we know our strengths, but what about our weaknesses

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People on the Autism spectrum are usually gifted learners with specific interests and experts on a particular subject, but at the same time we tend to have extreme weaknesses as well. Regarding learning and/or thinking, what are your weaknesses? I have AS and my number one weakness since I was a kid has always been computers, or to be more general, most physical sciences. What are your weaknesses in the academic fields of learning, and why.

I used to think I was. Now, I no longer do. I'll explain below.



I learned how to read at the age of 3. I was quite interested in things like prehistoric fauna, the solar system, biology, Greek mythology. I read a lot about it and quite some of it stuck with me. I was top of my class throughout my primary school years.

I lost interest in academic topics over the course of my teenage years. From about age 18 onward, I have attempted to resurrect my interests. Now I'm 26, and I have to say I quite failed.

I've developed a liking for linguistics, but I'm by no means an expert on the subject at all. Parts of it interest me, like phonology and morphology, other aspects, like syntaxis, do nothing for me, and as a consequence I know little about them. I'm also interested in foreign languages, and have spent hours bent over grammar books, dictionaries, and language course books on various languages, to try and learn them. I've failed dramatically, which is perhaps most obvious from my lack of fluency speaking both German and French, and my persisting failure to comprehend spoken French. I've attempted to learn Indonesian, which is one of the easiest languages to learn, but still miss big swaths of it at normal speed, unless it's enunciated carefully, like in news reports on TV and radio. I've spent hours and hours on it, with measly results, where others have reported that a crash course of 2 months is enough to make them conversational in the language.

I took exams last year to get the diploma that would grant me access to university. I failed miserably. It was due to lack of proper preparation, I admit. It was a half/half thing; half the exams I just flew through, the other half I struggled with. The real killer were the orla exams. I took 6 out of 12 oral exams before deciding to bail out. I was mostly playing on charm; the examinators for German and sociology for example, took a liking to me and how I presented myself, and I could convince them of a certain mastery of the subject matter, but to the examinators for French and geography, I came across as a complete dumbass. Something else that did me in, were the papers/reports I had to send in. I kind of rushed them, but I was convinced of their merits, only to find out at the oral exams that they simply did not meet the criteria. The whole experience has taken me down a couple pegs.

I'm currently not at all convinced that the IQ of around 130 I supposedly have according to 3 separate IQ tests I've taken, is a figure I should take seriously. I certainly don't feel like a 130 when I look at my own intellectual achievements. I read a lot of books (on limited subjects), but I hardly ever pluck lots of information from them that I retain. I've all but lost my earlier interest in studying wildlife, as well as my interest in (and enjoyment of) drawing, which was my main creative activity from early childhood, and I feel I never got very good at that either.

I am easily distracted by pretty women.

Women. Yuck.

My academic weakness is in the field of mathematics. I was diagnosed with dyscalculia at the age of twelve.

Reading fiction, watching fiction too: I cant follow the story plot
Umm remembering lectures, I started recording my lectures

My major weakness is: Friendships and relationships.

I never had a relationship and I predict I will never have one. I just seem unable to approach a person of interest (so far I only had one and to get my attention such a person must fullfill certain criteria). Some may say this is a pessimistic view, but honestly, this is a realistic view. I check my social skills before I judge something like that and they are clearly bad.

I have friends though, I just wonder for how long... Their interest changed to party (typical "late teenage syndrome" as I call it), drinking, drinking and party. I cannot participate in their events, I hate parties and I see no point in getting drunk. Memory loss, acting like a fool (as if I don't make enough social mistakes without alcohol). For this reason, other than at school I didn't meet with them since a full year and soon is my birthday and I don't know what to do. I'm not a party animal and I fear I won't be able to satisfy their needs, if I'm going to celebrate it...

Having and keeping friends and getting what I say understood.

Not to detract from you guys' stories, but the OP says 'weaknesses in the academic fields of learning', not weaknesses overall.

Peace, you guys.

I am pretty bad with a lot of mathematics, I can count money fairly easily. Reading a clock takes a lil time. But anything higher than basic algebra is tough for me. Plus I forget a lot of what I was taught. I loved History, especially older history (1600's and back) but I can't remember most of it, so I just find it pointless.

I've had some setback the last couple years, between meds and whatever else, I have a hard time concentrating on things and I get frustrated and brain fried when trying to do research, work, reading, etc.

I suck at writing essays.

I think the title could easily be "we know our weaknesses, but what about our strengths".

For me, as it is for many people with low self-esteem and/or depression, there is rarely a problem with not knowing our weaknesses.

Depending on who you are you might have more trouble recognizing your strengths.

Maybe it should read "do we have a full picture of our abilities".


Addressing the subject, I'd fail any academic test in any subject under time pressure.

Academically speaking, my biggest weakness is visual-spatial abilities. I have NVLD, and math and visual-spatial tasks have always been my downfall. But I work at it as best as I can, and I have definitely approved over the years. Just have to keep trying.

Whoops, my bad. Had a pretty stressy day.

So to re-answer the question: I am not aware of any. It could have been that psychology was an academic weakness here, but then again, it could have been the teacher or the way the tasks in the exams were, my verbal mark was actually quite good. I had psychology for just one year anyway and just with that one teacher, so I don't know.

If anything my weakness lies in creativity. I'll probably never be a professional writer, nor a painter, composer, architect or anything else that would require me to come up with stuff out of nothing. Still I'm hesitant to call it a weakness because I'm not worse than average at it, it's just that I'm amazingly good at everything else academic.
My real weaknesses aren't directly academic, but do affect my performance greatly. These are the social issues, the need for rigid routines, noisy classrooms rendering me unable to listen to the teacher... It's those things that are the bottleneck, not my creativity.

I have found Endocrinology to be exceedingly difficult.