Why is "high intellect" associated with Asperger's?

[Luca]

I think it's common for highly-intelligent (not solely as an IQ measure, but maybe a dash of that plus a high level of self-awareness and emotional intelligence) to consistently rate themselves below average, and for a lot of people with deficits in all three categories to do the exact opposite. I think the main reason is that people who are challenged in these areas don't have as many 'known unknowns" (not being remotely aware of the knowledge gaps and even biases they hold), and people with a higher capacity for learning can often pinpoint all of the things they actually don't know in great detail, and feeling very small in comparison.

It's not an absolute science, but whenever someone says, "I'm very smart!" I usually assume it's coming from a point of view of extreme stupidity or possibly even some form of narcissism, because while we may have some great areas of expertise on an individual level, something is inevitably going to slip through the cracks, and thus people who are aware of this are always going to feel a little bit dumber by nature.

That explained it really well, thanks

 

[Crossbreed]

"I'm very smart!"

"Smart" is hard to quantify. And it leans heavily on education.
"Intelligence" is more equivalent to "cleverness," whether educated or not. And no matter how clever a person might be, being mortal makes them fallible.
That is not a put-down.
It is a reality check.
And clever people know this.

 

[Slime_Punk]

Typically even IQ tests rely more on pattern-recognition than education (which I think solves some of the riddle of this thread's initial question, since autistic people can sometimes find patterns and solve problems that NTs have a harder time with, on average). There are indeed many forms of intellect, and often things like self-awareness and emotional intelligence are overlooked. If a high IQ number is all somebody has, that's not always a good thing. Although he's a fictional character, that's probably Rain Man in a nutshell.

 

[Crossbreed]

Typically even IQ tests rely more on pattern-recognition than education...

Aspies are known to perform their best on tests that emphasize non-verbal IQ (like Raven's Matrices), and under-perform on more verbal-style IQ tests.

Block design test - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

WAIS tests both qualities (among others).

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Idk good question. I remember watching The Predator (2018) some weeks ago and I did not know this movie had an autistic kid and of course, the kid was portrayed as being really intelligent. So intelligent that he was able to decode the alien languages the Predators had or something like that. This was already absurd but then it took it a step further and one of the scientist characters proclaimed that autism isn’t really a spectrum but the next step in human evolution! Idk how they said it but it was something similar to that and I just thought to myself “this is such bull” and the Predator even takes the kid because the kid’s autism made him the next step in human evolution. There’s like so many things wrong with this and even weeks later I still can’t get it off my mind because of how stupid it is

The point of my long ramble there is, I guess something like this makes me feel strongly because the autism in that movie is portrayed like some sort of superpower. Like man I wish I was smart enough to decode alien languages or something but instead my mind makes me fixate on stupid things. Sorry for the long reply, this thread just made me think of this movie

artistic license based on hat Aspie that learned Icelandic in a week I read his book in hospital. i really related to him.

 

[Misty Avich]

I wasn't diagnosed as autistic as such (back then mild + high-functioning meant PPD-NOS or Asperger's). I suppose I was diagnosed with that because I didn't have any speech delays and I reached all my milestones at the average stages as a baby/toddler and I was typically social and made eye contact and everything. Even a professional in autism with autism themselves wouldn't have guessed in a million years that I had an ASD when I was like 3 years old.
As a child I wasn't a little professor but I wasn't delayed either. I was articulate on the same level as my typically developing peers, in every way. My differences were more with my behaviour and cognitive behaviour such as anxiety. I was prone to temper tantrums due to being unable to control my environment - not all the time, you understand, and it wasn't because I was a psychopath or narcissist or anything, it was due to poor emotional regulation. So if I wanted to do something and my mum said no, I sometimes couldn't handle the word no and would throw myself down on the floor and kick and scream hoping she'd give in. Sometimes she did but other times she was firmer. I wasn't violent or anything, just difficult.

But I wasn't a little professor. I didn't know everything about interests I had. I didn't have any special interests and I didn't have very good focus or attention span. I liked jungles for example, but I didn't know everything about jungles. I just liked drawing pictures of jungles and making up jungle characters and playing with my safari animals (although it wasn't the only thing I played with or drew pictures of).
One day when I was 8 my grandparents treated me to a trip to the zoo because they knew I liked safari stuff, but I lost interest quite quickly and was more interested in playing on the huge playground there with other children or going into the gift shop to buy toys.
Then when I got home my mum asked me if I had learnt anything about the jungle but I just said "dunno". Lol

 

[MyLifeAsAnAspie]

Understand that the Asperger's diagnosis was not meant so identify people with aspie traits. I think it had more to do with being a different term for autistics without speech delays or ID. I believe the speech delay thing was a fuzzy criteria and probably wasn't good for much anyway. I certainly don't believe aspie traits are restricted to autistics with above average IQ.

I can't imagine what was up with Einstein if he wasn't autistic. He had wildly spikey cognitive abilities.

 

[tazz]

Asperger's diagnosis was not meant so identify people with aspie traits. I think it had more to do with being a different term for autistics without speech delays

Yeah that's how it's approached in the UK I think. Certainly that's how it was explained during my assessment.

I think the connection between genius and autistic is an example of the media perpetuating a common misunderstanding to the point where even someone who knows nothing else about autism has encountered a couple of examples in media where autistic means socially inept genius.

So for many people the only thing they know about autism is "um, something to do with being gifted but can't hold a conversation".

There's also that myth that "everyone's a little bit autistic". Which means that anyone who is really interested in something and spends a huge amount of time focused on it, and therefore becomes both very good at that one thing and unable to take part in conversations about the latest TV shows because they don't watch them, is "on the spectrum".

I have taken to making this point as clearly and as often as possible by saying "you can't be a little bit autistic" and "it's a spectrum not a scale".

This page is a good resource for myth-busting:

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Learn about how autistic people experience the world and the support available to them.

www.nhsinform.scot

"...things that autistic people often do, think, and feel – are often shared by people who don’t have autism too. This doesn’t mean that everyone is ‘a little bit autistic’, or that autistic people don’t need support."

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

No myths need to be busted here I know who I am and am Quite content being myself.

 

[Misty Avich]

No myths need to be busted here I know who I am and am Quite content being myself.

That is a good way of looking at it.
Unfortunately for me I want everyone else to know who I am too and not hold false assumptions about me, otherwise it feels less real to me. I often need approval by other people too.
But that's just me. Maybe I'm too sensitive to other people's feelings and so I'm riddled with guilt all the time.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Fortunately, I have never felt the need to be validated, by others. I think I have unusually high levels of testosterone.
at least my fingers show this, so do not feel the need to be part of a group.

 

[tazz]

Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting anyone here in this thread had any misapprehension about autism or their own identity.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I figured out for myself I was on the spectrum when I was in my mid-fifties made no difference in how I lived my life. Just explained a few things.

 

[Crossbreed]

...where autistic means socially inept genius.

It is the "socially inept" part that is the autism.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

All I can say is correlation is not causation.

 

[Jordy]

Because I single-handedly raise the average iq of people with High functioning autism by 30 points.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

IQ tests are not very accurate for Aspies. Try labelling colours in order makes sense will find pattern then mix a few and try ordering them again. no pattern.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

You have two separate bell curves one for intelligence and a second one for autistic people where they overlap.
is what gets noticed? only a limited number of us are on both bell curves. boy do they notice us.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I’m definitely not a genius but I do think that I am more intelligent in my own way and that it was overlooked when I was younger because I struggled with math. People used to say how smart I seemed to be to be able to learn so much in such a short period of time and that I knew a lot about different things such as music or stuff I learned in school. I actually think that I was gifted and just as smart as some of the kids in the gifted program in school. I mean I could set a VCR clock and microwave clock with ease by the time I was eight and I was even programming the VCR to record different things on tv when I was seven. I recorded a lot of QVC back then. I even knew who Beethoven was when I was eight and could name two of his compositions by hearing them.

But I struggled with math and couldn’t understand how to do it and that was due to me being undiagnosed with Asperger’s for so long and that I was being taught in ways that I couldn’t comprehend or understand. Once I got my diagnosis a lot of things about me made so much sense.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Interesting analogy I spent my career measuring and controlling colour. I would never wear tinted glasses.
metamerism is something I always watched for.