Classic Autism yet High IQ?

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It seems like I've dealt with both of the common experiences. When I was young the doctors initially wanted to diagnose me as classic autism, as I fit all the diagnostic criteria, except one. My intellect was too high to diagnose as classic autism, so I was shoved into the AS category.

For a while I was in Special Education classes, falling behind my peers even in that classroom. Whenever it came to testing, somehow I remembered everything I was taught in what had to have been a sub-par education. After being home-schooled for a few years, I went back, entering honors classes right off the bat.

Since then I've been dealing with the odd disparity of mediocre academic performance, yet the lack of any sort of brain-dump after tests. If you gave me a test I took several years ago, my score would be about the same. My ability to learn is mediocre, but I don't forget as easily as everyone else. It means I'm always starting out ahead of everyone else, then slowly falling behind.

At my high school, I was the only one in the entire history of the school district to have been in both special education and AP classes. It's a really odd disparity for me, and I don't quite know how to explain it.

I was just wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences, of low functionality combined with high IQ. It's only because of the years of relentless effort, and my inability to forget things I made a point of remembering, that's helped me this far.

Anyone who told you your IQ was too high doesn't understand that for classic autism IQ is irrelevant. Some of Kanner's patients had gifted level IQs. Nearly all had at least normal. Many people who initially test low end up testing extremely high after getting a communication system.

I am diagnosed with autism. I had an extremely high IQ age five due partly to hyperlexia. I went to gifted classes. But I started hitting a wall during puberty. People thought I was bored so the more I failed at school the higher a grade I was put in. I had a complete crash after attending college in my early teens for a year and was diagnosed then.

I was described as both gifted and low functioning by the same doctor. I don't know what criteria he used for low functioning because I could still talk back then (rare autism related movement disorder took that away, but despite verbosity I had trouble communicating even when I could speak).

These days I get a huge amount of services in order to survive. My IQ dropped to a level of low average or borderline depending on who you ask, by the time I was 22 and by 15 it wasn't gifted level anymore. I get worse at tests as time goes by because I fall further behind the usual with time.

So I have had high IQ and also have a diagnosis of autism rather than AS and been described as low functioning despite my areas of talent. I don't call myself high or low, but people tend to call me low unless they see my writing before they see me.

I've been unofficially diagnosed as a genius even though I tested as "ret*d" by an I.Q. test. On another test, I tested higher. I too have the classic form of autism, but that does not make me a lessor person no matter what the so called "experts" say.

Kanners(classic) autism USED to be limited by IQ. NOW, if you have all the symptoms, but your IQ is too high, they just call it HFA. As I recall, it changed in the 80s. If you are older than say 25, the doctor may have been right about kanners not fitting. But they SHOULD have simply said you were PDD-NOS.

WHY did they put you in remedial classes?

Steve

It wasn't so much remedial, as much as special classes for disturbed children. Even there though, I seemed to be a bit mediocre in catching on, unless it was something that made sense, like math or science.

I'm under 25. I actually just turned 21. I think back then, with different doctors, I would have probably been classified as HFA. The problem is that I've adapted so well, and doctors don't believe me at first when I tell them I have an ASD. They clearly weren't there when I was young, flapping my arms all over and running in circles, on my tippie toes.

Hehe, you ran in circles too? See, if you were a proper stereotypical autie, you would've spun in circles. You weren't doing it right!!

(Sarcasm. Pointed at the fact that many doctors will look at some irrelevant feature and assume it's an obvious indication of something-or-other.)

Plenty of people who aren't actually bad at learning academic stuff still need special education. When you learn in an odd enough way that the typical cookie-cutter classroom isn't going to help, you need special ed whether it means learning to use a fork or learning to use a graphing calculator. In many places, special ed is merged with gifted programs, because both phenomena involve needing a different kind of education (and besides, there's enough kids who are going to need both that it just makes sense, for efficiency's sake, to combine them.)

Wish they did that here. My son's in special ed and could also really use a gifted program. Unfortunately, there's no funding for it.

From reading the ballastexistenz blog, I'm under the impression that many "low-functioning" autistics may have normal-high IQs -- but people generally don't realize it because they don't/can't communicate.

II've been described as moderately functioning ASD by several doctors, and my IQ has been tested from the 170s to the 130s. It depends on the day... my abilities vary greatly.

I think it's probably more correct to say "may have abilities that can't be easily tested"--talking about the IQs of people whose abilities are all over the place and/or change over the years doesn't really mean very much.

I actually did both. It depended on what I was in the mood for. Sometimes spinning helped. Other times I just needed to burn off energy.


The learning wasn't so much an issue as the need for social accommodations. There were a lot of things I couldn't handle, and my IEP was by far used mostly to help deal with my depressive episodes, and the extended periods I was too much of a mess to attend class.

In that district, unless something has changed over the past two-three years, I'm still the only one in the entire history of the district who both worked in gifted classes and depended on an IEP. The kids with problems either avoided honors classes, or did well enough that they couldn't justify accommodations.

You can't be too clever to be classic autism. I know someone who was diagnosed as just autism who's pretty smart, I have good conversations with him because we both share similar intellect even though I'm AS and he's autie.

it really complicates things. i am no where near having classic autism but i have some traits of hfa and some a.s. traits, yet not all of them. i am still somewhat convinced that a.s. and hfa are different, which means that subclinical hfa does not look like a.s., which means that you essentially fit in with no one and you may appear semi normal on the outside and all your problems are invisible until you burn out completely. on the outside, none of my shut downs have interfered with my ability to function on a day to day basis, but my social anxiety makes me feel dead inside.

in my case, people are especially perplexed by someone who has an auditory learning style and a high verbal iq, yet rarely joins conversations, does not think with verbal categories, and can't follow even explicit directions.

My older brother is an LFA Savant, he scores well above average on specialised IQ tests.

A savant? Awsome! What are his talents?

I would like to get better testing...
Back in 1969 (Dark ages in autism) I was 6 and my teacher had me tested.
I can remember the people talking about how I tested.
Hearing was better in one ear, but good hearing on most frequencies. IQ using a normal test 140, but with test for autistic would be higher...
Over all they said with a high IQ it would be better to not label me.
Still I had special ed and speech class in school that had programs..
Over the years I never thought about me being different and strove to be "normal"

I have lived on my own since I was 18, so I guess I'm high functioning.

By the time I was 21 I could take a dead, low grade small business and quickly make it extremely busy, be very politically active and have millions (3+ million said by FL governor, over half of registered voters) of people want me to be their governor and even eventually goto Washington. I could attract beautiful women (but couldn't let any of them get too close) and excel in most ever thing I do... But I can't carry the simplest conversation, let anyone get close to me, ever think like everyone else (except crazy people) and can't do many other simple things that most everyone else can do. Writing and communicating ares extremely painful. I have frequent meltdowns. I drew so much attention when I was 21 that it was over whelming and have NEVER let myself do anything that would repeat it.... Now I just hack everything I can, but I'm running out of new things to learn about. I quit learning about something when I realize that I've never known anyone to know more... I want to live where other languages are spoken and people play instruments...

At 23 (different place) I had college professors believe I was almost most finished with college.. They made funny faces when they learned I was a high school drop out and never been to college.

I have to be a savant.. I do not fit in this world, I have never had a conversation that used all my thinking ability, even for the short spans I can focus..(Very lonely life) and never have seen anyone make a business successful or quickly rise in politics without even trying (6 months, both at the same time). I wish there was a god, so it could do something to me and take it away...............................

Good grief.

Just read the DSM Autism and AS criteria. "IQ" appears nowhere in them.