Intelligence as the great equalizer

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I am not sure I have a high IQ as that was tested and assesse when I took my dyslexia test so does my friend who has Aspergers as well I see it like this Aspies are obsessed with a particular topic so if it is a topic of interest to the NT population and they see it s particularly intelligent. Basically the Aspie Geniuses are smarter than the NT ones.

Also, it would only be an issue if you could demonstrate that ASD individuals were somehow different than the normed population in test taking. For example, we don't norm IQ tests differently for males and females because we don't believe that those populations differ in test taking ability.

I think they tend to be smarter in different ways. HFAs have a tendency to be specialists, vis a vis high functioning NTs tend to be more generalists. The more specialist a suject, the more it seems to attract academic HFAs, whose interests are often more arcane and focused on a particular specialities or aspects of them. HFAs (you could say) have a tendency to want to know everything about a particular something; their counterpart highly gifted NTs seem to want to know something about a general everything. Of course there are exceptions (there are always exceptions) and it is a broad but not exclusive truth at best.

Thank you, ProfessorJohn and cookieman. I really needed to hear this today. It has been a rough few days... but I am smiling on.

Yes, but, if I am allowed to be in my AS-me mode for a few moments (which I have almost never allowed myself to express until recently, when the light-bulb finally started sputtering to life and I finally began to realize the AS-me -- hallelujah!) -- what does 'totally' mean? I know I am belaboring some abstract point and I hope I don't piss people off, but that statement STILL doesn't make sense to me (just as 'totally dumb' also doesn't make sense to me. It is impossible to be 'totally' anything unless one is a prime number... OK. Aspie ranting over.

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This is an interesting part of the conversation. Care to elaborate? (That is not a snarky comment).

Not all Aspies across the world have obsessions. Not all Aspies across the world are savants, either. Some are more NT-socialized (particularly if female), and learn to (or are wired to -- who knows?) exist without feeding into obsessive tendencies (or develop 'obsessions' that are not openly marked as such, e.g. reading books over and over, or knitting, or cooking, or baking). The 'obsessive Autistic' stereotype is built from a primarily male (and White/Western) representation/perspective, and is just as limiting a claim as the one that all ASD people are dumb (the context of the T-shirt ad that started this entire thread). ASD in the West, which comprises pretty individualistic cultures, is differently molded than in more community-based cultures, where a marker of ASD may, or may not, be a matter of having obsessions, depending on how open minded and inclusive of 'difference'/'obsessive' the culture is What is labelled an 'obsession' in one culture might very well be labelled 'passionate pursuit of knowledge' in another, and thus may be differently valued.

Disclaimer -- not being aggressive or challenging here. Just presenting another point of view (which I just happen to believe is valid. )