Are you cognitively erratic?

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I put my fluctuations down to (performance) anxiety/mood/pressure/stress etc.

Sometimes I just say "I do things in fits and starts" and let it be.

Anyone who understands the concept of being "cognitively erratic" has nothing wrong with their cognition.

"Mediocre" just means "average", or "adequate".

If you see-sawed between "brilliant", and "ret*d" then THAT would be interesting.

But see-sawing between a little above average to barely average is...what most normal folks do. Hardly worthy of being commented upon.

I give up. The fact that you' and no doubt others, have reduced it to 'little above average to barely average' means I'm flogging a dead horse with this thread. There's an insurmountable communication barrier.

I have been horribly erratic in my cognitive abilities all my life

When I learned about my autism and had tests for sensory processing I learned that I had only 25th percentile visual processing and 35th percentile auditory processing!
I understood why I was constantly misunderstanding conversations, person to person or group interactions that I observed or participated in, lectures at school, videos, movies, and so much more.
I only had cognition of part of everything that happened when I saw or heard it.

My sensory processing has a glitch and I only "get" parts of things I see or hear.

My cognition is almost 100 percent if I can read and/or write about it.
No wonder I have always felt confused and "out of it" I was completely out of it. Nobody knew.

My sensory processing does not work the same as everybody else's.

Maybe sensory processing issues are at the heart of the cognitive troubles. ??????????

It hasn't fixed a thing for me, but now I know about that, I can give myself some accommodations and skip the stuff that is really hard for me to do.

Now I know why It is so hard for me and that has been a huge relief!

How ones cognitive ability can fluctuate from day to day i.e lacks consistency. I've had 3 attempts at a test created by a psychometrician of the type ' Which is the opposite of wild?' -1)c 2)t 3)z 4)f or of the type 'Which is the same as napkin?'- 1)q 2)v 3)s 4)h 1st attempt -14th October 2020 111, 2nd attempt- 7th November 2020 135, 3rd attempt- 19th May 2021 157 23 questions -20 minutes

Practice effect can account for some improvement, i.e around 3-5 IQ points, but nothing like 20+. With the 1st attempt I struggled to think of possible words. My ability to bring suitable words to mind that would fit the choices slow as can be. My 2nd attempt the thinking wasn't particularly fast or slow. The 3rd attempt it was like someone had turbo boosted my brain. Suitable words were coming to mind very quickly. I did the 20 minute test in about 15 minutes.

I'm interested in how consistent the quality & speed of thought of members here is. Whether such inconsistency is more likely to occur in an autistic person.

I would think it is. There are things in general that seem to impact us more than they impact others and that in return will impact our ability to do things like problem solve, pull words out of our heads, connect those metaphorical dots, hell even function in basic ways in regards to life tasks.

Take for example, an adherence to routine. Say you have to go someplace to be tested, that place is likely to be new. Now your day isn't going to go as it normally does and toss in an unfamiliar environment and new people, and I don't know about anyone else, but for me, those kinds of things right there are enough to wreck me for the day. I wouldn't be able to finish that test even if it was something that would ordinarily be easy for me. Something I would normally ace, I would fail or at least struggle with if I could get my brain to focus for at least part of it. However, if the person administering it were to see me struggling to maintain and say hey, why don't we try this again later. The second time I would likely do better because none of it was new to me. I already met the person, saw the room I would be in, knew where the place was, and had a morning where this happened before.

But it's not only dependent on newness for me. If I had a day that was busy or stressful for me, that day would be wrecked for me, my ability to think and function would be lacking. The next day, maybe even next two or three days would also suffer. If I can practice self care consistently for a few days in a row, I'm fine. My brain cooperates with me, as much as it does, my short term memory is pretty much always shot these days, but still, I seem alright enough. Then there is a noise/external crap factor that plays in for me. I have sensory issues and that short circuits my brain as well.

I mean, there are so many things that impact me... those are the things that make autism a disability for me. This stuff isn't a problem for me socially (I don't care much about the social impact I should say, it does impact me socially but in the big picture that is insignificant to me), it's the other stuff that gets me. It is fair to mention, I am not high functioning, so maybe that is part of it. Maybe higher functioning people don't have issues to this degree, like I do. I have no clue. It makes me nuts sometimes, it truly does. How I can go from one day being able to put two and two together, to another day where my brain can't form the steps to do basic tasks, including forming words to be able to accurately express ideas... just damn. And I do believe my executive functioning issues, my sensory issues, my aversion to change, things like this, are related to autism.

TLDR

Yeah, I think inconsistencies like this are going to be autism related for some of us. Those of us who have such things, anyhow. How could they not be, to at least some degree? And yeah, I think we are more likely to have such things happen than your average non autistic person. With a few exceptions, of course, people who have ADHD or anxiety, for example... which seem to be common enough in people on the spectrum too.

I would have had a problem with “serviette” for “napkin” had I not traveled to Europe....

Seriously, I am “cognitively erratic.” My overall cognitive awareness varies widely, frustrating my wife no end.

circumstances cause a lot of variance in performance too. Somebody standing right over me wanting answers quick fast right away causes me to lock up and not be able to access thought processes at all. Something I have practiced before becomes easier (usually but not always) the more I perform that thing. If I am expected to complete something with a timer and knowing the alarm will sound at some point while I am working, that will shut me down. Difficult surroundings with distractions, noise, things going on in the background, etc will make performance vary, usually it gets worse. I guess its not just one or two specific "things" but a whole series of conditions that might make one performance of a certain test different from another.

Thanks- some very good comments.

My uncle is diagnosed bi-polar. His father is my grand father - from a genetic stand point I have about 25 pct of my grandfather's genes and he has about half. Are my 25 pct a subset of his 50 pct or some other grouping - I really don't know but let's just say he and I share some genes. Same logic applies for the his mother. My dad and his four brothers (only brothers) all have some kind of challenge. From time to time I read up on bi-polar and from what I can gather - no-one really knows how it works. There are a few things known. When someone is bi-polar they have a manic phase and a depressive phase. Even the "in-between" phase isn't "normal" - there are studies that have itemised some of the differences.
bi-polar is in some ways related to epilepsy - and people who are bi-polar are often given a type of medication called an "anti-convulsion" which has the purpose of reducing "brain storms". When someone is manic the treatment is to give a type of medication called an "anti-psychotic" - this is a different medication than the "anti-convulsant" and - primarily - the mechanism of an "anti-psychotic" is to reduce dopamine levels. Most of the medications for ADHD have the purpose of increasing dopamine levels - which increases focus - at least that is the idea. The real question is - why do the dopamine levels for someone who is bi-polar go up to an unhealthy level - why don't they stay in healthy ranges? There seems to be some OTHER mechanism which is supposed to govern the dopamine levels which is not working correctly. With ADHD the behaviors called "inattentive" and "hyperactive" seem to be very much related to executive function. And the correct function of executive function seems to be (in one way of thinking) the goal of the medication treatment for ADHD. Both ADHD and ASD have EF issues (so does Parkinson's and other conditions). I read one study that showed that the specific executive functions which are impaired in ASD are slightly different than those that are impaired in ADHD. There are just as many studies that document the EF issues with ASD as studies showing EF issues with ADHD.
So this leads me to the following hypothesis: the really issue in ASD and ADHD is disregulation of dopamine and other neuro-chemicals. It is not that the levels are too high, or two low but the mechanism that is supposed to govern them that is out of wack. And - the same is true with bi-polar. The analogy I use is diabetes - the real issue is not high blood sugar, or low blood sugar, but the system which is supposed to govern blood sugar is out of wack.
If my hypothesis is correct that would explain the differences I experience in both focus and metal sharpness from day to day. But I am no expert - and the details are likely to be more complicated than that.