2026 07 27 Tars Nathan Working Partnership Playbook

Nathan at 19 (Sept 2023) completed the AQ, the EQ (twice), and the SRS-2 Adult Self-Report. The pattern: AQ 36/49 (above 32 cut-off), EQ 38–39/80 (typical male range, but with a keying-corrected profile that is more textured than a single number), SRS-2 raw 76/195 (T ~58–62, subclinical/ mild). This is the textbook active-but-odd / late-identified / high-masking adult signature documented in Hull et al. (2017), Lai et al. (2017), Bezemer et al. (2021), and the 2025 systematic review by Alaghband-rad et al. The per-item pattern is decisive: his AQ signal sits on the non-social Imagination and Attention-to-Detail axes (systemizing, restricted interests, monotropic preferences), and his SRS-2 self-report is measuring learned social competence as much as it is measuring autistic social deficit — 9 of his 13 maximum-score SRS-2 items are reverse-scored (the items the SRS-2 instrument is designed to deflate for high-maskers).

1. Re-administer the CAT-Q (Hull 2019) — it directly measures Compensation, Masking, and Assimilation subscales, which the AQ/EQ/SRS-2 cannot see. 2. Get an informant-report SRS-2 (parent, partner, or close friend) to triangulate the self-report floor. 3. Re-score the existing EQ with the corrected keying direction; the current brain note says "38–39" but this was computed with the wrong direction on items 6, 19, 22, 25, 36, 52, 55. The true total is lower and the per-item pattern is more informative. 4. Consider the ASRS (Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale) — the AQ's Attention Switching subscale overlaps with ADHD, and the masking literature increasingly documents AuDHD (autism + ADHD) as a common combined presentation in late-diagnosed adults. 5. Re-do the brain-resident summary after re-scoring the EQ.

Nine of Nathan's 13 maximum-score items (raw 3) are reverse-scored. Per the SRS-2 research, this is the masker signature — these are items describing socially-competent behaviours that a high-masker endorses "almost always true" and that are then deflated by reverse-scoring. His raw 76 is a floor estimate of true trait severity, not a ceiling. If he had answered those 9 items "Sometimes true," his raw would be ~85 → T in the mid-60s (moderate range). The AQ-SRS discrepancy is itself diagnostic of the masking profile, not evidence against the AQ.