Do ALL people with AS have above average intelligence?

Post Reply New Topic

I think we Aspies don't have more or less intelligence than NTs, we just have a different kind of intelligence.
___________________________________________________________________________

Not everything that steps out of line, and thus 'abnormal', must necessarily be 'inferior'.
Hans Asperger (1938)

So, TLPG, you disagree with:
The DSM-IV
Tony Attwood
Wikipedia
Dozens of Scientific and Medical Journals
The Media

As to the level of intelligence shown by an IQ test in order to be diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome.

It is hard to take someone seriously about their sources if they don't actually say it. So evidently, you have someone who's willing to divulge information on the new DSM telling you the highlights of the Autism sections? I don't buy it. Either it's not true, your source is lying, or you're doing something wrong. I wonder what the organization handling the DSM-V has to say about moles or about people sneaking peeks ahead of time.

I think that hashing out a new diagnostic criteria, with no new evidence to support it, will simply be causing un-neccesary chaos and revisions. Can you imagine the paperwork involved in re-diagnosing everyone currently diagnosed with Aspergers? Or will they simply ignore the people and their symptoms of AS, in favour of a checklist of IQs? "I'm sorry, but despite being a classic example of AS, your IQ isn't high enough. You're PDD-NOS, because you aren't smart enough to have this diagnosis. Start playing the flute and get a degree, and we'll be more than happy to diagnose you with AS."

It's silly. Proper testing is proper testing. AS isn't going to start acting different all of a sudden, now is it?
And you used an online test to verify that someone was Autistic a little while ago. I think it's hypocritical that you used the online test to validate that you thought she was autistic, and then to turn around here and discard the validity of online tests.

OK, now we're getting to the heart of where you are getting it wrong in your interpretation, Daniel.

You speak of speech impediments. The experiments show that the issue is NOT speech. You are looking at the symptom, not the cause. The cause is comprehension (ie storybook etc).

So you still haven't proven anything. You talk about speech, when it's comprehension that's the problem.

The effect is deficits in speech and language, the cause is autism/Asperger's (with Asperger's being less severe).

When you see a person with Asperger's pause mid-sentence, mix their words up and/or stutter (plus the many other "odd" things that are a part of autism/Asperger's), it's due to the AS itself. Both articles relate to the aforementioned deficits (different causes).

I'd like to see what you class as an impediment. Tongue thrust? Being able to say "three" properly is far less impeding than being unable to complete a sentence (I have both; the former was easily fixed, the latter..., nope).

I would believe having difficulty expressing oneself with spoken words, due to stuttering, getting "stuck" on words, pausing unusually and the like is a speech impediment. The cause is irrelevant, the effect is difficulty in communication, aka an impediment. Considering that, as a general thing, people with AS learn language at a normal rate it is not a matter of a learning impediment.

That people with AS generally have an average/above average IQ would be connected to using the brain differently. Some may have difficulty getting what they want across in the test so may actually be smarter than what the test suggests. Some may think on things that dont really improve their mental acuity (like depression or desperately wanting to fit in). Others may be interested in things that measure well on IQ tests, so score higher. However most with AS dont connect with and hold social bonding to a high regard. "Normal" people can be smarter and dumber too but a lot spend more energy on social development, which isnt something tested in the average IQ test. Thus they can be smart in their own way (socialising) yet score average on IQ tests where AS people score average to above average.

A speech impediment is anything that disrupts normal speech; Asperger's/autism does this.

Granted, the correct [and possibly] pedantic term is a "language impediment", but the two can be used interchangeably (it's all linguistics).

Do you happen to have any articles that state those with Asperger's have "normal" language (echolalia is common in Asperger's too)?

Here you go (Asperger's can affect both of these):

Speech disorders refer to problems in producing the sounds of speech or with the quality of voice, where language disorders are usually an impairment of either understanding words or being able to use words and does not have to do with speech production.

Speech and language disorders

I rest my case. Now you get the idea.

no, autism is a form of retardation