Is being considered MR a bad thing???

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Because now i am being considered even though i am not because i failed this iq test because i was sleepy,i think i may scored somewhere between 80-85.Is it a bad thing others thinking that i am something that i am not???

what test did you take? my projected IQ is in the high 140s, but I score really low on some of the online ones.

i did the same raven's that its on iqtest.ck but i was SLEEP DEPRIVED,i could nor concentrate nor make complex thoughts on my mind and so i scored i think 82-82 while my real iq is somewhre between 100-105.I did the WAIS-III with a psychologist and i scored 108

If you are referring to that well known internet one, then it's very inaccurate.

IIRC, he means a test he took from the army.

It just means you'll most likely have learning difficulties in specific areas if you also have an ASD. If you don't have an ASD, it means that you'll probably have learning difficulties across most areas. It's not a bad thing at all; it's just a thing that will make schooling harder for you.

I got 58 on the last official one (WAIS-IV); I was overwhelmed and all, but it was still an accurate portrayal of my IQ under basic academic conditions.

IQ tests are stupid.

Most of them have that thing where it says "fill in the missing square", but I never know what it's wanting me to do. Any one of the options could be the missing square, and it never has an explanation.

Danielismyname wrote:

That says a lot about the validity of IQ tests because you are obviously intelligent. Maybe they should just throw them all out.

I think if you took the test in a professional evaluation (ie. a psychologist or whatever testing you), that professional should be aware that circumstances influence performance. Besides, IQ alone doesn't determine if you're MR or not. You should also have significant difficulties with adaptive behavior.

What does MR refer to?

My IQ has fluctuated wildly in my life, and I don't put any stock in the exams. When I was a kid they did a test that compared your biological age to your mental age. First IQ test I ever did was based on linguistics and literacy. I was a seven year old with an adult reading age, and several languages... I won't even tell you what the score was, because it was plainly ridiculously high.

They obviously didn't believe it possible for me to score so highly, so they put me in for a similar test. I was bored to do the same thing twice, and got an IQ of 50.

At this point they realised the test was suspect, and put me in for another test, which had me in the 160s, and there I stayed for the rest of my childhood. When I was at university I was put in for a different test, which scored me in the high 140s. About six or seven years later, I was suffering from severe depression, so amongst other tests they put me in for an IQ test, in which I scored 127. Then, when I was expecting my son, I took part in a research project, where I took an IQ test while pregnant... 152. The week after my son was born, 124. Within the last year I did a job application that required me to do an IQ test, and I got 147.

I've had my IQ extensively examined over the years, and the point is this... these scores don't tell you anything.

My maths score tends to vary between the low eighties to no more than 108. Everything else bounces between 120s to 150s.

This doesn't tell you anything at all about me, other than, perhaps, how I feel on a certain day, and that my maths is far inferior to my other mental functions.

IQ tests, already limited in their ability to accurately measure cognitive function, can be especially suspect in the case of autistic people. We are notorious for having exaggeratedly uneven profiles of abilities. Some might consider the degree of imbalance of abilities a better indicator of the severity of one's autism than the overall functioning level itself, as seriously MR people would be expected in general to be on the low-functioning side even absent autism, while people with high-end IQs often appear to function quite well despite having significant autistic characteristics.

I have had a number of IQ tests over the years. While overall "the number" has not changed much, I have had considerable difficulty with some sections while doing extremely well in others. Even the manner of delivery (hearing vs. reading) has a tremendous effect on my performance. Consistently, I find the section where you see a set of pictures and need to put them in order very difficult. If the analogies are presented in pictures, I usually do quite poorly, as I have a hard time figuring out what the pictures mean - if a picture or image does not match some image in my memory nearly exactly, I can't identify what the object is. If presented in words, I will do extremely well on the analogies, but still quite poorly in sequencing.

At the other extreme, the mental number manipulation is very easy. Numbers and systems are the lingua franca of my brain, and, with number-form synaesthesia, I can remember and manipulate long sequences of numbers quite easily. Even here, the manner of delivery matters big-time. When delivered orally, I am hard-pressed to be able to remember much over 20 digits before beginning to transpose some parts. By contrast, when reading the digits, I can remember well into the hundreds of digits. Judging by how people react, I suspect that this ability must be quite unusual.

As for this thread's topic, being considered MR when you aren't can be a bad thing if people then try to give you inappropriate treatments for it. Back when I was 4, first entering school, I quickly earned season tickets to the principal's office for various daily incidents of misconduct. Adding a near-blind left eye and my general tendency to not talk and to prefer solitude, the school officials were adamant that I was MR, and was incapable of learning the material. If you spot them 100 IQ points, they would almost be right. My oldest brother, two years older, had similar issues and was held back. In response, my mother taught the oldest three of us - I was then three - how to read. Good thing, as I can understand and process written language infinitely better than spoken language, even in one-on-one settings where CAPD doesn't make things even worse. By 4 years old, I could read at a year-3 level and had easily mastered primary school mathematics. It took a year and a half of battling to be called out of PE one day (yay!) and brought back to the class to finish my then-year-1 mathematics exercises for the year. Ten minutes later, the school had to give up the fight - I had finished the year's work effortlessly and accurately. I can only imagine how much worse off I would be if I were considered MR and put in remedial classes, rather than being sent to mathematics and reading classes several grade levels ahead as I eventually was.

Back then, when the term "Asperger's Syndrome" didn't yet exist, the few people that had even heard of autism knew only a stereotype, and even in cases such as mine where it had a profound effect on my ability to learn or even exist in a classroom environment, nobody ever even considered autism as an explanation. Today, at least, a misdiagnosis of MR instead of autism would likely be caught and reassessed at some time, as far more is known today about the various flavours of autism. Still, better to get it right the first time and avoid the hassles.

I've just realised that MR must mean "mentally ret*d."

You do realise that the fact you can contribute to a discussion board, and write coherent English is, in itself, proof that you are not mentally ret*d?

I'm sorry that you've had this slap bang wrong diagnoses stuck on you. Ignore it. It's not you. It's how you responded when flat out exhausted, on one occasion.

Don't worry. Since you are obviously not MR, this diagnoses won't count for anything.

That's interesting, considering there are several members on this site who are MR and either write in perfect English, or have such solid opinions that the bad grammar and word choice doesn't matter. There are also MANY people who don't do/don't have any of these things, and they are certainly NOT ret*d.


As for the main topic, MR isn't a bad thing. It's just people who are insecure about what they perceive to be their intelligence, or their lack of intelligence that want it to be bad. These attitudes are the majority nowadays, and because of that they can hurt you, you'll just have to fight and work your very hardest. That score is just a number, and numbers don't matter. What matters is YOU!

Eh, you can dictate proper diction and enunciate the word education [but fail at it] with an IQ of 50 to 60, easily.

My IQ is far closer to 58, which is mild mental retardation, than normal or above, unless you take me back to grade 4 or give me a Raven's Matrices test now (my cognitive ability regressed around the age of 13 or so, which isn't abnormal for someone with AD).

There's several people on this forum with an IQ of around 60 to 70; you wouldn't know who they are unless they told you.

I just saw Whatsherhame posted while I was writing this.

I also want to say that mental retardation doesn't mean a person with it cannot write coherent English on a forum. Children and adults with MR can learn to read and write coherently. Children with MR can learn to read and write at about the same age as their peers of at least average intelligence too.

Mental retardation is a spectrum like autism is supposed to be too. There are different degrees to it and even children and adults with the supposedly same degree of MR are often able to do different things.

Chief, I took the test you mentioned and I would definitely agree that you wouldn't want to take it in any but the highest form. I was so sleep deprived from my kids that my IQ dropped a significant number for several years, if those tests could be believed... but it wasn't my intelligence that dropped, it was the fact that I was exhausted and distracted and couldn't focus on much.

if I were you I'd rely on the WAIS-III more than on any online test.

Being sleep deprived can seriously lower the score on a IQ test. If you're scored 108 on the WAIS-III then you're a least of average intelligence. Someone can score lower on a IQ test foe a lot of reasons, but they can't score higher unless they training...

Is it because you're see many answers to the questions? Generally you're only supposed to see the "good" answer... You could be "too good" for the tests. (Seen the deep of what you're posting while you're only fourteen... that won't be surprising... ) Next time take the most "obvious" answer.