I find this contradicting

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@Pieplup
Breaking up your huge block of type is a good idea.
I usually skip posts like that.
It is difficult to read.

I feel like if I hadn't moved house, I wouldn't have had to deal with difficulties early in life and would have been in a better position to educate myself out of pressures in the workplace - I also would've been able to get a young person type job which would've given me a chance of having 'experience' etc.

My cousins went to school with kids very similar to them. And with a small number of them. They're NT and they're not particularly smart but they did great in exams. I went to school with kids like us for my first secondary.

I was doing great in school before I was moved. My teacher assumed anyone with a statement was stupid so put me into bottom sets despite everyone telling her 'look she's bright but she's not very socially adept'. The nerdy, quiet type kids that weren't interested in bullying were in top sets. I don't really understand her logic since I did well in my SATs and was in all top sets at my first secondary.

It was the biggest mistake of mum's life. She tells me if she had her time over, she would send me to the school where I eventually did my sixth form. With kids like me.

I socialise fine just not with everyone.

That makes sense. Personally, I feel like it's both.

The reason they describe it this way is because Autism is still diagnosed by looking at signs and symptoms and traits rather than using biological markers. But Autism is NOT a personality. It is a difference in how your neurological system is coded genetically. It is neurological. People can also be Autistic if certain environmental factors affect their neurological systems in those ways.

Personality is not neurological. You can change your personality if you want to. You cannot change your Autism just because you want to.

Neurotypicals stim as well.

I am not sure if they are a pure comorbidity. We are finding links with Autism to other issues that we had never linked before. Because Autism is a neurological condition, the link to epilepsy could be more than just a comorbidity. We need to research it more as we do with the other issues we are discovering that Autism has links to.

Ah, but then we run into one of the great unspoken drivers behind how the education system is structured:

It's not just about intellectual education, it's about socialization and socializing as well.

(And no, I didn't realize this until I was myself many years beyond formal schooling.)

Education may well be flat-out actually secondary for schools; it's easier to get a job (and thus support yourself in society) as someone dopey but likeable than it is if you're a smart jerk, and that's pretty much what the education system is designed to do; make people not be a drain on the tax system. Someone with a hundred good friends will always have work of some kind, even if it's just pushing a broom or carrying things around.

This is why kids of different intellectual abilities, if they're separated out at all, are placed in special classes where they are not only closer to the average for that class - higher or lower - but you'll notice that the kids in the class are still all the same age. It's deemed more socially important that kids socialize (or at least interact) with other children their own age than it is to match them precisely to a specific level of teaching or intellectual ability.

Sociality is, to be brutally blunt, more important in the education system than facts and figures. It's one of the reasons that homeschooling is seen as concerning (and that homeschooled characters in fiction usually have their lack of social ability played up for laughs), and why it's so damn hard to advance any more than one year in regular education systems without attending specialist 'gifted' or 'advanced' classes with other smart kids. It's also why you get the tropes of the 12-year-old genius at university and the dumb, brutish 17-year-old with five-o-clock shadow in the little kids' class; they're portrayed as weird, "other", objects of wonder or derision. And it's also part of why Ivy League and other high-class schools are expensive and rich kids go there even if they're not themselves very book-smart; those schools are about socializing and networking with other rich and well-connected kids as much as they are about getting an education, if not even more so. It's no wonder that media set in such schools tends to single out the 'scholarship kid' - the one who got there on pure smarts - as being less likely to socialize; potentially they're far more intellectually than socially focused, and may not even realize that the networking is a thing that happens.

I do find that there are far more contradictions that go on here than just what certain Aspies like to label autism as.

Like the empathy s**t. Loads of Aspies here think NTs have 100% empathy in any given situation and Aspies have 0% empathy for others.
There could be a whole thread discussing agreeably to how most NTs feel empathy for those that have experienced the same as them as not so much for those that haven't, but then another thread pops up with the OP whining about how they only can feel empathy for those that have experienced the same as them and everyone agrees like "oh yes, autistics can only feel empathy for others experiencing the same as us".

Empathy this, empathy that, I wish the blessed word did not exist.

I was prep and then public school educated from 8 to 18. There was mild teasing at prep school. At public school from the moment I honestly, but naively, said I knew little about sex,while the other 13 year olds were boasting,I became a prime target for severe psychological and verbal abuse. These weren't 'down and out' type teenagers . These were teenagers from solidly middle class backgrounds with high average intelligence - at the very worst.

As a boy, you would have been beaten up in my school. Boys in my school had weapons and weren't afraid to use them outside the school gates.

Personality types can't be changed either, imo. People are naturally how they are. I can change parts of my autism by being within the right environment.

I think the problem is that aspies are lumped together with autistics. And those of us who are borderline aspie are lumped in with severely asperger's people.

Which is a big, big problem. Because only interacting with people within a year of your age is very abnormal for humans.

Mixing classes isn't about education either, but about making sure people learn to interact with people at differing points of maturity.

I was the proverbial underachiever at school. According to my father:

. I've always been a social misfit. I'm seen as much less of a misfit in high IQ societies.

And that's good.....because you have a high IQ.

I don't think you're an intellectual snob---so you're cool.

I've met plenty of "intellectual snob" types in my life; almost gave me sort of PTSD when I encounter some of these people.

But I know, if I really work at it, that I can come up with some decent ideas.

I've done nothing myself to have such an IQ. It's just the genetic luck of the draw. A good IQ should be used to help people not sneer at people, or mock them. 80-90%(at least) of posters here could very probably leave me trailing far behind when it comes to practical tasks.

My advice would be to take your own advice: Put your talents to good use. So what if you suck at some "practical" skills. Many people suck at them---but that doesn't stop them from formulating great ideas.

There's a famous linguist (I won't mention his name) who has come up with the foundations for modern notions of linguistics---but he always needs an attendant around to see to his basic needs.

Whenever my wife gets something from IKEA, SHE'S the one who puts in the screws; I'm the one who looks at the diagram to tell her where the screws go.