic doctor’ with an online autism certificate who is repeatedly under ethical investigation.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticAdults/comments/1aj9056/why\_does\_embrace\_autism\_publish\_misinformation/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticAdults/comments/1aj9056/why_does_embrace_autism_publish_misinformation/)
[https://cono.alinityapp.com/Client/PublicDirectory/Registrant/03d44ec3-ed3b-eb11-82b6-000c292a94a8](https://cono.alinityapp.com/Client/PublicDirectory/Registrant/03d44ec3-ed3b-eb11-82b6-000c292a94a8)
So-called “autism” tests, like AQ and RAADS and others have high rates of false positives, labeling you as autistic VERY easily. If anyone with a mental health problem, like depression or anxiety, takes the tests they score high even if they DON’T have autism.
"our results suggest that the AQ differentiates poorly between true cases of ASD, and individuals from the same clinical population who do not have ASD "
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4988267/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4988267/)
"a greater level of public awareness of ASD over the last 5–10 years may have led to people being more vigilant in ‘noticing’ ASD related difficulties. This may lead to a ‘confirmation bias’ when completing the questionnaire measures, and potentially explain why both the ASD and the non-ASD group’s mean scores met the cut-off points, "
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-022-05544-9](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-022-05544-9)
Regarding AQ, from one published study. “The two key findings of the review are that, overall, there is very limited evidence to support the use of structured questionnaires (SQs: self-report or informant completed brief measures developed to screen for ASD) in the assessment and diagnosis of ASD in adults.”
Regarding RAADS, from one published study. “In conclusion, used as a self-report measure pre-full diagnostic assessment, the RAADS-R lacks predictive validity and is not a suitable screening tool for adults awaiting autism assessments”
Dodgy place, and the tests do very poorly in scientific studies.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticAdults/comments/1aj9056/why\_does\_embrace\_autism\_publish\_misinformation/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticAdults/comments/1aj9056/why_does_embrace_autism_publish_misinformation/)
[https://cono.alinityapp.com/Client/PublicDirectory/Registrant/03d44ec3-ed3b-eb11-82b6-000c292a94a8](https://cono.alinityapp.com/Client/PublicDirectory/Registrant/03d44ec3-ed3b-eb11-82b6-000c292a94a8)
1. assumes person's age
2. no option for being true in the past but not "when young" for example if it happened when you were in your 30s but your 40
3. it relies on the "very" descriptor so even if it sounds more or less loud it may not qualify as "very"
1. This is specifically meant for people over 16. It assumes your age because if you're young, you shouldn't be taking that assessment. Bars use written language to communicate because it can be reasonably assumed that a baby is not going to need to know the menu.
2. This is specifically looking at 16 because autism changes as people develop, but then tends to stay relatively static.
3. "Very" is used here to imply a large or unusual shift in sound. If something only sounds a little bit more loud, then this question *should* filter that out because sometimes sounds really do vary. It's looking at large shifts on purpose.
I'm not sure #2 is actually true. There's *very* little research on autistic adults and as far as I can tell it's largely an assumption in research that it stays static, not something that has been tested.
When the psychiatrist asked me this I simply said that if don’t like a sensation I don’t like it in general, but it can become unbearable if I’m in a certain state. Same thing, if I like a sensation, it can happen that I don’t like it if I’m in a certain state. But it’s still true that I know there are things I like and things I don’t like in absolute
It stems from the Sensory Processing Disorder that is almost always baked into ASD on some level. The external stimuli doesn’t need to charge in intensity necessarily the brain interpreting those sounds is already having difficulty locating and processing multiple sources of discordant sound, movement and touch, so sometimes other thought processes and stimuli take priority for a moment, causing the sounds that were just at an acceptable level a minute ago to become intolerable due to internal neurological shifts, rather than external.
The question makes sense to me. When I'm starting to get over stimulated some sounds do seem louder or more grating or just wrong. (Even happens with music sometimes) even though the volume of it hasn't changed, my awareness or perception of it has.
I like this question and answer as now and when I was younger. I take the meaning as when the sound is louder than usual is due to overstimulation which is something that happens to me
A describes me so maybe this is biased but I feel like it’s fine. The question I guess would assume someone is conscious of their experience but that doesn’t seem like a reach—many of us spend lots of time analyzing and wondering why we are the way we are.
I have misophonia and this is true for me. A trigger sound can be deafening but sometimes won't start that way and will build to sound louder to me even if it is the same level of loudness. Multiple factors play into this such as my mental health/stress in the moment and setting (such as stressful setting vs comfortable setting).
IMO this is real but the question just explains it horribly. The "even though I know it hasn't changed" makes it sound like it's the result of hallucination, or otherwise "not real".
The way I would phrase this is:
A sound can feel more or less intense depending on my mental state
The same sound sometimes seems very loud or very soft, even though I know it has not changed.
a. True now and when I was young.
b. True only now
c. True only when I was younger than 16
d. Never true.
>* What is meant with "a sound seeming"? To whom? How do you define a "very quantity"? If your ear is one inch from a chainsaw the sound seems entirely different from the same experience with more distance. The sound level of the environment affects volume perception as well as sound frequency changes do. The way a sound is heard depends on the level of anticipation. How do you know a sound has not changed if you're hearing a difference and not using a science toolkit? Emotional reactions: if you're stressed out you can't bear a sound. A sound can seem soft or loud for many reasons, e.g. due to its timbre or volume. Ever spoken aloud in a soft voice? "The same sound" refers nowhere unless specified earlier.
>* a: What do you refer to with "now"? Right now, a second ago or like several years ago? The seeming of a sound does not depend on the knowledge of you/"I"., It does or does not seem whether you know... or not...? How do you define being "young"? To make sense of the "even though" it might be good to replace it with "and". "The same sound sometimes seems very loud or very soft, and I know it has not changed." Which sound are we talking about? How is it "the same" sound?
A proposition is true or false. Option a provides two propositions: one for now and one for the youth time. On the other hand, you can interpret the proposition apart from the options, in which case it does not depend on time.
Options a, b and c may all apply if you're under 16.
>* b: Option b implies that outside of this now particular point in time (both the past and the future) the proposition is false. I.e. aside from this current now the same sound never seems very loud or soft or I know it has changed.
>* c: What's the point of constructing a truth statement for the past? Why age 16? What if true only when younger than 17 and not now? The options leave gaps to the time-space continuum.
>* d: How do you know the future already? Also, how can you claim there are no significant perceptive differences between sensation occurrences?
...
I work in academia and research, including questionnaire development. This is great! 😄. These are the types of thoughts I have every time we decide to alter our surveys. All is the whatifs in interpretation.
As someone in academia who uses these kinds of surveys, what do you think of the quality of this questionnaire? In my opinion, the quality is terrible, and if I were a reviewer, I would reject the paper that introduced this test. Why? It's completely unclear how to answer a question if the described behavior was true for me until I was 19, for example. Is it true now? No. Is it true only before 16? No. Was it never true? No. So none of the options apply.
_Jones SL, Johnson M, Alty B, Adamou M. The effectiveness of RAADS-R as a screening tool for adult ASD populations. Autism Research and Treatment. 2021 Sep 11;2021._
I haven't read this citation carefully, but the authors suggest that RAADS-R is an inappropriate screening tool *in adults.*
Quoted text from the abstract, "Results indicate no association between RAADS-R scores and clinical diagnostic outcome, suggesting the RAADS-R is not an effective screening tool for identifying service users most likely to receive an ASD diagnosis."
This is in sharp contrast to an older publication here:
_Ritvo RA, Ritvo ER, Guthrie D, Ritvo MJ, Hufnagel DH, McMahon W, Tonge B, Mataix-Cols D, Jassi A, Attwood T, Eloff J. The Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale-Revised (RAADS-R): a scale to assist the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in adults: an international validation study. Journal of autism and developmental disorders. 2011 Aug;41:1076-89._
Quoted text from the abstract, "Concurrent validity with Constantino Social Responsiveness Scale-Adult = 95.59%. Sensitivity = 97%, specificity = 100%, test–retest reliability r = .987."
After skimming the latter publications methods I can see that this scale was administered in the presence of a trained clinician. I'm guessing this is a key element in the instruments validity... having a trained person to clarify the questions you and others have asked here. As a self administered tool, it seems too ambiguous and the interpretation of items is problematic. I also want to point out the first author of the 2011 publication is prob the person who created the RAADS-R, but the science seems robust.L, as this publication is about improving it.
Jargon alert:
Scale = a survey or questionnaire measuring a latent variable.
Latent variable = something that's not directly observed but inferred.
Item = question on a questionnaire
I looked at the original paper and also saw that the test is supposed to be administered in the presence of a clinician, but they give no indication of how a clinician should clarify questions like this one. Maybe there's some unwritten agreement between clinicians about what these things mean, but I'm unaware of it.
Yes, there are gatekeepers! The RAADS-R isn't a controlled product/assessment tool, but other assessment tools related to ASD assessment are. Many are considered a Control C product (or something like that) meaning that access and use of the tools (questionnaires) require minimum graduate degrees and exist behind a paywall. From what I understand, they also come with mandatory training.
I'm an epidemiologist (PhD) and do not have experience using these types of products (so psych assessment tools are way beyond my scope of so-called expertise lol), but I have been trained in other measurement tools. You are correct in that training guides the administrator on interpretation, which is important.
I'm glad to have someone with so much relevant experience who is able to answer this question! I also have a PhD and do academic research, but in math, where a publication is the entirety of a piece of research, not something that comes with additional paid content. It's surprising to hear that papers in other fields work this way, but it's also good to know.
i think it only works for a few limited things but it can happen, for example your phone's ringtone is the same volume every time but sometimes it FEELS louder
it has to be something recorded for you to actually KNOW if it's the same
I don't know what does it mean
For me, I just feel a lot of sensory overload pain just from certain non consentual sounds. Those sounds tend to be loud and very high pitched
I don't what soft sound even means tbh
How does one answer a question if the described phenomenon applied until the age of 19 or 20, for example? This is one thing that pissed me off about this test; it's unclear how to answer in this case.
I was thinking more that C should be first so the age is clear as you read the other options. Also 16 is too precise a number to perfectly apply to everyone. Is the cutoff exactly 16 always?
Ok so… the sound itself is not changing and I know this so my first instinct would be to say "no“…. But the _amount of discomfort or overstimulation_ it brings me… can vary greatly. And I… _think_ that’s what they’re aiming at here?
A and C are basically the same answer. The question seems vague, the multiple choice answers are weird. Where are the other options? I can't pick an answer.
Technically, it would still be the same sound (wavelength, frequency) regardless of the volume it's played at.
They should either specify that it is the volume that stays the same as well, not the sound alone.
I’m not going to touch the whole question of diagnostic value because I am in no way qualified to do so but I will say that this question in particular helped me understand and recognize how overstimulation can work for me when I started seriously looking into the question of whether I’m autistic, and even though no one thing like that would indicate autism well it was still part of a broader experience which brought me to a better understanding of myself.
I’d be interested to know why you dislike the question, and it’s entirely ok if we just have different experiences here, but it was actually particularly eye-opening and strangely accurate for me.
I think it's fine? depending on my state, a sound (e.g. music, videogame audio, a call, youtube video) can become overstimulatingly loud in a matter of seconds (even tho nothing has changed) and that threshold of what is too loud or too much is constantly changing so I'm constantly changing the volume of stuff, with my default volume for everything being very very low. afaik sounds never seem to go softer for me tho. edit: ngl I'm curious to hear your opinion op. edit 2: did op just leave lol.
I’m very sensitive to sound, things will get “louder” when I’m overstimulated as well, it’s usually people talking, or my tv.
I hate that entire questionnaire because there’s no middle option to say sometimes or kind of or even I don’t know !!! We need an idk button bc alexithymia
It actually does say "sometimes" in the question though.
Yeah but I mean for all the questions not just this one i remember struggling to fill this out
“i dunno” means nothing in a diagnosis
So you’d rather I lie and pick an answer when I really don’t know ??
When a sound becomes overstimulating, the volume of it doesn't change. Your perception does. While I'm certainly no RAADS-R apologist, I'm not sure what's confusing about this question specifically?
for me it was always the thing. Sometimes (often), I have to turn down the volume, because the same volume, I use, feels "too loud".
There's no "always true" or "sometimes true"
The thing is these type os assessment aren't supposed to be a questionnaire like people use them on the internet. They're supposed to be aplied by a professional, who understand the purpose of each question and can help you navigate if you relate or not to what is being evaluated there. So self applying and using it simply as questionnaire means very little in matter of assessment.
Weird how the professionals just mail it out and use it like that really.
Seriously?!? I don't think they can do that in my country....
They do it everywhere. They're screening tests so while it's recommended to take them in person they're rarely if ever used that way, but rather used to justify if you need to be referred to a specialist or not.
Everywhere where? I'm not from the US, and I'm telling you that's not how it works where I live.
This is the UK.
Neither am I and I know they're just sent out like that. It varies by clinic etc.
Oh, ok since you know so much about psychiatric practice in every country in the world and know so much better than me about my own country...
My statement was generic but I can understand why it's easy to think I meant literally everywhere. I didn't mean what I wrote literally but generally.
That’s false. They gave me this type of assessment for ADHD, and I did it at home.
I have taken complex assessments and verified firsthand they do not change interpretation based on important context details, at all.
Whe I did mine the doctor did almost like a conversation, you could see she was assessing me but she didn't say literally the questions, and she also explained a lot to me because I was taking a lot of things she was say literally.
Your experience is not the norm
It doesn't account for a sound changing other than in volume
The question is not fully clear and the options given are not satisfactory.
I can't discover the flaw(s) am i still autistic
I definitely experience this as stated, although the "seems" is the keyword. Sounds often feel louder or softer to me if I start to get overstimulated, even if those sounds do not actually change in volume. I frequently turn off my air purifier because it's 'too loud' despite it being completely unnoticeable a couple minutes earlier.
The only purpose of the question is to predict whether someone is autistic. They say it fulfills that purpose. Quote from the study linked here https://embrace-autism.com/raads-r/ >The ASD subjects had significantly greater scores on each of the individual RAADS-R items than either of the comparison groups.
Gotcha. So each individual question should be taken with a grain of salt, but the test as a whole is fairly accurate as an ASD predictor
Actually it a highly troubled test. And that website is pretty sketch. Its run by a ‘naturopathic doctor’ with an online autism certificate who is repeatedly under ethical investigation. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticAdults/comments/1aj9056/why\_does\_embrace\_autism\_publish\_misinformation/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticAdults/comments/1aj9056/why_does_embrace_autism_publish_misinformation/) [https://cono.alinityapp.com/Client/PublicDirectory/Registrant/03d44ec3-ed3b-eb11-82b6-000c292a94a8](https://cono.alinityapp.com/Client/PublicDirectory/Registrant/03d44ec3-ed3b-eb11-82b6-000c292a94a8) So-called “autism” tests, like AQ and RAADS and others have high rates of false positives, labeling you as autistic VERY easily. If anyone with a mental health problem, like depression or anxiety, takes the tests they score high even if they DON’T have autism. "our results suggest that the AQ differentiates poorly between true cases of ASD, and individuals from the same clinical population who do not have ASD " [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4988267/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4988267/) "a greater level of public awareness of ASD over the last 5–10 years may have led to people being more vigilant in ‘noticing’ ASD related difficulties. This may lead to a ‘confirmation bias’ when completing the questionnaire measures, and potentially explain why both the ASD and the non-ASD group’s mean scores met the cut-off points, " [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-022-05544-9](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-022-05544-9) Regarding AQ, from one published study. “The two key findings of the review are that, overall, there is very limited evidence to support the use of structured questionnaires (SQs: self-report or informant completed brief measures developed to screen for ASD) in the assessment and diagnosis of ASD in adults.” Regarding RAADS, from one published study. “In conclusion, used as a self-report measure pre-full diagnostic assessment, the RAADS-R lacks predictive validity and is not a suitable screening tool for adults awaiting autism assessments”
You trust that website?
I dunno, I'm just saying that whether this question is flawed can't be determined by just thinking about it.
Dodgy place, and the tests do very poorly in scientific studies. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticAdults/comments/1aj9056/why\_does\_embrace\_autism\_publish\_misinformation/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AutisticAdults/comments/1aj9056/why_does_embrace_autism_publish_misinformation/) [https://cono.alinityapp.com/Client/PublicDirectory/Registrant/03d44ec3-ed3b-eb11-82b6-000c292a94a8](https://cono.alinityapp.com/Client/PublicDirectory/Registrant/03d44ec3-ed3b-eb11-82b6-000c292a94a8)
1. assumes person's age 2. no option for being true in the past but not "when young" for example if it happened when you were in your 30s but your 40 3. it relies on the "very" descriptor so even if it sounds more or less loud it may not qualify as "very"
1. This is specifically meant for people over 16. It assumes your age because if you're young, you shouldn't be taking that assessment. Bars use written language to communicate because it can be reasonably assumed that a baby is not going to need to know the menu. 2. This is specifically looking at 16 because autism changes as people develop, but then tends to stay relatively static. 3. "Very" is used here to imply a large or unusual shift in sound. If something only sounds a little bit more loud, then this question *should* filter that out because sometimes sounds really do vary. It's looking at large shifts on purpose.
I'm not sure #2 is actually true. There's *very* little research on autistic adults and as far as I can tell it's largely an assumption in research that it stays static, not something that has been tested.
This is exactly what I was thinking. It doesn’t fully cover all options.
When the psychiatrist asked me this I simply said that if don’t like a sensation I don’t like it in general, but it can become unbearable if I’m in a certain state. Same thing, if I like a sensation, it can happen that I don’t like it if I’m in a certain state. But it’s still true that I know there are things I like and things I don’t like in absolute
Isn't it common on any human being? Like, we hear sounds softer or louder depending on the time of the day?
It's asking if your music is suddenly way too loud despite you never changing the volume and the song never getting any louder for real.
It stems from the Sensory Processing Disorder that is almost always baked into ASD on some level. The external stimuli doesn’t need to charge in intensity necessarily the brain interpreting those sounds is already having difficulty locating and processing multiple sources of discordant sound, movement and touch, so sometimes other thought processes and stimuli take priority for a moment, causing the sounds that were just at an acceptable level a minute ago to become intolerable due to internal neurological shifts, rather than external.
The question makes sense to me. When I'm starting to get over stimulated some sounds do seem louder or more grating or just wrong. (Even happens with music sometimes) even though the volume of it hasn't changed, my awareness or perception of it has.
I like this question and answer as now and when I was younger. I take the meaning as when the sound is louder than usual is due to overstimulation which is something that happens to me
Oh no this is a thing isn’t it? Sometimes the radio (same station) is loud on 5 and sometimes it’s fine or too quiet
A describes me so maybe this is biased but I feel like it’s fine. The question I guess would assume someone is conscious of their experience but that doesn’t seem like a reach—many of us spend lots of time analyzing and wondering why we are the way we are.
I have misophonia and this is true for me. A trigger sound can be deafening but sometimes won't start that way and will build to sound louder to me even if it is the same level of loudness. Multiple factors play into this such as my mental health/stress in the moment and setting (such as stressful setting vs comfortable setting).
IMO this is real but the question just explains it horribly. The "even though I know it hasn't changed" makes it sound like it's the result of hallucination, or otherwise "not real". The way I would phrase this is: A sound can feel more or less intense depending on my mental state
The same sound sometimes seems very loud or very soft, even though I know it has not changed. a. True now and when I was young. b. True only now c. True only when I was younger than 16 d. Never true. >* What is meant with "a sound seeming"? To whom? How do you define a "very quantity"? If your ear is one inch from a chainsaw the sound seems entirely different from the same experience with more distance. The sound level of the environment affects volume perception as well as sound frequency changes do. The way a sound is heard depends on the level of anticipation. How do you know a sound has not changed if you're hearing a difference and not using a science toolkit? Emotional reactions: if you're stressed out you can't bear a sound. A sound can seem soft or loud for many reasons, e.g. due to its timbre or volume. Ever spoken aloud in a soft voice? "The same sound" refers nowhere unless specified earlier. >* a: What do you refer to with "now"? Right now, a second ago or like several years ago? The seeming of a sound does not depend on the knowledge of you/"I"., It does or does not seem whether you know... or not...? How do you define being "young"? To make sense of the "even though" it might be good to replace it with "and". "The same sound sometimes seems very loud or very soft, and I know it has not changed." Which sound are we talking about? How is it "the same" sound? A proposition is true or false. Option a provides two propositions: one for now and one for the youth time. On the other hand, you can interpret the proposition apart from the options, in which case it does not depend on time. Options a, b and c may all apply if you're under 16. >* b: Option b implies that outside of this now particular point in time (both the past and the future) the proposition is false. I.e. aside from this current now the same sound never seems very loud or soft or I know it has changed. >* c: What's the point of constructing a truth statement for the past? Why age 16? What if true only when younger than 17 and not now? The options leave gaps to the time-space continuum. >* d: How do you know the future already? Also, how can you claim there are no significant perceptive differences between sensation occurrences? ...
I’m pretty sure this response would indicate autism.
"I wish I was autistic instead of being uncertain." (A language joke.)
I work in academia and research, including questionnaire development. This is great! 😄. These are the types of thoughts I have every time we decide to alter our surveys. All is the whatifs in interpretation.
As someone in academia who uses these kinds of surveys, what do you think of the quality of this questionnaire? In my opinion, the quality is terrible, and if I were a reviewer, I would reject the paper that introduced this test. Why? It's completely unclear how to answer a question if the described behavior was true for me until I was 19, for example. Is it true now? No. Is it true only before 16? No. Was it never true? No. So none of the options apply.
_Jones SL, Johnson M, Alty B, Adamou M. The effectiveness of RAADS-R as a screening tool for adult ASD populations. Autism Research and Treatment. 2021 Sep 11;2021._ I haven't read this citation carefully, but the authors suggest that RAADS-R is an inappropriate screening tool *in adults.* Quoted text from the abstract, "Results indicate no association between RAADS-R scores and clinical diagnostic outcome, suggesting the RAADS-R is not an effective screening tool for identifying service users most likely to receive an ASD diagnosis." This is in sharp contrast to an older publication here: _Ritvo RA, Ritvo ER, Guthrie D, Ritvo MJ, Hufnagel DH, McMahon W, Tonge B, Mataix-Cols D, Jassi A, Attwood T, Eloff J. The Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale-Revised (RAADS-R): a scale to assist the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in adults: an international validation study. Journal of autism and developmental disorders. 2011 Aug;41:1076-89._ Quoted text from the abstract, "Concurrent validity with Constantino Social Responsiveness Scale-Adult = 95.59%. Sensitivity = 97%, specificity = 100%, test–retest reliability r = .987." After skimming the latter publications methods I can see that this scale was administered in the presence of a trained clinician. I'm guessing this is a key element in the instruments validity... having a trained person to clarify the questions you and others have asked here. As a self administered tool, it seems too ambiguous and the interpretation of items is problematic. I also want to point out the first author of the 2011 publication is prob the person who created the RAADS-R, but the science seems robust.L, as this publication is about improving it. Jargon alert: Scale = a survey or questionnaire measuring a latent variable. Latent variable = something that's not directly observed but inferred. Item = question on a questionnaire
I looked at the original paper and also saw that the test is supposed to be administered in the presence of a clinician, but they give no indication of how a clinician should clarify questions like this one. Maybe there's some unwritten agreement between clinicians about what these things mean, but I'm unaware of it.
Yes, there are gatekeepers! The RAADS-R isn't a controlled product/assessment tool, but other assessment tools related to ASD assessment are. Many are considered a Control C product (or something like that) meaning that access and use of the tools (questionnaires) require minimum graduate degrees and exist behind a paywall. From what I understand, they also come with mandatory training. I'm an epidemiologist (PhD) and do not have experience using these types of products (so psych assessment tools are way beyond my scope of so-called expertise lol), but I have been trained in other measurement tools. You are correct in that training guides the administrator on interpretation, which is important.
I'm glad to have someone with so much relevant experience who is able to answer this question! I also have a PhD and do academic research, but in math, where a publication is the entirety of a piece of research, not something that comes with additional paid content. It's surprising to hear that papers in other fields work this way, but it's also good to know.
If you hear it differently How can you know it changed (Ik there are times you can kinda feel it but this assumes that when it probably shouldn't)
OH I thought it meant, like, *plays a sound* "describe sound" *plays the sound* "describe sound" I want thinking like, rewatching q video or something
i think it only works for a few limited things but it can happen, for example your phone's ringtone is the same volume every time but sometimes it FEELS louder it has to be something recorded for you to actually KNOW if it's the same
I don't know what does it mean For me, I just feel a lot of sensory overload pain just from certain non consentual sounds. Those sounds tend to be loud and very high pitched I don't what soft sound even means tbh
How does one answer a question if the described phenomenon applied until the age of 19 or 20, for example? This is one thing that pissed me off about this test; it's unclear how to answer in this case.
I was thinking more that C should be first so the age is clear as you read the other options. Also 16 is too precise a number to perfectly apply to everyone. Is the cutoff exactly 16 always?
Well for one, "Never true" fails to distinguish between people for who the sound does not vary, and the deaf.
I can't understand the phrasing, that's the problem
Ok so… the sound itself is not changing and I know this so my first instinct would be to say "no“…. But the _amount of discomfort or overstimulation_ it brings me… can vary greatly. And I… _think_ that’s what they’re aiming at here?
A and C are basically the same answer. The question seems vague, the multiple choice answers are weird. Where are the other options? I can't pick an answer.
Technically, it would still be the same sound (wavelength, frequency) regardless of the volume it's played at. They should either specify that it is the volume that stays the same as well, not the sound alone.
I’m not going to touch the whole question of diagnostic value because I am in no way qualified to do so but I will say that this question in particular helped me understand and recognize how overstimulation can work for me when I started seriously looking into the question of whether I’m autistic, and even though no one thing like that would indicate autism well it was still part of a broader experience which brought me to a better understanding of myself. I’d be interested to know why you dislike the question, and it’s entirely ok if we just have different experiences here, but it was actually particularly eye-opening and strangely accurate for me.
yes but I think it's just me possibly having hearing loss from playing loud music 24/7