Can an aspie has low IQ/mental retardation?

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Why are you acting this way?
Instead of babbling nonsense about nonexistent strawmen it wouldn't kill ya to admit that you didn't know something that most folks know. A bachelor is by definition single. So a married man cant be a bachelor (by definition). There is nothing to debate.

Same with aspergers. If you aspie traits, but a low IQ then they lump you into another autistic category than asperters. And the definition of low IQ is "under 70". So by definition a person with below 70 cannot be officially classified an aspie. Its what it is.

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Home / About Autism / About Autism Spectrum Disorder / Asperger's Syndrome / Asperger's Syndrome: Normal IQ
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Asperger's Syndrome: Normal IQ

Date First Published: April 2, 2007
Date Last Updated: November 23, 2010

A great many individuals with autism are also intellectually disabled. 1 Those with Asperger's syndrome, in contrast, must by definition have suffered no cognitive delay during their first 3 years of life. 2 This means that they will usually have at least a “normal” IQ. In some cases, their IQ may be very high, even in the genius range. There are, however, different kinds of smarts.

Your IQ can be through the stratosphere, and you can still have an impaired ability to read the social world, so much so that you struggle to navigate the social complexities in school, workplace, or community.

Having a normal or better IQ can obviously be a good thing. It is a gift, permitting a person to learn and know, to push the envelope of intellectual ability, to rejoice in the pursuit of some realm of knowledge. It is also a major benefit as the person copes with his disability, giving him more to work with as he tries to find ways to compensate for areas of weakness.

It can be a double-edged sword, however, both gift and curse. When someone is aware he is different, when, for all his intelligence, he is having a difficult time making friends, or getting a date, or keeping a job, he may end up far more prone to depression and despair than a less aware person with a lower IQ. It has indeed been found that children with both high-functioning autism and Asperger's suffer from depression and anxiety more than their typical peers. 3

Another disadvantage of that normal-to-high intelligence is that many will take it to mean the person is not disabled, period. If he’s getting good grades, doing OK on standardized tests, or has an advanced vocabulary, how could he possibly have a real disability? People fail to understand, believing that, if he has trouble interacting, it must be due to personal failings, and the “disability” label is just an excuse. He may be viewed by a grade school teacher, for example, as an impossible, oppositional brat. His parents, meanwhile, may be viewed as incompetent, his “willfully” bad behavior assumed to be a reflection of permissive parenting or a messed up home life. Writes Tony Attwood:

“Strangers may consider the child to be rude, inconsiderate or spoilt, giving parents a withering look and assuming the unusual social behavior is a result of parental incompetence. They may comment, ‘Well, if I had him for two weeks he would be a different child.’ The parents’ reaction may be that they would gladly let them have the child, as they need a rest, and to prove a point. It is essential that other people understand that the child is not being rude, but did not know a more tactful alternative or appreciate the effect on other people.” 4

One of the biggest challenges for anyone advocating for a person with Asperger's is to convey the true extent of the disability to others, to counter the instant assumption that “high IQ” equates with “non-disabled.” In truth, people with Asperger's are socially-emotionally far behind their chronological age, and may seem, despite intellectual achievements, very young, naïve, and unaware of the complexities of social reality. They are not intellectually, but socially, disabled.

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I found a copy of that opinion piece on line that included their references and the reference for the above statement was the WHO ICD-10 document here

http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/GRNBOOK.pdf (I think that's it, the dates match)

I'll quote from that document now



In the opinion piece's paraphrasing of what was actually said they have misinterpreted. Perhaps for brevity, who knows. The original material does not reference intelligence at all and certainly does not place specific IQ thresholds. No diagnostic criteria mentions IQ thresholds or even mentions intelligence in general, the document this piece references does not reference intelligence either.

As always I will await a credible source that says there is an IQ threshold for AS. Think about it...your IQ is a snapshot of intelligence based on arbitrary parameters. At what point does your IQ have to be above 70? When you're 1-3? When you're diagnosed? If the former how do you diagnose any 6+ year old with AS when you can't possible know what their younger IQ score was? If the latter then your adult IQ is of little relevance as AS is a developmental disorder and adults have developed learning strategies to cope and they will alter IQ. And....yes....the diagnostic criteria specifically mentions this.

this IS a credible that source that does that.

A motorcycle is commonly defined as a "two wheeled vehicle". So any four wheeled vehicle is by definition not a motorcycle. The definition of aspergers includes "not being ret*d" (to capsulize it into laymen's terms). Not being ret*d means "having an IQ above 70". So 70 is the cut off. Infants one to three were rarely classified as having aspergers because an infant that young with asperger wouldnt stand out as not NT (just like you wouldnt be able to measure their IQ that young). But three year old who couldnt talk WOULD stand out, and would classified as "autistic".

You're seriously telling me that when an article paraphrases and misinterprets some other work, that paraphrased misinterpretation is credible but the original source material is not?


Prove it. Why are you finding it so hard to simply prove this? All I am asking is for a clinical, medical definition of Aspergers or the diagnosis of Aspergers that claims you must have an IQ over 70, or that you are "not ret*d". If you can't do this then maybe you should start to question if what you are saying is correct.

If one has mental retardation, they CANNOT be diagnosed with Aspergers as mental retardation is one form of cognitive development delay. They can technically have a tested IQ in the mentally ret*d range, but only if it's been concluded the tested IQ doesn't accurately reflect mental retardation as a diagnosis of mental retardation requires more than just an IQ test. Someone's IQ can drop after the diagnosis of aspergers though, but pretty much everything Chichikov said is nonsense as IQ is supposed to be more or less consistent across a lifetime except in cases of dementia or brain damage, other it's concluded it's not a reliable assessment of intelligence for that person.

Last edited by Ganondox on 01 Feb 2017, 12:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have to disagree with this slightly. I know several aspies who score slightly under my IQ and some over. I'm about average, and I usually score around 148-154 on IQ tests. Also a vast majority of people with AS tend to have varied interests, and not all of them really like rocket ship engines. I know I don't, because I already have other interests that are less technical that take up more time.

Yet no-one can prove me wrong. Funny that.

How about you prove that you can have Asperger's and intellectual disability?

In the meantime, this is in the Complete Guide to Asperger's:

Why are you shifting the burden of proof onto me? I'm not the one making statements, I'm not the one that is saying things that I can't prove has a basis in fact. You're the one stating you can't have AS unless you have a certain IQ however you have failed to show any evidence of that whatsoever. I warned you not to ask me to prove a negative yet that is exactly what you are doing, and I knew you would. You have failed to prove your own case so are asking me to prove a negative which simply can't be done.

The image you posted is simply yet another misinterpretation of the DSM-IV. Do you see the pattern here? How many times are you going to show me misinterpretations of the DSM? Why don't you simply show me the actual DSM-IV, you know, the one that mentions nothing about intelligence thresholds at all.

I doubt the Tony Attwood would misinterpret the DSM IV. He knows how to interpret it, he's the expert, not you.



I tried that, but you wouldn't listen to me or the others so I'm going a different route.

No, you quoted the DSM then said that a delay in cognitive development meant the person was a ret*d and you've hung your entire argument on that misrepresentation ever since. We'll just need to agree to disagree.

It says a lot about you that you'll disagree and still think people are misinterpreting the ICD 10 or DSM IV even when they're experts in this field. Has it really not occurred to you that your interpretation is the incorrect one?

No, plenty of people proved you wrong, you just refused the proof because that's what you do.

I'm not interpreting anything, simply pointing out that the various diagnostic criteria of AS do not mention intelligence or IQ thresholds. No single person has yet to show any evidence that the diagnostic criteria stipulates an IQ threshold. If this is such a well known thing why can no-one show any evidence of it? As for the "experts" I dare say Attwood was simplifying the clause that says if your symptoms\issues are *caused* by mental impairment then you don't have AS (obviously), but if your issues are not caused by mental impairment then it is not a bar to diagnosis. It's a subtle distinction but these things often are, that's why you need a professional to diagnose you and not someone on the internet that thinks they understand these things but don't. You need to stop turning to interpretations to try and prove your point as they are either wrong or simplified. It's a very simple task that no-one has done....show me the diagnostic criteria that mentions an IQ threshold. Do that or simply give up.

We have done just that.

Every source on the web says "no cognitive delays" . No cognative delays means "not ret*d". ret*d means "IQ below 70". Ergo they ALL in effect say that you cant have an IQ below 70 and be classified as aspergers.