Rant: Topics on how great ASD people are bothers me

Post Reply New Topic

Many autistic adults take IQ tests such as the Wechsler or Stanford-Binet tests administered by clinical psychologists during their diagnostic assessments, so they know their IQ scores and have detailed reports of their intellectual abilities in adulthood, and some of them have IQ scores in the superior range or above (>130), which is evidence of high intelligence in adulthood.

Some autistic adults didn't take IQ tests during their diagnostic assessments, so they don't know their IQ scores in adulthood, but they did take IQ tests as children, so they know their IQ scores as children, which is evidence of giftedness in childhood, but they may or may not continue to score in the superior range as adults.

Some autistic adults didn't take IQ tests during adulthood or childhood, but they did take assessments of giftedness through their school systems to enter gifted and talented programs in their school systems, and the requirement for entering the programs is top 2% or so, which is evidence of giftedness in childhood, but they may or may not score in the superior range as adults.

="littlebee"]

Is this thread about my thread "Advantages to being an Aspie"?

The labels of giftedness and high IQ are not important to me.

What is important is me doing what I want to do in life to live a happy life for me.

For me, living a happy life means going after my goals using my intellectual abilities and developing my intellectual abilities to my maximum potential.

I don't think that a test or number has much to do with that, and I don't know my IQ.

Also, I have read neurotypical and autistic people posting about their giftedness and high IQ on forums.

The label of gifted and high IQ is important to me. Not in the sense that they grant me any sense of superiority, but that being labeled as such defined how I was treated through school. It was used as evidence against me needing academic assistance, it was used as evidence against me having any learning disabilities or developmental disabilities. It was used as evidence against me, showing that I was "lazy" instead of having often extreme struggles functioning in school. And it was used to tell me - relentlessly - that I was stupid because I didn't live up to the expectations that being gifted and having a high IQ fostered. All of these things had a profound impact on my self-esteem and self image.

I find the discussion surrounding these things on this forum to be extremely frustrating. Not the criticisms of IQ as a concept. I agree with many of those. But rather, the parsing and redefining of the idea of "gifted" to exclude people who may be gifted. But they're not gifted enough because they haven't done something impressive, or that they have a duty to perform good works for everyone else or they require elements that are not actually directly associated with giftedness in order to really qualify as gifted.

Like your diagram about what giftedness should be, which excludes some truly gifted people. When I see that someone is gifted but has an extremely difficult time with motivation I don't see someone who is not really gifted. I see someone who needs support to achieve their goals or potential. If I see someone who hasn't done something great and wondrous, I don't see someone who isn't really gifted, I see someone who has probably faced a lot of adversity and a lack of opportunity to truly shine. Or people say that somehow people "outgrow" giftedness, like as children they may be quite intelligent and gifted, but as adults it goes away (I can't find any evidence that this happens nearly as often as suggested on this forum - perhaps someone could point to an academic source).

When I talk about being gifted here, I sometimes have people putting their burdens on me. Like, because I have been categorized as gifted, I have some kind of responsibility to justify it to them. One individual said that I had never posted anything (that he saw) that he received as profoundly insightful, and thus this meant I wasn't really. But why should I be responsible for how he receives what I write? I'm not here for him, I'm here for me, to discuss and better understand autism and being autistic.

I have described many times on this forum how I was identified as gifted and thus the IQ range I scored within. I don't see any point to continue describing it to someone who seems hostile to the idea of gifted autistic people, or thinks that being gifted must mean something that it doesn't (that is, it doesn't mean being successful in business).

The picture about giftedness is not made by me, but an idear from the author of the paper I linked, and his definition of giftedness is ackshuly more inclusive than most, since he doesn't think that super high IQ is important, but that a person with above average ability can achieve something significant in chosen field by combining intellectual abilities with creative thinking and task commitment, which description in paper reads much like autistic person intensely pursuing special interest.

Growing up, I tested as gifted to be in gifted program with special education plan for myself only while other gifted kids were grouped, but I was too oblivious or ungifted in certain areas to understand that I was gifted or that there were certain eggspectations placed on me because I was gifted, so the label didn't affect me much in negative or positive ways that I can identify today.

What I have that is more important than intellectual ability is high motivation and high confidence, but I am not sure where those came from, as the motivation is intrinsic and not from others, and the confidence has caused my parents to complain that I am overconfident.