Shyness/Introversion vs mild AS-Differences.

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I think that it is "80% of the autistic people are likely to score 32 or above on the AQ test"



A possible approach could be to look to the results at schizoids.net, where most member are supposed to be non-autistic extremely introverts:

http://www.schizoids.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6595



The problem with this path is that we can easily enter in a circular discussion - after all, if we came to the conclusion that there are some people diagnosed with AS very similar to some people simply considered as shy and/or introvert, what we should conclude? That some "shy" people are being misdiagnosed as having AS, or that some AS people are remaining undiagnosed and consider as "shy"? Remember that "shy" and "Asperger's Syndrome" are not God-created categories, they are simply labels that we decide to give to some set of traits.

It's available at http://www.queendom.com/tests/access_pa ... gTest=1121. I don't really know how well the ability indices correlate with aspergers, so it could be possible that someone could be an actual aspie but also score above average, but I'm somewhat skeptical at this point. In my other "Aspergers Test Data and Analysis" thread, I've begun the search for a sorely-needed ability test for aspergers, as any reliable self-diagnosis (Or diagnosis, for that matter) should involve some element of 'objectivity'.

Thinking more about the issue, perhaps the better way to differentiate between AS, shyness and introversion should be by the needs of the person; after all, the reason because we have medical diagnosis (and AS is supposed to be a medical diagnosis) is, in first place, to know how to "treat" the person (and "treate" is not the same thing as "cure").

Then, imagine three people:

- one needs predictably in his life and that other people communicate with him using unambiguous expressions

- other as a strong fear of failure and needs constant assurance that he does many good things and, even if he occasionally does something wrong, there is no problem

- and the other thinks that books and their own thoughts are much more interesting that "real" people, and needs that other people leave him alone closed in his room during long periods

These 3 traits can perfectly coexist in the same person, however they represent different needs, then should have different labels.

Returning to the AQ, perhaps the questions about "communication" (7,17,18,26,27,31,33,35,38,39) and "attention switching" (2,4,10,16,25,32,34,37,43,46) should be the key to differentiate between AS and "simple" introversion (according to the paper I cited before, they are both positively correlated with introversion at significant levels, but the correlation is lower than with the item "social skills").

It looked like Attention to Detail, Attention Switching and Imagination had the lowest absolute correlations with extroversion.

attention switching (items 2,4,10,16,25,32,34,37,43,46);

attention to detail (items 5,6,9,12,19,23,28,29,30,49);

imagination (items 3,8,14,20,21,24,40,41,42,50);

Also, I was looking at the research paper at http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/doc ... tal_AQ.pdf, and I noticed that 5% of the male controls had scored between 31-35, suggesting that an AS rate of 1 per 250 people implies that 1 out of every 12.5 males scoring within that range would be diagnostically autistic.
However, if one imagines that autism is a fairly continuous spectrum, than it's pretty easy to imagine that the top 5th percentile of those in "autistic severity" would probably be significantly more socially handicapped than average (And, looking at the evidence that is my life, I'm pretty socially ret*d, it seems, and that's not self-deprecation talking -- that is honest-to-goodness mysterious social repulsiveness / failures(depending on the context) that isn't linked to 'confidence' nor 'esteem' nor 'shyness' nor 'lack of trying'.).

Here's those question numbers again:

2,4,10,16,25,32,34,37,43,46

5,6,9,12,19,23,28,29,30,49

3,8,14,20,21,24,40,41,42,50

And here's the questions where I earned one point.

4,5,6,9,12,13,16,19,20,21,22,23,26,35,41,42,43,45,46:

1,8,10,11,14,15,17,25,27,29,30,36,38,44,48,49,50:

And here's the questions that I earned one points AND belonged to one of the top 3 lists:


4,5,6,9,12,16,19,20,21,23,41,42,43,46: 14

8,10,14,25,29,30,49,50: 9

That implies I scored 23 out of 30 questions positively that were available from those 3 lists. Extrapolating, that implies my "non-simple-introversion-related" AQ score is (23/30)*50 = 38.33 -- That's even higher than my regular AQ score of 35 that includes the more introversion-correlated factors.

AM I REALLY AUTISTIC???

Hmmmm... I wonder how mathematically minded types would score on this and those on the schizophrenic spectrum. Like... John Nash, for example.

-----------------------------
*thinks it through*
-----------------------------

Wait. One should compare one's score to the mean and standard deviation available for those indices, and not extrapolate it to the full AQ score.

attention switching: 4,10,16,25,37,43,46 = 7
control male -- mean:4.3 SD:1.9
Little above 1 SD.

attention to detail: 5,6,9,12,19,23,29,30,49 = 9
control male -- mean:5.2 SD:2.3
Little less than 2 SD.

imagination: 8,14,20,21,41,42,50 = 7
control male -- mean: 2.7 SD: 1.9
Little more than 2 SD.

According to this, it appears my average "deviation" from the norm for non-introvert indexes is about 1.6 SD for my sex, which is below the 95th percentile. Also, if you consider that my high non-verbal IQ would likely give me an advantage in imagination, the imagination index can probably be "explained" by that, meaning the average SD is probably closer to 1.5 SD for non-introverted indices.

So, that means I'm just a male "extreme introvert" and not autistic. My seeming universally bad social aura is probably more related to skills (or possibly particular mental deficits) than intrinsic ineptitude. YAY!

Last edited by swbluto on 26 Apr 2011, 10:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I've been fascinated with this relationship between introversion/SAD/HSP and autism since I first heard and read about introversion and AS less than a year ago. At this time last year I didn't even know what these terms meant (except for SAD). Here's an interesting quote discussing that thesis paper:

"In her master's thesis Grimes posits that introversion is not the opposite of extroversion, but that they are two different traits altogether. And she proposes something that has come up here from time to time: That introversion actually is on the autism scale. Grimes' thesis explains that if you take each of the factors this new model proposes and follow it along a continuum to their most extreme expressions, they correlate with the widely used Baron-Cohen Autism Spectrum Quotient. Depending on how much we have of each factor (and how they interact with other personality traits), we can be simply introverted or, moving along the continuum, have Asperger's syndrome or, moving further yet, have autism.

Consider, for example, that many of us tend to think slowly and are not quick at communicating. At the introvert level, no big deal. Take that communication difficulty and move it along the scale Grimes proposes and you get to Asperger's and then autism. Same with our tendency to focus deeply: At the healthy end of the scale that can be perseverance. Take it further, and you hit perseveration, which is not so good. Grimes suspects Aron's sensitivity theory is outside of introversion. "That sounds like it belongs more in openness, the tendency to become frazzled and overwhelmed coupled with physical sensitivity is its own thing." Grimes' theory is an interesting approach to pinning down the slippery definition of introversion and, she says, it might help us gain deeper understanding of autism. "There are some things we haven't yet figured out about autism that we have figured out about introversion. Introverts who do spend a lot of time in introspection have a good account of what it's like. We could use the studies that we've done so far, with both areas, to perhaps scaffold each other."

Is this theory disparaging to introverts? Not to my mind, not at all. We fret about being misunderstood, and if this opens doors to deeper understanding into our ways, that's good. It would explain the phenomenon of the "extroverted introvert" or the "swashbuckling introvert" (as readers here have described themselves). It eases the polarized attitudes we sometimes see between introverts and extroverts. And it might help further acceptance of our way of being and start chipping away at the concept of extroverts being "happier" and better at socializing. If you're a Temple Grandin fan, as I am, it's a lot easier to accept autism as a different way of being rather than, necessarily, a lesser way. It also raises another fascinating question: If introversion requires its own scale, it follows that extroversion does too. And if autism is on one far end of the introversion scale, what's on the far end of an extroversion scale? Narcissism? Exhibitionism? Lady Gaga?"

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... and-autism

Last edited by Kon on 27 Apr 2011, 12:01 am, edited 3 times in total.

That's pretty well the argument these authors use to differentiate between SAD and ASD:

Psychopathology. 2008;41(2):101-10. Epub 2007 Nov 23. Symptom overlap between autism spectrum disorder, generalized social anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder in adults: a preliminary case-controlled study.
Cath DC, Ran N, Smit JH, van Balkom AJ, Comijs HC.

BACKGROUND: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) frequently co-occur in persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We studied which features distinguish 'pure' anxiety disordered patients from those with co-morbid ASD.

METHOD: In a case-controlled design in which groups were matched for age, sex and educational level, patients with OCD or SAD and co-morbid ASD were compared with patients with 'pure' (i.e. without ASD) OCD, with 'pure' SAD and a control group, using the Autism Questionnaire (AQ), Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scales, Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, Beck Anxiety Inventory and questions on egodystonia of OC behaviors.

RESULTS: No between patient group differences were found on social or general anxiety measures. The AQ subscales communication problems and lack of imagination discriminated best between patients with comorbid ASD and the other groups, ASD patients showing elevated scores, whereas the other patient groups scored equal to controls. On the AQ social skill subscale all patient groups showed elevated scores. On OC symptom severity, pure OCD patients showed highest scores, whereas comorbid ASD subjects scored intermediate between controls and the pure OCD group, the differences being explained by lower obsession severity in the ASD group. There were no differences between the pure OCD and comorbid ASD groups on egodystonia.

CONCLUSION: Patients with comorbid ASD differ from patients with pure OCD and SAD on autism-related problem behaviors, but there is also overlap between groups, possibly reflecting overlapping etiologies. Despite the relatively small sample size, these data strongly suggest that specific autism symptom domains should be assessed to pick up autism-related problems in OCD and SAD patients, and subsequently fine-tune treatment programs for these patients.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18033980

Comparing that to the previously posted correlation tables...

Factor [ N ][ E ][ O ][ A ][ C ]

AQ [0.20**][-0.44***][-0.12][-0.42***][0.14]
Asp [0.37***][-0.44***][-0.12][-0.56***][-0.05]

Social skills [0.13][-0.55***][-0.14][-0.48***][-0.11]
Attention switching [0.25***][-0.29***][-0.02][-0.15*][0.15*]
Attention to detail [0.06][0.03][0.17*][0.03][0.35***]
Communication [0.21**][-0.34***][-0.15*][-0.41***][-0.18*]
Imagination [0.02][-0.30***][-0.32***][-0.38***][0.16*]

It looks like the best indices for use on 'extreme introverts' is attention to detail, attention switching and imagination while the best indices for OCD and SAD groups is communication and imagination. That implies imagination is the best discriminatory index for all subgroups (Introverts, OCD and SAD) with communication coming up behind it.

Damn, maybe I am autistic ... except, I'm pretty sure I don't have OCD and I really doubt I have SAD. So.... my past analysis was fine.

Yes, and to add in Theory of Mind here. Though I'm not sure if these are one and the same, as in being a different side to the same coin.

If I'm reading this correctly:

My results
Agree: 2,4,5,6,7,9,12,13,16,18,19,20,21,22,23,26,33,35,39,41,42,43,45,46: 1 point
Disagree: 1,8,10,11,14,15,17,24,25,27,28,30,31,32,34,36,37,38,40,44,47,50: 1 point

My total AQ score varies between 44-46.

1. attention switching: 10/10
2. attention to detail: 8/10
3. imagination: 9/10

A paper about (more or less) that:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17149668

Correlations between the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire and the AQ:

SPQ /AQ: 0.47*
SPQ/Social skills: 0.35*
SPQ/Attention Switching: 0.27*
SPQ/Attention to detail: 0.19*
SPQ/Communication: 0.43*
SPQ/Imagination: 0.06



Not so easy; even if you are only little above 1 SD for any subscale, you can be much above the SD for the combined scale (because, when you combine several variables, the SD of the sum is lower than the sum of the SDs)



But, in practice, this will be a big difference?

An additional question is if the sub-scale "imagination" has any value at all. Some attempts to apply factor analysis to the AQ have not show any factor "imagination" - questions like "When I was young, I used to enjoy playing games involving pretending with other children" aggregate with the "social skills" factor, while questions like "I don’t particularly enjoy reading fiction" does not correlate at relevant level with nothing.

In the paper that I talked yesterday, they made a factor analysis and indentified 3 factors:

Factor [ N ][ E ][ O ][ A ][ C ]

Social skills factor [0.06][-0.63***][-0.18*][-0.44***][0.00]
Patterns/details factor [0.06][0.00][0.13][-0.09][0.39***]
Communication/mindreading factor [0.33***][-0.15*][-0.16*][-0.25***][-0.20**]

The "communication/mindreading" seems largely to be the famous "theory of mind" with other name; it have a significant correlation with introversion, but relatively small; probably the effect will be that low communication skills will probably made the person to becomes introvert, but there are many other possible reasons for someone to be introvert.

Social skills factor - 38,11,44,17,26,47,22,40,15,34,50,13
Patterns/details factor - 23,6,19,9,12,43,5,25
Communication/mindreading factor - 29,20,45,35,7,37

I hadn't logged in to wp in quite a while. Threads like this are what I missed about this site

I've always been a big supporter of the whole general neurodiversity idea. I think there are people who would generally be considered neurotypicals who still have traits similar to many of the notable brain differences (ASD, ADHD/ADD, etc), and it's less of an "us vs. them" sort of deal than some spectrumites sometimes make it sound. Perhaps these differences are due not only to vast, categorizable differences like autism, but also to things like culture, and personality. Blah blah blah, I'm this isn't my field.

All through public school I made friends most easily with either really shy kids or really extroverted kids. We were all off from the norm somehow (eg, most of the extroverts have notable cases of ADHD). It made sense because I (the aspie), and my shy friends (NT introverts) clicked well, and we were all drawn together with the help of the extroverts. Tony Attwood really hit the nail on the head with his "mother hen friend" thing. I've seen it happen so many times.

Many of my shy friends have very aspie-ish traits (stimming, staggered vocal rhythm, body position, etc) because they share many of the social anxieties and difficulties. We get along so well because we have such in common, after all. I would never say that they had ASD though. No obsessive interests, sensory stuff, etc, and they all read body language/emotional cues intuitively. Though we still all made the same social blunders back in high school, probably because their shyness/isolation restricted their social development a tad, sort of on-par with the way that I was just generally clueless


Of course this is just anecdotal evidence. But I do believe there's something to the idea

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the bump.

I find this topic interesting for obvious reasons.

My story:
I found myself at the neuro psychologist office last year. I was lost. No social life, no direction. I took some tests. I was so terribly anxious that I seriously couldn't handle the instructions. For obvious reasons psychologist started to suspect asperger syndrome. Attention switching flexibility you name it... No eye contact. I couldn't handle it and I was so tense. Couple years of isolation had done the trick.

I had severely low self-esteem and I'm a bit perfectionist (but not like OC[P]D). I filled out the AQ test and got about 30.

After that I had second visit there. It was more like interview what has happened in my life. I was very guarded and the information I gave was scarce. Well she finally finally said that I have aspergers but then she asked question about my friendships and discovered that I have actually formed lots of them in my childhood while being extremely shy. All I could do in the interview was giving very socially inept picture of myself. Then she said that it is not aspergers just avoidance and sent me to a psychiatrist who diagnosed AvPD.

It certainly was a life saver.

I started to study about AvPD and Social Anxiety. I decided to change and then started to expose myself. Now I have proper facial expressions, body language and hugely improved social skills just in few months! It was extremely hard process and I'm still very shy and avoidant but better. It all happened naturally so I'm convinced that I'm neurotypical. Anxiety is significantly decreased, I have better self-esteem and score only 18 in AQ test. Things would have been otherwise if I received the ASD diagnosis.

So yeah be sure that you have the right diagnosis.

Last edited by nouse on 17 Jan 2012, 2:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I really dont know if I have aspergers or Avoidant personality disorder/social phobia. Ive always been incredibly shy, but I did have friends at one point in my life. I always seemed to become overly attached to specific friends though, to the point where I began to annoy them and they sought to distance themselves from me after a while. I guess they just saw me as clingy.

After school ended I had quite a few friends and quite an active social life, going out most weekends to bars and clubs as part of a group. but I was never one of the boys, I had real trouble loosening up unless I got drunk. Thing is I tended to loosen up too much after a few drinks which led to confrontations, one of which unfortunately led to me basically losing all of those friendships.

A psychologist at the maudsley in london said she suspected I had aspergers, but that was only after I had been friendless and isolated for a year or so, and so had forgotten a lot of the social rules that I learned in my teens and early 20s. I just wish I could get out of my shell more but the thought of going out and socialising fills me with dread these days

Ive never really had any "special interests" or anything like that though, I dont stim and I have had relationships in the past, one of which lasted the best part of a decade in fact (and that was with an NT). I havent taken the AQ test but all the online aspergers tests I have taken seem to put me between NT and aspie.

But I constantly worry about social situations because of people might be judging me. It's always been this way. I've always been shy and quiet aswell when surrounded by a lot of unfamiliar people, because I always feel awkward, and scared to do something embarrassing and then people thinking, ''that shy, quiet girl hasn't said a word to anyone and then she goes and does something daft!'' Also I worry that people keep noticing me just standing about quietly and awkwardly and think, ''who is that quiet girl over there? Blimey, she's the shyest person I've ever seen in my life, she literally hasn't said a word to anybody here.'' But I'm scared to make conversations with people in case I look stupid or something. So I prefer to just stay quiet.

I have a fear of rejection, humiliation, and being judged negatively. And all this leads to one problem: avoiding social situations. All the time now I'm scared that I'm going to suddenly get an invitation to a social event, and if I say ''yes'' I'd have to go and endure it, and if I say ''no'' I get criticised by other people, they say things like, ''oh you never want to go and socialise!'' So basically I feel obliged, because I do like to meet people but the trouble is I'm no good at it because I'm too shy. I've been at a new charity shop for 5 months now and I still find it hard to speak two words to people, just about have a one-to-one conversation with someone occasionally, usually just small talk. Otherwise, I'm very quiet. I'm just scared that if I tried to be something I'm not, I will probably act weird by coming out with stupid things, whereas staying shy but keeping up quite a confident expression actually works, and is easier for me. I actually blew it at the charity shop where I used to work, because I tried to be all confident, and it really didn't work. People were laughing at me there, I know it. I just sensed it. But at this new charity shop I'm at now, I don't sense any negative impressions from other people.

So, in short, I am scared to speak or even show my face in social situations in case I get judged negatively. Yes, I constantly worry about what people are thinking of me all the time, and I mean ALL THE TIME. It's ruining my life.

I've been diagnosed with Aspergers, but I've taken the AQ test and got a score of 38. I have to wonder if I was misdiagnosed as a child because I have no problem with making friends, and forming connections with people. I have to wonder if it's possible that I've outgrown it because it doesn't seem to give me any problems anymore with it. I can make friends with just about anyone though I have trouble with keeping friends who are "normal", but then again I find "normal" people to be boring. I have an extremely active social life and my weekends are full of social activities and it dominates my weekend. The only reason why I have trouble with relationships is because I have such high standards. I don't get "special" interests either I don't become obsessed about topics. I know when DSM5 comes out I won't qualify for a diagnosis anymore because my case is so mild. The cut off point seems to be more harsh and leaves those of us with extremely mild cases out of it.