Aspergers and low intelligence?

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It's weird, the Aspies I've met in real life were the rain-man type Aspies (and they were supposed to have Aspergers, not regular autism.) On the board, it seems everyone has master's degrees and great jobs.

Am I the only Aspie over 25 on the board who couldn't handle college for various reasons - lack of ability in math and science...lack of interest in general in doing 50 pages of reading a night for one class...being bored and drifting off in the classes in general? I was in the advanced classes other than math and science...and other than math and science I got all As and Bs with the occasional C...same thing with community college for the most part...I had a 2.9...and that's even with taking an F in a class that I stopped going to the second week because the professor terrified me. When I went to get my bachelor's...I couldn't even handle 3 classes at a time...due to those factors I mentioned. I felt like the people in basic and standard classes in high school must have felt...completely overwhelmed.

So any other Aspies over 25 on here that don't have anything more than an associate's degree, if even that?

I'm interested in hearing replies. My guess is that there is not a large number that have master's degrees and great jobs. I went to college (I'm not diagnosed for but I know what my struggles are) but I went to art school and that was not the same kind of pressure as say as BS degree. I don't think I could have managed it. I have family members with graduate degrees and doctorates and I know the kind of pressure they are under. They may be quirky and smart but they have no trouble with socialization and negotiating the competition for positions. I know I do not have the stamina for that. My executive dysfunction limits me a lot too.

I'm not over 25 but I couldn't complete HS, even going half-days. A lot of people on here are self-diagnosed, and this is the internet so people are prone to bragging or even over exaggerating. I don't see how not being able to get a college degree equates one to RAIN MAN status though. Asperger's is just (high-functioning) autism without a speech delay.

I'm not diagnosed with Asperger's, just autistic. But I could not get through either high school or college despite trying both (really long story, really unusual circumstances). And I don't have any kind of job. I don't know that I believe in the concept of "intelligence" the way most people do so I can't say if mine is high or low.

I made a video on how not all aspies are maths nerds. Its a stereotype.

I've met some stupid aspies in my time and aspies are just as varied in intelligence as NTs.

I have a university degree which I scraped through, not because of intelligence level but because of my appaling attention span.

Can I ask you what made these Aspies "stupid" in your eyes?


Is it just because they weren't good at math and science?

I am well-over 25 and all I have is an AA degree liberal arts. I obtained this degree with course substitutions (which I was eligible for because I have documented learning disability which manifests in the academic setting as problems with math) in math. I also received A's and B's in all my other classes with the occasional C. I didn't really try to hard at math though, but i'm not saying i'm potentially good at it and that my failures at it are entirely due to lack of effort.


I just got frustrated and felt incredibly stupid trying to do simple algebra when everyone seemed to have few problems with it. I pretty much gave up after two attempts at intro algebra and dropped the class both times before I received an F. I never sought out tutoring, never tried any alternative ways to learn it, nothing. Without going into too many details about my own "intelligence", all I can tell you is that i've scored between the high average-very superior range on five out of seven of the professionally-administered IQ i've taken. I score squarely average on another (104) and on the low-ish end of average (94) on one more.


No matter what my full scale scores....there has ALWAYS been a large discrepancy (as large as 57 points on my most recent IQ test) between my verbal and performance IQ scores in favor of verbal. This is pretty common for people with AS/NVLD.


I do plan on going back to college in January at the ripe old age of 41. I am eventually going to take math again and this time i'll succeed if it kills me and the whole d**n universe along with me.

That doesn't make someone stupid necessarily, but there are a lot of things that go into being stupid.

Their behaviour and the things they said and did. The same way as you can see stupidity in normal people.

Its nothing to do with what subjects they're good at. If someone acts like a ditz they're stupid until proven otherwise imo.

Last edited by hale_bopp on 29 Aug 2010, 7:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I wasn't saying it makes someone stupid.....I was asking hale_bopp if she felt this would make someone stupid.

I really don't understand why so many people think only one person can answer a question.

Gotcha...fair enough. Stupidity is pretty subjective. Consider the late "Craigslist killer" (you may not know about this considering your location...big story in the US) Philip Markoff. He was a brilliant (by all accounts...most of them very reliable) medical student, but he made many inexpressibly stupid mistakes during the commission of his crimes.

His mistakes were so stupid that I can't possibly imagine how he thought he was going to get away his crimes.

That is....IF he thought he was going to get away with them. I almost think he wanted to be caught on some level.


Markoff recently commited suicide in his cell so there's one less murderous sociopath in the world.

*bites tongue on the self-diagnosis thing, not going there, not going there*

Aspies are like everyone else...with a RANGE of intellectual and academic abilities. I happen to have been academically successful but absolutely SUCK at interpersonal interactions, "reading people", etc. There are many who haven't been able to be academically successful, and many others who have been moderately so. It just stands to reason that in ANY group of people within the "not mentally handicapped" group, there will be a range of ability to perform in an academic setting. I also have epilepsy, and I've had ppl throw stereotypes at me about that (the opposite, that it's associated with *low* intelligence, which isn't true either). I prefer to look at ppl with AS like I do at ppl with epilepsy, as individuals.

~Kate

Ummm....I DON'T think that. I wasn't asking her to answer the question because I don't have MY OWN answer for it. I was asking because I wanted to see what HER answer would be. I was motivated to do so simply because the definition of "stupidity" is subjective and/or contextually-based.

...

Last edited by Willard on 01 Sep 2010, 11:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What did he do?

Murdered people?