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Why intelligence scores do not predict success for autistic adults

the_tortoise

the_tortoise

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
https://spectrumnews.org/opinion/viewpoint/intelligence-scores-not-predict-success-autistic-adults/

This quote does not reflect the main point of the article, but it reflects a perspective that iI wish more people shared (emphasis mine):

It is important to recognize that better assessment and a greater focus on skill-building will not eliminate adaptive functioning difficulties among autistic adults. Autism is a lifelong developmental disability, and most autistic adults need regular support in one form or another for the rest of their lives. And that’s okay.

From research on individuals with intellectual disability, we know that even among those who need significant day-to-day support, a high quality of life and positive outcomes, such as life satisfaction, happiness and successful employment, are still possible9,10. There is no reason to think autistic people are any different.
​
It is nice to see "life satisfaction" and "happiness" treated as their own measures of success, too.
 
Not to mention how inaccurate IQ scores can be for people on the spectrum. My psychologist tried to convince me not to return to med school because my IQ test result was just below average. Even though I had had no trouble studying up until I dropped out due to depression, my psychologist chose to believe the IQ test over me. We got into quite the argument because I know for a fact that I am very intelligent. It wasn’t so much about my bruised ego as it was about a health care professional basing advice off of one notoriously flawed test result, rather than listening to her patient.

Needless to say I disregarded her advice and became a doctor afterwards;)
 
I really like studying Einstein and Tesla, not really sure why?

I pulled this from a story in the Washington Post (link provided)
WashingtonPost.com: Einstein: A Life

"Einstein maintained he made no attempt to talk until he was past three, and his parents feared that he was mentally retarded."

Ummm... Looking back... This man and many like him were FAR from retarded... He is more like one of my heros and without him (and many like him), we would be so much less than we are...
 
Where this hit me was the hardest when I was young. I was having troubles in school, and life.. They put me through rigorous testing to see if I needed any specialized care. Then came the dreaded IQ test which I scored high in. They figured that since I had a high IQ, that I was perfectly set to enter mainstream schooling. After that pretty much everything else was ignored, put down as "laziness" and so on.

All the differences between myself and the other students were nullified by the "high IQ". The smartest thing I could have done would have been to not tried so hard, and thus come up with a lower IQ on that test.

I don't know what if anything, that would have achieved for me though.
 
I have done a great deal of reading on IQ, with the intention of writing a book on intellectual giftedness (which will never get written, I'm afraid) IQ isn't a predictor of success for anyone, whether neurodiverse or neurotypical. So that really has no unique relevance for people on the spectrum.

What is more important is that there was a widespread assumption that people with high IQs were unlikely to have disabilities that would keep them from using their intelligence. It was slowly recognized that that assumption had no basis in reality and there is now the term "doubly exceptional."

I haven't continued with that research, so I don't know if anyone has proposed that many high IQ individuals may be on the spectrum, but it's an idea that has intrigued me ever since I learned about autism and Asperger's.
 
Major Tom said:
Where this hit me was the hardest when I was young. I was having troubles in school, and life.. They put me through rigorous testing to see if I needed any specialized care. Then came the dreaded IQ test which I scored high in. They figured that since I had a high IQ, that I was perfectly set to enter mainstream schooling. After that pretty much everything else was ignored, put down as "laziness" and so on.

All the differences between myself and the other students were nullified by the "high IQ". The smartest thing I could have done would have been to not tried so hard, and thus come up with a lower IQ on that test.

I don't know what if anything, that would have achieved for me though.
Click to expand...

Pretty typical experience. I can relate to it. Once they know you're intellectually capable of doing the work, they expect you to get on with it. At least that's how it was for me. Maybe that expectation has been modified these days with the ability to recognize and designate a student as doubly exceptional.
 
Between my IQ and standardized test scores, everyone had such high expectations for me. It wasn't "what do you want to be when you grow up?" it was "so, do you want to be a doctor or a lawyer when you grow up?"

Teachers had high expectations for me. I kept meeting them, and the bar kept getting raised. My parents had high expectations for me; I'm a failure in their eyes now and probably always will be, since I'm pretty much disqualified from doing anything too terribly fantastic.

Thing is, growing up, "exceptional" was quickly becoming the new "average". I had no idea in my little head that college was optional, and my parents were already picking schools for me when the teachers were still putting gold star stickers on my homework.

Point is, everyone else thought they knew what I needed to be happy, and they thought that happiness and achievement were the same thing. How wrong they were.
 
Chance said:
I really like studying Einstein and Tesla, not really sure why?

I pulled this from a story in the Washington Post (link provided)
WashingtonPost.com: Einstein: A Life

"Einstein maintained he made no attempt to talk until he was past three, and his parents feared that he was mentally retarded."

Ummm... Looking back... This man and many like him were FAR from retarded... He is more like one of my heros and without him (and many like him), we would be so much less than we are...
Click to expand...


Chance said:
Einstein maintained he made no attempt to talk until he was past three, and his parents feared that he was mentally retarded."
Click to expand...
Neither did my sister but when she started talking it was in full sentences. And now she is a renown psychiatric expert on delirium so far from retarded.
 
Gritches said:
Lol right? I was hoping someone would read that as well. Quite a well-written review, it definitely sold me on the product
Click to expand...

Did the washlet seat you got not work? I think it was you who ordered it or am I remembering wrong?
 
Major Tom said:
All the differences between myself and the other students were nullified by the "high IQ". The smartest thing I could have done would have been to not tried so hard, and thus come up with a lower IQ on that test.
Click to expand...

BOY! This statement hits home with me. Sometimes I wish I didn't score so high on my test. But you're right. There's always this assumption that if you're good at this, then why aren't you good at that. All the NT's just assume that "this and that" are the same thing when they aren't.
 
As a kid, I was put in the 'gifted' bin, and that label followed me like a curse throughout school: whenever I had trouble understanding some instructions & doing a task as expected, teachers assumed that my failure to meet the goal resulted from unwillingness to comply. So I was deemed brilliant, but difficult, confrontational, and even lazy. It never occurred to a single teacher that perhaps I had potential, sure, but had trouble mobilizing that potential, and needed help with that, otherwise it's like keeping a Ferrari with an empty tank: don't expect it to start and go far.
Whenever I tried to explain to teachers that I had trouble with something, it was assumed I was making excuses and giving them the runaround. It had to be, I couldn't be a gifted child with a learning disorder, could I? I spoke and wrote too well to be credible when I said I couldn't understand some simple math instructions (but hey, a typo here and a grammatical there in the instructions, and that's all I could focus on, meaning was pushed waaaaay back in the background).
The main lesson I learned from that was to completely stop asking for help, since at best people would refuse to provide me with that ("You're smart enough to figure it out on your own, Katleya"), and at worst it would come back & bite me in the butt. That's something I still struggle with as an adult.

Now, the high IQ as an adult? Definitely not a measure or predictor of my success by typical standards. I'm pretty sure years of depression have lowered my score, if I were to take a test again, and I've noticed that now on some logic tests, I can come up with 2 valid explanations, but I'm not able to tell which is the "common" logic, and which is the more creative, tortuous logic.
I also feel that not meeting the targets I had set for myself based solely on my IQ score contributed to an increased feeling of failure, and in turn more depression, which was impossible to accept until I was able to find something that explained my shortcomings --and could provide some ways around those. Took me a while, and a diagnosis, to be at peace with that. Now, when I realize how defective some of my mental tools were, I'm almost amazed I actually made it through school and earned the degrees I earned, because on paper, I probably wouldn't have been expected to graduate.
 
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