ColinsMum, how did you feel misidentified? Too NT or not enough? I am curious
I could have written the original post (there are several reasons why my handle is a shortened form of Stranger in a Strange Land, only half of which being the fish out of water experience of the long term expat/immigrant). And I have looked long and hard at myself and the family tree since my son was diagnosed.
But I still id'd as resolutely NT on that test (also on the quicky one from Wired): 45 Aspie, 162 NT. Of course I suck at multiple answer tests -- I always want to ask "what's the context" and "what do you mean by 'a little/a lot'" (which probably means I screwed up on a lot of those questionnaires I filled for my son). Ironically the test puts me more on the physical side of the graph than the intellectual -- I was id'd as gifted (degree unknown) in elementary school and used to be the quiet girl with glasses and her nose in a book in middle/high school.
The pop-culture appropriation of "Aspie" is troubling; it reduces autism to a kind of personality quirk, instead of the lifelong disability it is.
The difference between pop quizz character traits and recognized disability is that section of the diagnosis criteria that says "the disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning".
Sigh.
