90% aspies have normal intelligence despite what they think

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I read that almost all (in other source it actually said 99%) aspies have normal intelligence despite the fact that most think they are very intelligent themselves. It was said that they apparently appear intelligent because of their good long term memory and extensive research on interested topics. Also some would score high on IQ tests because of the visual reasoning parts (those would be visual thinkers)
unfortunately I don't remember the sources but if you look up on the internet you are going to find it.
also it would count aspie/hfa/pdd because there is really no considerate difference on the diagnosis but some places give the asperger label for the most intelligent ones so...
is it true? What do you think?
if you don't think it is true no answer as "no because I am really very intelligent" please it doesn't count as evidence against the above claim.

I think 90% of people are less intelligent than they think they are.

I wish I thought I was a genius. It would be a nice delusion to live with.

Entirely aside from Asperger's Syndrome, there is a caveat to such a statistic and here's why. Intelligence is multi-faceted with many parameters. A certain individual might be exceptionally good at, say, working memory tasks or analytical thought (or whatever) yet not in another.

The issue is that Aspies are known for having a really 'jagged learning curve.' For instance, I knew one Aspie in high school who was gifted. He was super at mathematics and history, earning the highest marks, yet he practically flunked out of English literature. Overall, he was a C student. Did this accurately reflect his ability? No....in fact, his teachers discussed this when he was applying to universities, giving him a boost with their own recommendations given his exceptional case.

In sum, assessing any given Aspie's intelligence based on a single quotient number may not be too meaningful. Besides, unsure of where the data you gave came from - there are plenty of studies and not all are sound or even reproducible. So I'd take that stat with a grain of salt.

Edit: To make matters even more complicated, there is huge variability amongst 'on the spectrum' individuals. Taking the mean of such a great variability is not indicative of much.

Last edited by LabPet on 15 Mar 2014, 5:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The average IQ of people with Asperger's syndrome is average, NOT gifted or above average.

To technically meet the criteria for Aspeger's syndrome you had to have "no global cognitive delay". Global cognitive delay is intellectual disability so the diagnosis excluded people with ID. Now in North America Asperger's, classic autism and PDD NOS are gone from the diagnostic manual and we're all under the same category of autism spectrum disorder. The average IQ of someone with autism spectrum disorder would be below average because it includes people with classic autism and PDD NOS many of whom have co-morbid intellectual disability.

Edited to add- Even though the average IQ score of people with AS is average there could still be more people with AS that are gifted than people in the general population but that would mean there were also more people with AS who have below average intelligence. Even though Asperger's excluded those with intellectual disability, you could still have a lower end of the average range IQ and be diagnosed with AS. The average IQ is calculated as a mean and the mean sometimes hides the variability in the distribution of the scores. If lots of people with AS score as at the very lowest end of the average range and lots also score as gifted then the average IQ could still come out as average. However, I think I read in a book by Tony Atwood that there weren't any more gifted people on the spectrum than in the general population. I'm not too sure.....

Last edited by daydreamer84 on 15 Mar 2014, 5:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

How do the people who wrote that define "intelligence" ? It is one of these words that have to be defined before you can have any discussion about them, because people have widely different idea of what it means, or even have no idea what they mean when they use it.



Well, as I was saying it depends on what you mean by intelligence. But if you don't have any preconception about it and, for example people told you you are intelligent, you score well on "intelligence" tests, you have a good academic record, and you are good at what is generally considered to require "intelligence" (chess, any high level academic pursuit, intellectually demanding jobs, etc.), it may seem reasonable to think of yourself as intelligent. Whatever the causes of what makes you perform well in tests, look clever, etc. the result is that you "fit the bill" to be considered "intelligent".

My personal opinion is that intelligence is not a useful word, because it is a pain to define, it is impossible to measure, and therefore it is almost only used to establish social hierarchies and make judgements about people. And since, as was my point, there is no commonly accepted precise definition of what "intelligence" is, those judgements are almost guaranteed to be completely biased and useless and to only reflect the personal preferences and whims of the person emitting them. Globally I think comparing people's "intelligence" is not an interesting topic for discussion, and I often wonder why people give it so much importance. Of course you can have very interesting debates on the nature of intelligence, but to me it is mostly philosophy, not psychology or physiology

On the other hand, tests measure things, they follow a well documented methodology (the good ones at least), and they provide data that can be directly analysed, compared and discussed. The problem is that what they measure, while factually well defined, is not very clear, and the link those scores can have to high-level psychological and philosophical concepts such as intelligence is mostly subjective. In other words, I think tests can be interesting because they give some quantitative data that allows to measure some differences between people, but ultimately they give more questions than answers.



And to sum up, as George Brassens said (initially in French), "To recognize you are not intelligent, you would have to be intelligent."

i have a very low iq and i am not even averagley intelligent. i know that because the doctors wont even diagnose me, even though it is blatently obvious that i am on the autistic spectrum, it wasnt my upbringing because my sister was brought up in the same upbringing and she hasnt got anything wrong at all she is perfectly Nt.

i do sometimes have clever moments, like when i wanted my husband to take me to a festival thing called erotica, and he didnt want to take me because he thought it might be too intense for me. i had never been to one of them before and i decided to try to change his mind without him realising. so i tried to play more stupid than i normally would, and embarrass myself and his friends out in public what were over things that were related to this erotica place, and that got my husband and his friends begging me to come with them to erotica so i could get a taste of what it really is, also for a 'punishment' for embarrassing them. that was the plan, and when they found out that i done that on purpose just to make them change their minds and take me to this place, they felt like jackasses.

but i suppose in another way thats a dumb thing to do because its not the right way to behave. some things are clever but stupid at the same time.

I remember a boy at High School who seemed very intelligent in some ways but was put on the special ed table. He was a nice boy, and he was very, very good at art, he was good on the piano (he taught himself), he could make brilliant things out of wood and metal and other materials like that (he had an excellent creative mind), and he was very detail-orientated and came out with some very clever facts what I learned off of him. But he was very slow at reading and writing, and needed extra help with maths, which was why he was put in the special ed group. I thought he was a very amazing boy. But he didn't seem nerdy or Aspie though, he wasn't that shy either, but he did hang out with the girls more than he did with the boys, although he did start to hang more with the boys when he got older, and was very accepted and wasn't socially awkward in any ways.

I know a lot of people annoyingly say ''oh it was probably the upbringing'' but you can't always look at it that way every time an NT shows a few Aspie traits or an Aspie shows a few NT traits. This boy had 2 brothers at the same school (one older and one younger) who seemed just NT-average.

You can't just say "I read it on the internet, search and you'll find it"!

I did do a search, and it seems around 25% of autistic people have IQs that make them intellectually disabled.

It would be very hard to find enough autistic people to determine something about 99% of them. You'd need to survey about 10% of the autistic population. 95% is much easier.

I knew the discussion would end up being "what is intelligence?" but I decided not to cite it on the introductory post hoping this complex question would not show up. Specially because that is not what I wanted to discuss here. But maybe it is inevitable, considering the topic
well, despite the fact that for me intelligence has to do with analyzing and associating ideas, I agree it is a very difficult thing to define what it is. But for me it is clear to see what it isn't , and that would be rote memorization skills.

Most likely, from what I hear people tend to overestimate themselves in everything, from intelligence to physical attractiveness. However, some of the traits you list in the OP don't just imitate intelligence, long-term memory, problem solving and extensive research are all components that make up intelligence itself. Nevertheless, I think AS people probably have a similar IQ spread to NT's.

Myself, I know this is the Internet and so anyone can big up a number to make themselves sound smart but apparently I'm in the top 0.5% of the population for IQ, so looks like I'm one of the lucky Aspies

Last edited by Jojopa on 15 Mar 2014, 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In my opinion I have average intelligence and intellect slightly above average, they aren't really the same thing at all. I think it's possible my intelligence is completely at median, but it's still a matter of how I leverage it. Autism spectrum implies a continuum of different ways to store information.

I hate political correctness I really do.

I like to call a spade a spade and a very high percentage of people are stupid on so many levels.

Half the problem with Autism is the honest way in which we analyze ourselves.

Autism's most profound symptom is a communications disorder.

On this forum I have seen people with moderate autism tell me I would regard them as ret*d if I met them yet I had to point out how intelligent their posts came across.

The fact I have observed is that stupid people do not know they are stupid and the world is full of them.

Without a word of a lie this is the smartest forum I have ever been a member of people over analyzing things here annoys me a bit but it is more then made up for by the honesty and human compassion.

My life has improved vastly since I joined this forum and I am starting to dislike the distinction between Aspergers and Autism we are all autistic here and I am happy to pitch my tent here.

It all depends on how you define IQ. This society tends to see the most intelligent as those with advanced math skills, which is pretty common in Asperger's. I'm one of the few that fall behind average math skills but I think I do have average intelligence, a good memory for facts and a logical problem solving ability that probably makes me sound much smarter than I am. I'm also quick to pick up any art medium, although even though I have potential I find that people always seem more advanced than me.

Actually with my added focus and motivation issues as well as some information processing issues I think I fall behind the average at reading and writing skills, although I do those things a lot. I just have to go to a lot of extra effort to do it.

To me I'm good enough while other people mistake me as gifted. I don't often correct them too.

Precisely. An issue for Aspies can be that our specialised abilities may not be expressed or applied as rigorously as our neurotypical counterparts. I know plenty of neurotypicals who rely not so much on their raw intelligence as their uncanny abilities of charming persuasion - then they're viewed as 'smart' by their peers.

linatet, yeah......I know just what you mean and that's a good point. While rote memorization can be important, it's not the only parameter. It might earn an 'A' on an exam, but creatively putting things together matter mores, yes? Interesting thread, btw.

I agree and I'm glad we're all together under autism spectrum disorder now. The distinction between AS and classic autism isn't useful and I don't like it either.

The only reason I brought it up earlier is to explain that of-course the average IQ score of someone with AS was average or above because part of the definition of AS was "no global cognitive delay" or in other words no intellectual disability. If you define something as X,Y and Z criteria and at-least average intelligence then the average IQ score of that defined group has to be at-least average!