75% of autistics are ret*d

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It's stupid what people believe isn't it?

Well, 70 or so percent of children diagnosed with autistic disorder have a secondary diagnosis of mental retardation.

If you include the whole spectrum, yes, it is far lower than 70%.

ret*d is relative.

They did a study where they gave autistic children diagnosed with mental retardation nonverbal, noninteractive IQ tests, and the vast majority came back normal.

well I dont know, I mean 90% of all statistics are made up on the spot

79.6% of all statistics are pulled out of somebody's ass....

And yes, when even profound autistics are given a non-verbal test such as the Raven, the vast majority of them test either normal or gifted. The Wechsler which is the one generally used has a HUGE verbal component, both in the test and in the instructions.

Well, what is the definition of ret*d? It means delayed, no? It's the word that has been misused that makes it terrible. Autistics are in fact delayed.. at least when compared to neurotypicals.

I love how they base such claims off the Weschler, which is almost entirely verbally based. Even the "nonverbal" sections of the test require processing and responding to verbal instructions. As verbal skills tend to be the primary deficiency in autism, it's little surprise that so many score in the mentally ret*d range. It's like giving a pitch-matching test to a deaf person. When Kanner autists are given tests such as the Raven (which has been shown to have higher predictive validity than the Weschler) they consistently score in the normal or superior ranges.

My daughter is functionally ret*d. I'm not sure if she's mentally ret*d or if I divided up all the parts of what she's good at and what she is not, then some of her would be retarted and some of her would be amazingly talented.

Yes, but given proper testing it becomes obvious that's a misdiagnosis in almost all of them (and even the others it might often be).

Not that it'd be a problem if it were true. But it's not.

Interesting. Do you remember where this study can be found?

70% is an old number and if I believed in IQ tests, I would say it's in need of an update. I read 70% back in 2002 and at the time, my 3 year old son was considered "severely autistic" and had "significant cognitive delay" (read mental retardation). He's at grade level, above in some subjects.. He's still autistic but school staff wants him off the roster and considered "general ed".
It's one of the reasons I don't believe in cures, pessimistic prognosis or mainstream literature.

Well, it generally means slower. For intelligence, it is supposed to mean significantly below average.

Frankly, I think a LOT of people should be considered ret*d, and most aren't autistic. I heard the word IDIOT used by three other people today levied at different groups. NONE of those accused to be idiots seemed autistic, and 1 or 2 of the accusers DID seem autistic. The ret*d NTs likely won't be diagnosed though.


BOTH of the autistic accusers are considered to be good workers, one has 1 master degree, is almost done with another, and seems quite smart. The accuser that seemed to be NT got into a line of discussion which pegs her IQ at between 133 and 148.

IMO IQ tests are strongly biased towards a culturally biased notion of "intelligence" that emphasizes logical-mathematical and Verbal-Linguistic intelligences. The notion of a unified "general intelligence" or "g-factor," is, to quote Stephen J. Gould, a "statistical artifact," and this artifact is blindly accepted by many because it conforms to popular prejudices about "intelligence."

From my POV about 90% of the human race is ret*d given that retardation at it's most general is "unable to do". They seem unable to stop themselves gossiping about the weather and other crap - thus unable to do any real work.

I remember reading somewhere that McGill University in Montreal had tested autistic children with a nonverbal test and found many of them to be normal, but I cannot recall the details now. I'll see what I can find.

The level and nature of autistic intelligence. (The blog is by one of the authors. You can look up the actual study on pubmed.)