It’s Take-a-Test Tuesday and this week I’m taking The Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale-Revised (RAADS-R).

The Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale-Revised (RAADS-R) is a diagnostic instrument that is intended to be administered by a professional in a clinical setting. It was primarily designed to identify adults who often “escape diagnosis” due to a “subclinical” level or presentation of ASD.

The 80 questions on the RAADS-R cover four symptom categories:

• language (7 questions)
• social relatedness (39 questions)
• sensory-motor (20 questions)
• circumscribed interests (14 questions)

Its validity as a diagnostic instrument was assessed in a 2010 study in which the RAADS-R was administered to 779 people at 9 different clinics in the US, UK and Australia. This is an impressive undertaking; the variety of testing sites suggests that results of the study are highly generalizable (that they can be extended to the general population). However, like all of the other instrument validation studies I’ve seen, this one also has an imbalance in male-female ASD participants, with a greater proportion of males in the ASD groups.

Pros and Cons of the RAADS-R

Pros:

• Self-scoring
• Validated in a clinical setting by a multisite study with a large sample size
• Provides overall and subscale scores
• Includes questions to assess sensory-motor skills
• Takes autistic childhood traits into account, even if they are no longer present

Cons:

• Many questions phrased as always/only/never
• Complex answer choices may be confusing for some
• Questions skewed toward social relatedness
• Longer than most other tests

Taking the Test

There are a few places you can take the test online:

• I took it at aspietests.org because I like the way they present the scores at the end. However, you’ll need to create an account to take the test there. (I did so about 2 weeks ago and they haven’t spammed me at all, which is nice.)
• If you’d rather not create an account, you can find a no-personal-information-required version at Aspergian Women United.
• There is also a paper based version of the test available but it doesn’t include a scoring key.

Wherever you decide to take the test, the format is the same. It took me about 20 minutes, but I spent a lot of time thinking about some of the questions so you may finish more quickly. You’ll be presented with 80 questions and for each you have to select one of the following:

• True now and when I was young
• True only now
• True only when I was younger than 16
• Never true

This answer format, which is unique to the RAADS-R, allows for the fact that some adults on the spectrum had symptoms as children that they no longer experience or vice versa. Having to think about these options can make the test challenging to complete, but do your best to select the most applicable option. Each of the four options has a different score value so accuracy counts on this one.

I often found that none of the four choices was exactly right because the questions tend to be phrased in an “always/never/only” format when what I really needed was a “sometimes” or “most of the time” phrasing. I also found it hard to answer some of the vaguer questions when it came to my childhood because my memories weren’t specific enough or I wasn’t a very self-aware child (which is a clue in itself, I suppose).

Scoring the Test

Each question is scored on a 4 point scale:

• 3 if the symptom is always present (or never present for “normative” questions)
• 2 if the symptom is only present now
• 1 if the symptom was only present in childhood
• 0 if the symptom was never present (or always present for “normative” questions)

If you take the test at the Aspie Tests site, you’ll receive an overall score plus 4 subscale scores. If you take it at the Aspergian Women United site, you’ll get only an overall score.

In the 2010 study, the scores for those previously diagnosed with ASD range from 44 to 227. The scores for control group members ranged from 0 to 65. The researchers set a threshold of 65, meaning that a score of 65 or greater “is consistent with a clinical diagnosis of ASD.”

It’s interesting to note that only 3% of the people with ASD had a score below 65 and 0% of the control group participants had a score of 65 or higher. There is very little overlap between the two groups, unlike the AQ study results.

In addition to an overall score, the RAADS-R provides 4 subscale scores. The creators of the test emphasize that the overall score is more accurate than any of the subscale scores alone, but the subscales are still informative if you’re curious about where your stronger/weaker areas are. The researchers also state that the RAADS-R is not intended to be administered outside of a clinical setting (such as online or by mail, both of which are valid AQ administration methods).

Here are my scores:

Total score: 175

Subscales:

• Language: 6
• Social relatedness: 97
• Sensory/motor: 36
• Circumscribed interests: 36

Any of the scores that are highlighted in yellow are above the clinically identified threshold values for ASD.

The averages given in the chart above are for people who took the test at the aspietest site. They tell you how you compared against other people who identify with the same neurotype as you, but little else.

The Bottom Line

The RAADS-R uses a slightly different approach than other autism screening instruments, making its use more appropriate in a clinical setting. However, it still provides an interesting snapshot of autistic traits for those who take it informally.

There are quite a few online Asperger’s Syndrome tests. I thought it might be fun to take each of them and then do a little write up.

So, welcome to “Take a Test Tuesday,” a new series that will go on for as many weeks as I can continue digging up new tests to take.

I’m going to kick it off with my favorite online Asperger’s test, The Aspie Quiz, but first a few words about online tests in general. Although some of the tests you’ll find on the internet are used as part of a diagnostic battery, it’s important to remember than an official diagnosis includes additional elements such as neuropsychological testing, observation by a psychiatrist, an assessment of childhood development and interviews with family members.

While you can take these quizzes and get a result that says you’re “most likely an aspie,” they aren’t diagnostic instruments. A formal diagnosis can only be made by a qualified doctor.

With that in mind, let’s get started.

The Aspie Quiz

The Aspie Quiz was developed by Rdos. It’s been through many revisions over the years, with the addition and subtraction of questions based on, among other things, how well the questions correlate with the answers of diagnosed individuals. If you’re interested in statistics or how tests like this are developed, you’ll love the Aspie Quiz Evaluation page. It has a wealth of information on the rationale for which questions have been included or dropped as well as the correlation between quiz scores and various diagnoses.

The Aspie Quiz is not used in any official diagnostic capacity and is billed as a test to be taken for fun, but you’ll often find aspies quoting their scores in their signatures at places like Wrong Planet. Rdos has also written about how the Aspie Quiz compares to the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) test, which has high validity as a diagnostic instrument.

The Aspie Quiz is made up of 150 questions that fall into six domains: talent, compulsion, social, perception, communication and hunting. That last category isn’t one you’ll see on any other Asperger’s test. There is a short explanation about the “hunting” questions in the detailed quiz results, tying the questions to cooperative vs. passive hunting traits. However, the explanation also states that the hunting questions have no “diagnostic relation.” The other five domains cover topics more commonly thought of as differentiating aspies from NTs, such as special interests, adherence to routine, and social preferences.

Pros and Cons of the Aspie Quiz

Pros

• Very detailed
• Self-scoring
• A wide range of question types
• Extensive statistical data available online
• Results include both Aspie and NT scoring scales
• Detailed scores in 12 subscales, including scoring rationale
• Commonly referred to in online Asperger’s communities
• Visual, quantitative and qualitative results

Cons

• Longer than most online Asperger’s tests
• Has not been independently validated in a clinical setting
• May be biased toward the developer’s own theory of Asperger’s
• Not officially recognized by medical establishment

Taking the Test

To take the test, begin here. You don’t need to register if you prefer not to. Just click the “I accept” button. On the next screen you’ll see some questions that the developer is using to validate the test items. Select the appropriate answers and click the “Go to Quiz” button to begin the quiz.

There are a lot of questions, but they’re fairly straightforward. It took me about 20 minutes to complete the quiz. Once you submit your answers, you’ll get a basic results page with your Aspie and NT scores as well as a graphical spiderweb representation of your subscale scores.

You can click the “Detailed results suitable for printing (PDF)” link to get a PDF file with your aspie and NT scores, your spiderweb, and a detailed explanation of your scores on the various subscales.

Scoring the Test

You’ll get two scores: ____ out of a possible 200 for the Aspie score and ____ out of a possible 200 for the neurotypical score. The Aspie score tells you how high you scored on items indicative of Asperger’s traits. The neurotypical score tells you how high you scored on items that describe common non-autistic (neurotypical) traits. Based on the combination of the two scores, the final line of the results will state that you’re “likely an aspie” or “likely neurotypical” or that you “have aspie traits and neurotypical traits.”

Here are my scores:

• Your Aspie score: 170 of 200
• Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 32 of 200
• You are very likely an Aspie

For comparison, I asked The Scientist, who is neurotypical, to take the quiz. He generously agreed to let me use his results. Here they are:

• Your Aspie score: 85 of 200
• Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 158 of 200
• You are very likely neurotypical

Finally, our adult daughter volunteered to share her results as well:

• Your Aspie score: 77 of 200
• Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 143 of 200
• You are very likely neurotypical

As you can see, I scored much higher on the aspie items and much lower on the NT items, while The Scientist and our daugther scored quite high on the neurotypical items and lower on the aspie items. I find it interesting that my scores are more widely distributed than theirs.

Obviously there are questions on the Aspie Quiz that are aspie indicators but will be answered positively by NTs. For example, when The Scientist is interested in something, he gets deeply absorbed in it, much like an aspie with a special interest. The same will be true of aspies having some qualities that are more commonly associated with NTs.

The distribution of scores between aspie and NT becomes most obvious when you look at the spiderwebs.

Mine:

The Scientist’s:

Our daughter’s:

My high scores fall almost exclusively on the aspie (right) side of the web and my NT family members’ are weighted toward the NT (left) side of the web, with some moderate scores on the aspie side as well.

The Bottom Line

While the Aspie Quiz isn’t an officially recognized test, it does seem to be an accurate reflection of neurotype and you get a pretty picture when you’re done.