Adult outcomes in the population

Post Reply New Topic

I think it is naturally to make a link between intelligence and outcome because of the structure of western society. Having low PIQ, low VIQ or both low PIQ and VIQ will impaire the working capacity, and may such both delay the education and making it harder to get a job. But low IQ do not imply that the educational results or working results need to be impaired, it just means that either the time used to get it done is delayed and/or that the communication of it is impaired.

I have a low PIQ and a high VIQ. This affect me in the way that I use much longer time than other students at my level to gain knowledge and complete papers, but on the other hand when I have gained the knowledge I understand it more profoundly and remember it longer than other students at my level, and the language (in my mother tongue) of my papers are of a higher level too. Despite that I have good research abilities, my low PIQ impair me in using it because of the efficiency requirments of the society. So, in my case, the educational results has been very good but my outcome (which is not defined yet since I'm still in education) does not need to be good.

Well, rickith, it seems that you were smart enough to get through college and graduate Cum Laude with a degree in a fairly difficult field in the typical time of 4 years. So I would guess that your IQ would be at least bright normal if you were to be tested.

Not to disparage rickith's accomplishment, because getting a degree certainly is a worthy accomplishment.

However, the ability to focus and sustain effort has a lot more to do with the ability to get a degree than intelligence. Intelligence without focus means a degree is significantly less likely, but it doesn't reflect a lack of intelligence - nor does it reflect a lack of desire or intention to "better one's self."

I agree with your statement about focus, which can be an issue associated with ADHD that not all individuals with high IQ or even on the spectrum share, but considering the type of degree and level of grades achieved, there is some empirical evidence that the IQ would likely be considered bright normal if measured, and not likely the pattern of higher verbal intelligence as opposed to performance IQ that is often measured among individuals, on average, that are diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, in research.

It's interesting to me that the fields that are so often stereotyped as "Asperger's fields" are really not reflective of what one would expect from research on standard measures of IQ, as they are more often associated with higher levels of performance IQ as opposed to verbal IQ, and I suspect, in part, generated by the speculation surrounding Bill Gates and other famous "computer geeks", scientists, etc.

But on the other hand, I wonder too if there is some bias in the individuals that may be selected or interested in participating in the IQ research, and the others may be off busy programming, or engineering rather than participating in social networking or psychological research.. It seems like a significant amount of the research done on Asperger's for analysis specific to intelligence and empathy is derived from college campuses or among individuals who are college graduates. But, the majors and type of employment are rarely mentioned.

It would be interesting to see those studies down by major, if there were enough participants, but enough participants might be hard to find in the real world.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2007/08/grad ... aduate.htm

Oh, I wasn't questioning the judgment of his IQ, I just wanted to elaborate on things like executive dysfunction and autistic inertia and how they can sabotage one's ability to do such things regardless of IQ.

Thank you for the additional information and the link.

Autistic inertia can also be used to drive a task through to completion, such as my recent photoshopping of 1440 pictures of clock faces for autistic children to learn how to tell time on clock.

ADHD will definitely interfere with applications of intelligence in many areas. Other disorders also drop functioning.

Last edited by btbnnyr on 06 Jan 2013, 10:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Definitely. I've had it do that as well as keep from things I need to do. It varies.



Yes, unfortunately.

Oh, I see, one for every single minute of the day if I am not mistaken, correct?

Yes. There were supposed to be 720 for the 12 hour clock face, but there are two versions of the pictures, so there were 1440.

That is true. Regardless of how intelligent one with ADHD is, one with ADHD (when explaining something) might jump from one area to another without explaining the gap in-between those areas. Thus, one might interpret that person with ADHD as not making any sense if they cannot figure out the gap in-between those areas and the person with ADHD doesn't ask if his listeners have any questions on what he/she had just said to them. Thus, they are not able to apply their intelligence in terms of explaining things in a clear and rational matter to people.

Maybe you just didn't have good mentoring. Clearly you are quite talented in certain areas. I only wish I could play a musical instrument at ease, as I really like music, especially melodic ones. Also, I've always struggled when I had to write essays, let alone a book. I managed though, partly due to the help I got from my parents. Looking at how sophisticated, logical, apt, knowledgeable, and reasonable you are, judging from your posts, I'm sure there's something which is elementarily untapped about your person. Figuring out people's needs, thinking, motives, learning how to push the right buttons is a fitting challenge to such a bright mind, I'm serious. Nevertheless, don't feel pushed by others, just as don't dismiss yourself.

I had practically no support. I believe that support plays a role in outcomes, although I do not have enough information to point out how much of a role. In my case, I had a parent who did little more than accuse me of being lazy and deliberately choosing to not do schoolwork, and teachers who insisted I was smart enough to figure things out on my own who gave me minimal assistance when I did not understand what they were saying (and this was fairly frequent). I would get thrown into advanced classes because I could quickly handle basic subjects but the advanced classes would burn me out from sheer workload and I couldn't continue to function reliably.

I think in general people attribute a lot of things to personal intelligence that may not actually be directly attributable to personal intelligence. One of those things happens to be the level of support one has. I do not strictly mean autistic people in this case, but it comes up frequently.

It's highly unlikely that Temple Grandhin would have ended up where she did, had it not been for the support she reported by her mother. If I remember correctly she attributes many of her achievements in life to that kind of support. I had it, and I can tell you without any doubt, I would not likely have finished college without it and there is no telling where I would have ended up in life. That is a huge factor for anyone, I think. I will say though my mother didn't have much time to encourage scholastic achievements with a busy work schedule as a single mother. I suppose if I had two supportive parents, that could have made even a bigger difference in my life.

Both parents hunting and the child left outside of understood small group bonds, is a fairly new way of life, and another experiment of necessity for survival, that doesn't appear to be necessarily working out that well, per sociological studies done on the issue. It's not so much an issue of the parents having to gain substance though I think, as extended families and group bonds were more prevalent early in the 19th century.

Wow, I just caught myself talking like a right wing patriarch, in some ways, and didn't realize it until now.. Extended families were in large a result of the lack of reproductive freedom. I support rights to reproductive freedom, from an ideological standpoint, but my comments in effect I guess, in someways contradict that ideological viewpoint.

The "pill" has likely been the invention that has changed culture in so many ways, potentially more so than any other one element of change in the last century. It has paved the way for egalitarianism, that I do support as an individual. But maybe if nature had a voice or a will, it would disagree with me., but I suppose nature might just yell, keep the pills coming, enough humans already..

I completely agree about Temple Grandin, and there are others who come to mind as well. That's the first thing about her that I really noticed, was how supportive her mother and even the rest of her family was every step of the way.

I think if people said that "intelligence, support," and other factors play a role I'd find it easier to agree with than just stating that intelligence makes a big difference. I think maybe it could have made more of a difference for me but it's probably the case that other factors interfered - such as having an abusive parent, and then an abusive partner. Also, my other parent was not abusive but absolutely denied that I was autistic or otherwise impaired and expected me to just bootstrap myself into straight A's. Also, my tendency to burn out easily for long periods of time complicate employment and education to the point that both have been more difficult for me than I prefer.

Social abuse of any type can literally destroy almost any social animal if chronic and severe, with real measurable structural damage to the brain. If you still measure out with the same IQ you had when you were in school, that is an impressive display of the resilience of your brain in that area, approaching middle age.

I can't say mine has been that resilient as a general result of years of high level stress at work. I was never tested in school but suppose it was likely not too low as I graduated in the top two percent of a class of close to 400. What I can say for sure, at least in my case, is that social intelligence is much different than academic intelligence. And it is a skill that can be learned over time if one is exposed to enough people and forced to interact with them.

My three college degrees were of little to no use for me at work; my success or failure was almost entirely based on face to face social skills. Verbal skills were the skills that were prized the most and the skills I had the least of, until technology came along and changed that aspect of life dramatically, as the non-verbal folks seemed to excel above and beyond the verbal folks. I felt a little sense of revenge of the nerds when that happened. .

But, I found it much more difficult to do the social cognition and mechanical cognition stuff at the same time, and now I understand at least in part why as social cognition and mechanical cognition are now understood to have two pathways in the brain, where one pathway is repressed when the other is in use. I can say with almost certainty that almost after two decades working with people that the social cognition pathway, if it could be measured increased from a thread to a water pipe, and my mechanical cognition went from a culvert to a water pipe, or less.

The social cognition part resulted in a marriage that has lasted over two decades, and the ability to communicate at all in writing. I'm a big fan of neuroplasticity, but technology in the workplace mixed in with social demands required at almost the same time are likely a very stressful new way of life, for either those with strong social cognition or strong mechanical cognition.

By the way mechanical cognition is cognition that is associated with a non-animate process. There is a type of social cognition required for working with animals, so that would not be included in that type of cognition. It is obviously much more complicated than breaking down the process into two basic types of cognition, but it is a new area of research in it's infancy.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 1912010646

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 161416.htm

I suspect that many people diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome with extremely high IQ's, at least in part are influenced by the destiny of their IQ, on average, for potential higher rewards for success in the academic arena as opposed to the social arena. It can be difficult to get out into the real world and be expected to have high levels of proficiency today in both areas to compete and be successful in the workplace. No doubt that has something to do with the difficulty that college graduates are having finding work and keeping it regardless of a diagnosis. And I don't think it is much easier for the social folks than it is for the mechanical cognition oriented person, when people are required to do both skills at almost the same time.

Anyway, in light of autism, particularly Asperger's syndrome and HFA, which in a way I think can be influenced by verbal as opposed to performance IQ disparities, the studies above are pretty interesting. It also makes me think it would stand to reason that individuals that were more performance IQ oriented would be less empathic and those with higher levels of verbal IQ would be more empathic in general. I suspect that type of high level of personal distress at other people's pain and emotional hurt, may drive some people away from interacting face to face with others, or make it generally uncomfortable, whereas those that experience lower levels are not as highly motivated to interact with others. But, again I think the process of neuroplasticity impacts this, and one or the other is not necessarily set in stone. Wiki is on top of things now in describing this well, I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy#Co ... ve_empathy

What I've noticed:
-Intelligence does allow for people to develop ways to work around issues that they wouldn't otherwise be able to.
-Support allows people to be able to work around issues that they otherwise wouldn't be able to.
-People do overvalue intelligence a huge amount at times in terms of how much of a difference it makes.
-Some people undervalue support, while others overvalue it. It's often one extreme or the other.
-Certain classes of impairments drastically interfere with the ability to work on other types of impairments. People who have non-standard traits have a non-standard development path to go with it.
-Executive functioning or sensory issues that interfere with self awareness lead to people having a harder time with being able to use some of their strengths in ways that people would expect them to. Self awareness can be specifically interfered with by these issues, and these are overlooked by many, and that is a time that people tend to not be able to improve as much.




What I'd say when it comes to something like what Verdandi is wanting is "According to what Tuttle has observed, when it comes to improvement over a lifetime factors such as how much support the individual has in developing their skills (both the ones they are strong and and those they are weak at), how much they were allowed to act as a successful autistic individual instead of an attempt at a copy of a neurotypical person, how much they were provided tools for their own individual needs, and their intelligence (which does play a part, despite some people wanting to deny it), all will affect how the individual grows and changes, though it is worth note that level self-awareness, both long-term, and in the moment, at social, executive functioning, and even sensory levels, does alter this as well."

Or at least, that's what I'd say for something long. I made that a lot longer than I had been thinking I would when I set out, I just brain dumped.