I got my hearing professionally checked today and all is normal. But I have difficulty hearing people I am dining with, talking in restaurants. Is it me, or is the music just too damn loud?!
Thanks!
I hadn’t taken those tests before. The raads-r gave me 98 the first time and 105 the second. I found the questions even more infuriating than other tests as there is no frame of reference for most questions, or questions are too ambiguous. Results were the same though- “you sit on the threshold”.
The cat-q was interesting. I scored 115 which apparently would be pretty high for a neurotypical female. Not sure what to make of that.
So I’m not a doctor but as I understand it, CAT-Q effectively is a booster for the RAADS-R. A lot of the RAADS-R is either understanding or recognizing the symptoms of autism, but people who are high masking (aka “camouflaged”) have often learned to hide/not notice their autistic traits. Reminder of course, the “A” in CAT-Q means “autistic”.
That said, I think 100+ on RAADS-R before a fairly high CAT-Q is something worth considering alone.
I have a special interest in psychology and if this was something related to a mental health condition I would be the first to tell you that the best way to learn is peer-reviewed studies, published references like the DSM-5 (imperfect as it may be) and so on. However, autism is not a psychological issue, it’s a neurological difference. This means that the best way to learn is to talk to autistic people (which you currently are!) and see if the little things that make you/them “weird” resonate with each other. If you’re feeling more introverted than that, you could maybe find an autistic YouTuber that “clicks” with you and see how their experience compares to yours.
