Tag Archives: friendship

Asperger's Tests

Survey: Let’s Talk about Relationships

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Thank you for all of the thoughtful questions! There are a total of 49–obviously too many to answer in one week. I’ve divided them up by subject, because, you know, autistic and need to categorize everything. I’ll spread the survey out over the next four weeks.

The vote on where to answer was a virtual tie so we’ll do it both ways. You can answer here in the comments or you can answer anonymously at Survey Monkey.

If you answer at Survey Monkey, just fill out the questions that apply/appeal to you and leave the rest blank. I’ll bring the Survey Monkey answers over here and paste them into comments so that everyone can read them.

If you answer here, it might be helpful to number your answers according to the question numbers. So if you’re answering questions 3, 5, 7 and 8, your answers would be numbered 3, 5, 7 and 8. That way we can easily scan down the comments looking for answers to the questions that interest us most.

A few questions were on the long side so I tried to include the essential information here and then added a link back to the original comment for more details.

This week’s topic is . . . relationships–friends, family, significant others, etc. Next week will be work/school and sensory sensitivities. Week three will be general coping strategies and acceptance. Finally, week four will be special skills and fun stuff.

ETA: Although a couple of questions reference diagnosis, this is open to all those who identify as on the spectrum (professionally diagnosed, self-diagnosed  and suspected aspies/autistics/people with autism).

Relationship Questions

  1. Does anyone find that you really long for close friendships?

  2. Does anyone obsess over someone you’ve just met? ( almost like they become your ‘special interest’ )

  3. Is anyone part of an Aspie married couple or long-term partnership?

  1. What stuff have you learned about interacting with other people that you think is important to know but was not obvious to you at first?

  1. How do you cope with parents who care, and are taking care of you (or at least helping you work on taking care of yourself), but don’t *understand* you? Don’t have the conception of how hard it can be to do things, like work on not taking naps when you end up exhausted, or deal with financial stuff, or do job searching, or talk on the telephone? more details here

  1. How has your partner (if you have one) reacted to your late diagnosis and do they now see you as ‘disabled?’

  1. Do you have autistic friends and if so, is it easier to hang with them rather than neurotypical folk?

  1. What about the times that you don’t feel like having physical interactions with anyone? You don’t want hugs, kisses, or even simple touches. I am usually overwhelmed with sensory stuff at that point (auditory, visual, touch, taste, the whole mess) and I have trouble articulating it. Should I wait until I’m not in a crisis and try to describe these things to others in a way they might understand better? more details here

  1. Has anyone been disowned by their family at diagnosis?

  2. If you have children, are they aware of your ASD and how do they feel about it?
Asperger's Tests

Taking the Friendship Questionnaire (FQ)

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This week I took the Friendship Questionnaire (sometimes called the Friendship Quotient).

The Friendship Questionnaire (FQ) was developed in 2003 as part of Simon Baron-Cohen’s ongoing quest to prove his “extreme male brain” theory of Asperger’s. Consequently, the FQ measures a very specific model of friendship to prove a point about people on the spectrum.

The developers of the FQ say that an individual will score highly on it if they:

  • enjoy close, empathic supportive friendships
  • like and are interested in people
  • enjoy interaction with others for its own sake
  • find friendships important (Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright, 2003)

The questions are based on assumed gender differences in forming friendships. The FQ developers hypothesized that NT women would score highest, with men scoring slightly lower than NT women, and ASD individuals of both genders scoring significantly lower than NT men.

The average FQ scores from the 2003 study were:

  • NT females: 90.0
  • NT males: 70.3
  • ASD females: 59.8
  • ASD males: 53.2

The fundamental basis for the gender-difference hypothesis seems to be that men and people on the spectrum prefer activity-based friendships. Neurotypical women, on the other hand, are assumed to prefer interaction-based friendships, where the act of connecting is of primary importance.

Since every friendship I’ve had as an adult has grown out of a common interest, it’s safe to say I fall into the activity-based preference. Honestly, I have no real idea how friendship works in most cases, so let’s take the test.

Taking the Test

You can take the FQ at the Aspie Tests website. Click the link for the Friendship Quotient and then complete the first three questions (you don’t need to create an account unless you want to) and click the submit button to start the quiz.

There are 34 multiple choice questions.

I found some of these questions hard to answer because there was no “neither” option. For example, on #6 I literally don’t have a wide enough social circle that it requires me to choose between asking someone to meet first or thinking of an activity then choosing a person to do it with. #9: I have no idea. Neither? Why is there no neither option?!

For some questions, I ended up choosing answers based on how I’ve interacted with friends in the past because I couldn’t come up with a current example to base my answer on.

Scoring the Test

After submitting your answers, you’ll get your FQ score. The possible scoring range is 0 to 135. I got 39.

Average scores by gender for the FQ (aspietests.org)
Average scores by gender and neurotype for the FQ (aspietests.org)
FQ score distribution by neurotype
FQ score distribution by neurotype (aspietests.org)

I’m not sure what to make of my 39. I’m not surprised by it. Going down the list of qualities that the FQ tests for:

  • I enjoy close, supportive friendships, but I don’t need more than a couple at a time to feel that I have supportive connections in my life.
  • I don’t really like or have an interest in people as a general rule (sorry, human race).
  • I don’t generally enjoy interaction with others for its own sake, which is different from not enjoying interaction with others at all.
  • I find friendship moderately important, but again I don’t need many friends to feel like I have a satisfactory level of social interaction in my life.

The Bottom Line

The research I read on the FQ doesn’t imply that a low FQ score is “bad”, which is good to see, because I think the FQ is testing for a very specific model of friendship. The research does say that those with low FQ scores tend to have high AQ and low EQ scores.

Motherhood

Asperger’s and Motherhood (Part 3)

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This is the third in a series of posts about being a mom with Asperger’s.

As difficult as I found being the mom of a newborn, I really enjoyed being the mom of a toddler. Suddenly this demanding little creature was starting to walk and talk and explore the world around her. She was still demanding and unpredictable and messy, but she was also lots of fun.

Aspies are blessed with a childlike sense of wonder and innocence that never really goes away. Discovering the world all over again alongside your child is an incredible experience. And when your little boy or girl develops a fascination with butterflies or dump trucks, you can put your aspie tendencies to work: visits to the library, field trips to construction sites, collecting things!

As an aspie, you’ve already mastered one of the keys to parenting a toddler: routine. I’m betting you’ll find nothing wrong with reading Goodnight Moon every night before bed, six weeks running. If your toddler insists on watching the same episode of Blue’s Clues three times in a row, you’re not gonna be the mom who tells him how great it would be to watch something new once in awhile. Your son has to have one special toy with him everywhere he goes or your daughter wants to wear the same sundress every day of the summer? Makes perfect sense to me.

Jess at 17 months

When your two year old starts asking “why?” in response to everything, your natural aspie response will be to explain why the wind blows or why dogs bark. Your toddler will not only end up with vast amounts of esoteric knowledge, but she’ll learn that asking “why?” is a good thing.

Socializing Your Toddler (and maybe yourself)

On the downside, much of your toddler’s social life may depend on your own ability to socialize. Toddlers meet and play with other toddlers at playgroups, the park, and other “mom & me”  events. If your inclination is to avoid social situations, you may find the neighborhood “mom & me” playgroup unappealing. I certainly did. But I also knew that my daughter needed to play with other toddlers. She wasn’t in daycare, so until she was old enough for preschool, it was up to me to make that happen.

So off we went to learn how to finger paint and make macaroni necklaces.

The funny thing about these playgroups is that the moms are there as much to make friends for themselves as they are to socialize their children. This can be a great way for you to make friends around a shared interest (your toddlers!) but it’s not required. If the idea of spending a few hours at someone’s house while your kids play makes you uncomfortable, it’s fine to say thank you but you’re rather busy outside of playgroup.

I accepted exactly one play date invitation from another mom. It wasn’t a disaster, exactly, but it was a classic case of ‘wrong planet’ syndrome. The other mom and I had little in common and I didn’t have the social skills to bridge the gap. Looking back, I realize that we could have spent the hour talking about our toddlers. Faced with this situation now, I would have used the drive to her house thinking up suitable small talk questions. I also know now that “yes” and “no” are conversation killers, even when they’re accurate answers. When she asked me if I liked the playgroup, she didn’t want a literal answer, she was trying to elicit information to continue the conversation. A more suitable answer would have been something like, “Jess really enjoys storytime. Which activities does Peter like best?”

Jess had a great time playing with her new friend and I toughed it out for her, but that was the first and last playdate that required my attendance. Because I wasn’t armed with even the rudimentary social skills that I’ve since developed, I struggled to connect with someone who was reaching out to me and missed the chance at making a friend. Instead I came away thinking that there was something wrong with me and decided that it would be safer to decline future playdates rather than suffer through the kind of self-doubt I felt for days afterward.

Looking back on times like this, it’s easy to regret not knowing about my AS. It’s easy to say that it would all have been different if only I’d known this or done that. But I’m not sure it would have been that different. Today, if I was the mom of a toddler and another mom asked us on a playdate, I might be more likely to accept than I was twenty years ago, but I don’t think I’d necessarily enjoy it the same way a typical mom would. And I’m okay with that now.

Out Into the World 

As your child enters the preschool and early elementary school years, she’ll be old enough to go on playdates by herself. You may find this to be a great relief. I certainly did. Jess was good at making friends. Seeing her develop her own social network was exciting.

I’d never been good at making friends, but she seemed to have some sort of magic natural instinct for socializing. Maybe that’s just her personality or maybe she was compensating for my deficits. While the other kindergartners’ moms were arranging playdates for their kids, Jess was pretty much on her own. If she didn’t go out and find some kids to invite over after school, she wasn’t going to have much of a social life. But she quickly made friends and that paved the way for the years ahead.

And with friends came all sorts of new questions. There’s a lot of unfiltered knowledge floating around out there on school buses and playgrounds. As an aspie, you may be less shocked than the average mom by some of the questions your youngster comes home with. You also may be able to answer a lot of them without having to use your Google-fu.

As a result, your child will not only feel comfortable coming to you with questions, but you may find that your natural tendency toward bluntness combined with a higher than average level of emotional detachment actually creates a very open relationship. This tends to result in your child being willing to ask you anything or tell you everything. By the time she gets to high school, you’ll realize that in some cases, 90% of everything is more than enough.

Next in the series: How am I supposed to get this kid through middle school when I barely survived it myself?