AS and g (the general intelligence quotient)

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I am wondering about this. A lot of people measure intelligence by using IQ scores, and most people consider this to be valid.

But what they don't know is the that IQ scores work like this: They represent a sort of sum of a series of subscores in various levels of ability (be it spatial, verbal, mathematical, etc). Each of these scores measures something very different from the other scores.

Why then do we record a single IQ score? How can this be accurate? Simple. There is theorized to be a general intelligence quotient, called g, which correlates to all the various levels of ability that the IQ test is designed to measure. The subscores also do tend to correlate with each other - and it is because of this that IQ tests are held to be valid.

This is true for those who are close to the mean (which is always 'standardized' to be 100) but as you get futher and further away from this, the correlation seems to drop.

This is probably especially true for autisitcs (who have a tendency for really high performance IQ subscores and really low verbal IQ subscores) and aspies (who have a tendency for really low performance IQ subscores and really high verbal IQ subscores). So the correlation to g may also be low - perhaps aspies have normal levels of g but skewed ability in various areas (more verbal, less performances) and etc.

So aspies aren't necessarily smarter - even the ones with genius level IQs - but just better focused in a select few areas.

Dunno - I had high performance and high verbal. And I'm more than two standard deviations above the mean.
Makes me think its all meaningless.....

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Last edited by Cade on 11 Feb 2006, 6:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

When last tested, my verbal IQ score was 21 points higher than my performance. However, there were subtests on my performance scale in which I excelled and others which I completely sucked at.

The same wasn't quite as drastic in my verbal. There were some tests, like the ones involving math, which I didn't do so well in simply because I can't concentrate well enough to do math in my head. And it's not that I'm bad in math either. My vocabulary and visual scanning were excellent.

But for the most part my tests scores were ALL over the place. With this last test, my full scale ended up at 132. When I've been tested previously, I was at 136 and 141.

IQ tests are also unreliable indicators for success. They don't measure all types of intelligence. Only those which are pretty much learned or visuo-spatial talent. They also give less credit for more creative ideas instead of answering what is standard. And we all know creativity (including critical thinking) is usually a better predictor of great success as opposed to giving the desired answer and "just giving the boss what he wants" which often guarantees mediocrity.

Hm. My verbal IQ is average but my performance IQ is much higher than that, so I guess I'm more typical of HFA than aspie in that area.
I wonder how common that is for other AS diagnosed people?

I would want to test if g is correlated with Aspie-traits. If somebody knows of a simple, highly g-loaded test that can be put online, I'd be very interesting.

I also have looked at another test, claimed to be highly heriditary, like this one:
http://www.tiac.net/~commons/BalanceBeam.pdf

I kinda suspect the saying "Aspies have higher verbal scores and HFAers have higher performance scores" is far too generalized and absolute to be always reliable. I'd say probably a majority of Aspies and HFAers are this way. But remember a majority only requires 51%.

I wonder what Al Gore would say about that.

I am also in the higher verbal category but still have good visual-spatial skills.

Same. Huh. Interesting.