I Have Felt Like This For A While And You've Basically Written Down The Weird Feeling And Explained It Perfectly - Tumblr Posts

Honestly, it’s so frustrating taking any kind of autism/adhd/neurodivergent test/assessment/quiz. It’s especially frustrating since I’m taking a research methods class that talks about how to make surveys and questionnaires and so many of these assessments break basic rules on how to make good surveys.

For one, the way they set up the questions are either way too vague or way too specific or combine two different questions together that makes it hard to answer. For example, one autism assessment I took asked whether you think and talk a lot about your special interests. Thinking and talking are different things and the frequency of what I talk about completely depends on who I’m with but the only answers I could pick were “true now and when I was young, only true now, only true when I was young (16 and under), and never true”.

Which brings me to my next point. The way a lot of professional and certified surveys are set up usually have either a five point or seven point system (example: disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree or disagree, somewhat agree, agree. Seven point systems would add definitely agree or disagree). For the survey mentioned, adding another option that doesn’t land in the extreme of either “always” or “never” allows for better and more realistic answers (like a “I exhibit this behavior sometimes under certain circumstances” or something).

Also these assessments sometimes add in why you exhibit these behaviors like “I spend a lot of time at home. This is because I hate people and don’t like going out”. I do spend a lot of time at home. It is not because I hate people or don’t like going out so it’s hard to answer that question.

Assessments for mental health or neurodivergence like this make it really hard for people to answer in a way that gives an honest assessment of their mental state and it’s really frustrating taking quizzes over and over again just to have the same issues come up again and again and I feel like I’m being robbed of an actual answer to my question.

Someone fix this before I take things into my own hands. This is a threat. I will do it.