I found an online version and took it. It did not tell me what the average person scored (normal or neurotypical people) or what score suggested some form of autism/Aspergers. I probably scored on the autism scale just knowing what I do about myself and female autism.
The test did bring a couple of thoughts to me. Some of the things I scored in the more normal side are things I learned. It wasn't easy learning them, but now I have those skills. Things like talking to people or knowing when it is your turn to talk, etc... Or knowing the signs that mean you are starting to bore everyone to tears with your topic. Those are things my mother insisted I learn as I grew up. She saw them more as teaching us manners, but it really helped with what I know now are autism traits/signs. I think Wiz would have scored MUCH higher when he was younger than he does now. Of course he practices social interaction every day in his job as a grocery store manager. That has given him much more confidence in dealing with social things, and in his ability to pick up social cues. He had to work HARD to learn them, but it can be done.
At one point he got super frustrated with all of the social rules and my mom had a talk with him. She explained his not understanding the social rules was similar to his grandfather's color blindness. Where Gpa has to ask if socks match or if his pants and shirt go together, Wiz needed to ask for help in understanding social rules. Gpa might be embarrassed wearing some clashing color combination and Wiz might be embarrassed at messing up a social situation. If each of them allowed others to help them, this would be easier. I know that for a while, Wiz had a very empathetic friend he would call for help in controlling his temper. This friend put a check on Wiz' tendency to react violently by reminding him that it wasn't really okay and the consequences would be enormous if he did certain things. It truly put a HUGE check on his violence.
Wiz also allowed my mother to help him practice walking through certain social situations. After the situation was over and Wiz had some time to decompress, they would talk about what he did right and what he needed to work on. This helped him remember the social rules that made no sense. He accepted he was "partly socially blind" and used his memory and other skills to compensate. Now those things aren't a big deal because he learned how to cope with them.
I think many of us have learned to cope and compensate for aspects of our autism/autistic traits. Some of our expectations for people with autistic traits seem to have an element of fatalism to them. The person is autistic, so he won't be able to learn X, Y or Z. I heard this a TON while raising Wiz. I believe it is nonsense. Just like SWOT's youngest was able to learn to live fairly independently, many autistic people can learn to manage or mitigate their autistic traits. It just takes a lot of effort from the people who care about them.
I also have a serious problem with the idea that most people with autism or autistic traits don't have imagination. Or are severely limited in their imagination. From a very early age, Wiz showed autistic traits (so says hindsight). He also had a FABULOUS imagination. Getting imagination and reality crossed was one of his biggest challenges in life. He would get so set on whatever he imagined being real that he would completely flip out and rage when it wasn't true. Every psychologist except one, and EVERY autism "expert" told us that it was impossible for him to have an imagination of any kind. If I showed the "expert" Wiz' drawings or writings, they would swear that I did them or his sister did them. It used to drive me bonkers. Especially when one so called expert said that Youngest could NOT NOT NOT be on the spectrum because he had an imaginary friend that he told stories about. ST, his imaginary friend, did all sorts of things that thank you couldn't. He also was the one Youngest blamed for things he would get into trouble for. I used to have a whole bunch of stories about ST that Youngest had told me. I typed them up because they were hysterical and would be awesome to share when Youngest had his own kids. Youngest has a LOT of autistic traits and was diagnosed with a very mild form of autism after we quit seeing the quack autism expert.
I think that imagination may not be something that people with more intense forms of autism recognize or are able to use. People with high functioning autism/aspergers and who are on the less intense end of the spectrum are probably vastly more imaginative than we realize or accept. Imagination is a skill like any other, and I think it is one that we can practice. I wish more autism experts would work on this as it might make life much easier for some autistic people. Females with autism of any sort are so badly understood that this might be a key for helping them or just identifying them. In my area, if a person has much of an imagination, the doctors will tell you that they CANNOT be on the autism spectrum. I had a neuropsychologist tell me this. I was done with him at that point because that is just ridiculous. I had a child who was very obviously on the spectrum and who had a very rich imagination. Of course Wiz confused the heck out of the neuropsychologist.
Well, those are my thoughts this morning.