why are people with aspergers generally very smart?

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I'm not sure. I guess the only real option open to us is to do scientific research.

But, seriously, I don't think the concept of intelligence makes any sense. One of my aunts has never had any schooling beyond elementary school (after that, she only got home school, or whatever the English word is, where you get taught how to be a nice wife). Yet I still consider her very intelligent. In fact, I can't think of anyone whom I'd characterise as stupid. I've helped a person with math who couldn't repeat a simple operation on her calculator after I showed it to her ten, twenty times, but I wouldn't consider her stupid. After all, who's the one that looks stupid when you give me an empty stapler and I can't figure out how to put in the new ones, or when you give me an orange and I have no idea how to get orange juice out of it (both happened to me. I assure you I still feel pretty stupid about them).

Each human being has about the same brain size. Everybody just uses it for different things. If Aspies are more intelligent, it is because our definition of intelligence is skewed towards Aspies (IQ tests do generally seem to favour Aspies, with their focus on pattern recognition).

Exactly. There are many different forms of intelligence. I can describe in detail the docking process with the international space station and I understand how it works, but I couldn't even figure out how to unlock a simple gate last week.

We tend to appear to be smarter because we're all at least somewhat hyperlexic. That doesn't actually mean we're smarter though. While we tend to remember details much more precisely, we often miss the big picture, and have trouble with comprehension and summarizing.

What I consider to be real intelligence has nothing to do with being NT or AS. What is true intelligence? Common sense. The ability to reason without relying solely on knowledge.

This.

A lot of interesting posts here.
Also, people with low IQ are diagnosed as LFA instead of AS. It's kind of the same as taking an average IQ test from people who wear green t-shirts, but then excluding everyone with low intelligence. Of course your average will be higher.
Or at least that's what I think, I don't know anything about the neurological reasons behind why somebody would be AS or LFA or autistic in general, so my opinion probably does not carry a lot of value here.

I stroly believe it's from our commonly found special interests. I know a lot more about how some pieces of technology work because I use them for my special interest.

No need to take offense if you know it isn't true. Just feel pity for people who are a perhaps a little full of it and eating up the aspie elitism in order to cope with the frustration of being different in a world that can be hostile to differences.

Of course I have elitist misanthropic slightly full of it moments myself when I get wound up over societal crap that annoys me, so feel some pity for me too. I've just managed to ween myself off using the term "NT" to describe what annoys me about people as there's no need to alienate potential allies.

Maybe we're generally very smart because we don't waste time with meaningless chatter or other rituals of socialization, and instead immerse ourselves in learning useful things.

I've read that the average IQ for people with Asperger's is somewhere around 85.
I don't have links, though.

i-robot...no thanks

I understand why Dunbots found this thread offensive,

The reality is the AS label is based on psych testing and anybody who understands psychometric tests is that they are highly prone to subject bias and error with regard to validity construct.

In psychology ,many traits or disorders are really a constructs and may be a reflection of a snapshot observation of a person that may not necessarily predict temporal regression, developmental improvement or comorbid issues that impact on IQ.

The prevailing attribute error people make is to assume that AS = smarter than average. My understanding is Aspergers diagnosis can include people with IQ > 70 but less than 100 (average IQ for NTs).

I think people need stop obsessing over attributes associated with this label, we are all different intelligence and quite capable of improving or going backwards depending on other underlying factors.

Personaly, I'm only "so smart" in areas that intrest me. I think it's becuase I throw everything into learning about my obsessions.

I don't find this offensive because I think it's a legitimate good question. I've often wondered it myself.

Personally I have lopsided knowledge. I know many things but don't really grasp most math and science concepts. Sometimes I feel really smart though, in a bad way, like it's too much to process and driving me insane. Sometimes I think that I see my therapist trying to keep up with me when I'm talking to her. I also appear ditsy in general before people get to know me and then when they see me doing something that they don't know how to do they are shocked that I can actually do some stuff.

Me too. Now that I've already read so much on it I've moved onto to books about people who were rumored to have it but accomplished noteworthy things in the hope of learning something worthwhile from them.



I agree. I hate that they make it seem uncool to learn new things. I have always had a tendency to use odd words and as a teen when one friend was trying to ask me what some of them meant and actually learn we were both ridiculed, which seemed ridiculous to me.

Recently I heard a guy sing a song at karaoke that I hadn't heard before so I asked him the name of the song and artist so I could listen to it again in the future. He told me and basically apologized for it being a singer from a long time ago, as if it were bad for younger people to actually know something about past musicians.

Do they actually make sense? I've seen some lists but they mostly consist of "one random trait which may or may not be AS-related" and then "he must've had AS!"

Not that I wish to dissuade you from seeing examples in others, it's just that I think it's dangerous to diagnose dead people.

Making a search in Google Schoolar about "Asperger +mean IQ"

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=asp ... as_sdtp=on

We find many studies about AS where is indicated the mean IQ of the subjects of the study. In many case, the value is in the 95-110 range (above average, but nothing significant).

This could mean two things:

- if the subjects of these studyes are choosen radomly, these could mean that the "average IQ" of aspies is somewhere in that range

- or could simply mean that, in many of these studies, the researchers had the preocupation of choosing subjects with "normal" IQ (probably to avoid doubts about "this is caused by asperger or by his annormal intelligence")

I'm smart in the subjects that interest me. I read so much about them, and collect many facts on them.