Wow, this week might just be my lucky week of finding some very interesting articles. So on Readwriteweb.com I came across an article that caught me completely off guard. The article title is "From Borat's Cousin, A Facebook quiz That Actually Screens for Autism" by Curt Hopkins (2010.) Though the article touches on how you know what is legit and reliable, the article does go on to state that the test is "helpful in determining who May have an autism spectrum disorder." The author talked to several sources about how they verify a source and the article makes mention of Lemondrop.com. So I clicked on Lemondrop.com and a write up about this Facebook Quiz was there with several sources cited, such as Dr. Bob Sears, author of "The Autism Book: What Every Parent Needs to Know About Early Detection, Treatment, Recovery and Prevention." I continued to click on links and see that this is a reliable source from what I can see.
I do not have a clue on what to think of online quizzes. Personally, I have only taken online quizzes for pure enjoyment and not to take them seriously. Being a special education teacher, I would say that if I just attempted to interact with a person, I would be able to judge if they were autistic or special way better than any quiz on a computer. Most people have a warped idea of how they really are so if a person is just asked a bunch of questions, they can easily throw the quiz one way or the other.
There are many people out there who trust these quizzes and cause themselves a great deal of stress because of the "results" they get from them. I think online quizzes should only be used for entertainment and should not be taken serious; maybe a little "Warning" should be placed by the quizzes so people wise up and realize that a doctor is who they really need to see if they are concerned that they have autism. However, I will continue to use these quizzes to make me laugh in the meantime!
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/from_borats_cousin_a_facebook_quiz_that_actually_s.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Definately Wow! I, like I'm sure many a facebook user, have taken my share of quizzes, but definately never put any validity towards the results. I agree that although there may be some credible sources, we should caution against such results due to human error (or those who throw their answers)
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