5:17pm October 20, 2014

While doing one of those “how much of my shit should I get rid of” things, I found the paper I’d written all my old ABAS scores down on.

What is the ABAS? It’s the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System. Basically it’s a test they give you when you’re applying for services, to see if you’re really having enough trouble functioning in everyday life to warrant the services. They also give them to developmentally disabled kids to track their daily living skills over time and things like that. In my case, it was given to me in 2005 as part of the intake process when I moved from Californa’s developmental disability service system to Vermont’s developmental disability service system.

The way the test works is that someone who knows you really well, usually a family member or staff, is given a multiple choice test to fill out. They fill out how often you do various things listed on the test. They don’t explain why you do them (or don’t do them) as often as you do, they don’t let you say “Hey, I may not be able to do this, but I can do all these other related things,”, they don’t let you say “Hey, I may be able to do this, but I can’t do all these other related things.” It’s just a test and it’s graded purely on the numbers.

So here’s how it works. There’s ten adaptive skill areas that they test you in. They vary according to age. Mine were:

* Communication
* Community use
* Functional academics [not the ability to know academics, but the ability to apply them in regular life — so knowing calculus doesn’t count, but being able to count change does]
* Home Living
* Healthy and Safety
* Leisure
* Self-Care
* Self-Direction
* Social
* Work

They didn’t test me on work because I’m unemployable, but they tested me on the rest.

To understand my scores, you have to understand something about this test. It tests specific, specific things. Like, under communication, it asks if the person says “please” and “thank you” and things like that. I’m a published writer, but that doesn’t count for a damn thing in the communication domain. The communication domain tests the basic social communication stuff that I completely suck at. Which actually is good, in this context, because it helped me get services. But I can see how the overuse of tests like this could lead to drastically underestimating, or overestimating, people’s skills in a given area.

It didn’t help that my tester came in with preconceived ideas about me to such an extent that she actually appeared to hallucinate a wheelchair under my butt as I walked into the room using a cane. But in her report she wrote that I used a wheelchair. And then she wanted to know when I used the wheelchair versus when I walked, which suggested she had noticed I wasn’t in a wheelchair. It was extremely confusing and also none of her actual business.

So anyway, on to the scoring.

So in each of those areas, you get a ‘scaled score’. This ranges from 1 to 19. 10 is average. 14 is above average, 17 is way above average, 7 is below average, and 4 is way below average.

My scores were:

Communication: 1
Community Use: 2
Functional Academics: 3
Home Living: 2
Health and Safety: 2
Leisure: 2
Self-Care: 1
Self-Direction: 1
Social: 2
Work: n/a

What that basically says is that for all of the things tested, I could either do them none of the time, or some of the time, and both of those will get you a very low score. There’s very little out there that I can do most of the time or all of the time. Even the things I’m best at. So the test was actually for once doing its job — showing that regardless of what I can do sometimes, there’s nothing I can do frequently enough to be able to keep myself alive that way.

So then you get the composite scores. First, there’s three composites of different subtest scores: Conceptual, Social, and Practical.

My scores were:

Conceptual: 53
Social: 60
Practical: 49

The range the numbers can go through is from 40 to 135. 100 is average, and the numbers follow the same general pattern as an IQ test.

The final score you get is the General Adaptive Composite. That’s your score for the whole test, and it’s numbered like the other composite scores — range from 40-135, 100 is average, otherwise comparable to the numbers on an IQ test.

General Adaptive Composite: 47, with a confidence interval of 95% that it’s somewhere between 44 and 50. That put it one tier above the lowest tier possible (40-45).

What frightens me about all this is that this was before my health crash. This was when I was fairly mobile and active, only using a wheelchair part-time, and routinely going out in my manual chair for long walks completely under my own power, was doing a lot more for myself than I can do now (even with treatment reversing the effects of some of the health crash).

On the other hand, I’ve gotten better at some of the social communication stuff, like saying hello, goodbye, please, thank you, etc. Because otherwise it seems like I’d bottom out on the test now, or damn close, and that’s kind of depressing. I don’t like assessments, precisely because they always seem to assess what I can’t do, and ignore what I can. Which on the one hand, is what I want them to do, if they’re being used to qualify me for services — I want them to see what I can’t do more than what I can. But it feels degrading somehow to have to show off my weakest areas to a professional in exchange for money or services or something like that. It feels like a ritualized begging in which I roll over and show my vulnerable underbelly to a bunch of predators who might help me out, if they feel like it.

TL;DR: In 2005 I took a test that was supposed to assess my daily living skills in a number of areas. I performed very badly on the test, even in areas where (if they had been testing them properly, which the test did not) I should have gotten higher or lower scores. For instance, I got the lowest possible communication score because the communication skills tested by the test were all little social-communication words that I happen to suck at using. So even though I’m a published writer, my communication score hit the floor of the test. On the other hand, the test resulted in me qualifying for services, so I shouldn’t complain too hard. I’ve seen people tested in very unfair ways by the same service system that gave me this test, and they were left to fend for themselves when they really couldn’t, and that got them into dangerous situations. So all in all, even though the test is ridiculous in some respects, I can’t complain too much. My overall score on the test was 47, out of a range that goes from 40 to 135, 100 being average, and the numbers corresponding roughly to the way numbers on IQ tests work. I’m a little afraid of what my score would be now, post-health-crash. Back then, most of my problems were due to cognitive issues and autistic catatonia. Now I’ve got a lot of health problems on top of it. I always feel somewhat degraded by testing, because it feels like a form of begging, where you show all your weakest points, roll over and show them your belly and stick your neck out, while they decide whether or not you’re weak enough to qualify for the services you already know you need.

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