HFAs also can't do all what LFAs can do

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I don't comprehend why parts - especially those who're non-autistic - of the community around autism seems to think that individuals with AS or 'HFA' (as defined by needs or by IQ) must be better at everything than those with 'LFA' or any lower-functioning form.

Is that aspect of autism hard to understand maybe?

You can have an adult who, say, can't talk with their voice and can't make sure they're fed on their own or who cannot maintain simple dressing/hygiene or who has violent meltdowns too but who may write eloquently or show a lot of appropriate compassion and understanding about other living being or have a good understanding of politics and history and logics. There are a few people like that in real life and on the Internet.

But that these 'more lf' people can do that doesn't mean that someone who's higher-functioning is able to the same.

They may actually be grossly impaired and won't ever be able to write eloquently, show appropriate compassion and understanding or human relationships, may not understand politics, history and logics.

But there nevertheless people go and assume they must be able to do the same because they're deemed higher-functioning. (This holds true for many conditions, yeah.)

It confuses me if I hear someone saying 'but if X can do it, Y must be able to do it too because they're so much better overall'. Is this some sort of social generalisation or something?

Yeah I agree. Maybe the term functioning to describe and compare both is slightly misleading. I may be HFA but my social skills are way worse then some people with much lower IQs.

ditto to that. I'm one of the smartest in my grade, but my social skills suck really bad

ADHD doesn't help in social situations, especially the attention problems.

The auditory processing issue makes it frustrating. The person may say train but I may hear brain. It happens the most with mumblers and people who speak improperly. I have no trouble understanding teachers and professors since they tend to have loud confident voices and speak properly.

I am terrible with directions. I find it almost impossible to remember them. It is also hard to remember numbers for such things.

I take things very, VERY literal.

How ironic that I mention the fact that I'm very, VERY RANDOM! If I communicate long enough I'll be far off topic. Oh and thats how babies are made FYI! What was I talking about? lol

I've noticed how someone can have worse AS than another aspie but can do something such as read between the lines but the mild aspie can't.

I was in a situation a while back with my online friend who has AS and he has a worse life than me and maybe worse than me too since people still tell him he is weird and point out his faults. Well he asked me a question and gave me two answers and I answered one of them and he got upset because I was supposed to care he said. I told him he gave me two answers to answer and I picked one of them. I was being honest. He told me I was supposed to make up my own answer, not pick one of his answers, he is worse AS than me so I should be able to read between those lines too. That really hurt. That's the kind of behavior you'd expect from a none aspie but from your own kind, shocking.

am may be wrong [no idea],but guess with ASD,its to do with what causes those problems that says where a autist will be classed/what support to expect off others etc,an aspie can have problems with speaking but unless they have a seperate communication disorder,it can't be brain affected non verbalism/speech impairment as otherwise they should be under autism/classic.
the person whos' communication is affected all the time by a difference in their brain will looked at differently to the person who is capable of speaking-but it being certain locations or certain people that set off or solve their problem.

an aspie autist is not low functioning in traditional low functioning sense,aspies by criteria/definition have the full ability to do basic skills/are fully capable of learning functioning skills as long as they do not have learning disabilities or lower iq,it will be other problems rather than actual functioning ability that get in the way,that isnt to say problems shouldn't be taken seriously but as everyone knows there is a sympathy heirarchy in who gets what.


also,am think it would help a lot of people to read up on a lot more different experiences of ASDs,some seem to think only children are LFA [using child LFAs all the time for comparing HF adults to] and never seem to realise it isnt all profoundly affected...and have recently read someone say aspies are 'very high functioning and independant' [judging by the amount am know in twenty four hour residential care
am would say,no to that one,even the NAS say no two people with ASDs are like the same].

I get what you saying spokane_girl, my friend has much worse AS than me but I still manage to be a million times more pedantic than him

I think it is a generalization. There is no such thing as an AS who is "better" than another.

I think that when it comes to analysis and discussion about issues, some AS are better matched with each other when there are gifted/talented people in the discussion. When it comes to discussing personal issues and problems, all AS are insightful and low-functioning AS can be even more insightful than the so-called high-functioning AS.

What is a problem is when people who are low-functioning AS insist on lecturing and censoring high-functioning AS in analytic discussions where they don't understand the level of discussion because the high-I.Q. AS are engaging in intellectual exercises or analysis that the low-functioning AS don't understand.

This is a problem in NT communities where you have high-I.Q. people versus low-I.Q. people, or in AS communities where you have high functioning AS versus low functioning AS.

If the low-I.Q. people (low-functioning AS) learn to respect the theories and discussions of the high-I.Q. people (high functioning AS) that they don't understand, and the high-I.Q. people (high functioning AS) learn to listen to the wisdom and insights in the words of the low-I.Q. people (low functioning AS), everyone benefits.

IMO, there are more problems in the AS community with there being a few annoying self-appointed thought police than any widespread patterns of intellectual bias, since AS tend to be more socially neutral and not have complicated social agendas.

My suggestions are:

Low functioning AS who try to though-police the discussions of high-functioning AS they don't understand: learn to tolerate and respect that which you don't understand and stop thought-policing everything you don't understand that threatens you.

High functioning AS who try to ignore and minimize the ideas of low-functioning AS that sound simple: learn how to speak the language of those who mean what they say and don't play games -- they can have the most valuable insights and helpful things to say.

My personal opinion is that low functioning AS is no better or worse than high functioning AS. There is a hidden, different kind of intelligence in AS people than there are in NTs. Being unique and conceptually innovative is a trait of AS, and it's impossible to measure and compare one AS mind against another. I think it's hard to measure the intelligence of an AS mind.

In any case, there is some breed of self-appointed thought police on any message board. Just as there are people who judge and gossip. They aren't really important.

ephemerella,
if that had anything at all to do with what am wrote,why not find out why first [whether on here or pm]?

There's as much variation in this community as there is in any other. You can't really generalize between High functioning and low functioning states, particularly since those labels refer primarily to how well one is able to survive on their own in the real world and not much else; many high level and unique cognitive abilities are ignored completely. Each individual person brings their own unique array of ideas and skills to the table, and while there are some generalizations that can be made between people on certain dimensions, there's no way to cover for everything, and this is true no matter what grouping you're trying to make.

I must have jump in ignorantly... Sorry, guess I didn't understand!

^^ low-functioning does not equal low-IQ ephemerella, saying that it does it quite insulting.

Unintentionally insulting, most likely; it's a common assumption and it is true in some cases. Low IQ is one reason you might be called LFA, but there are plenty of other reasons that don't involve IQ. Being non-verbal is a big one; so's needing help with stuff most people can do, like hygiene or cooking. Those things can occur with high IQs, so it's actually possible that you can be low functioning autistic and a genius at the same time.

Plus which, IQ is pretty much bogus when it comes to summarizing somebody's skills anyway when they're on the spectrum because IQ is only an average of one particular set of skills (mostly academic type skills) and doesn't touch the rest...

Actually, the only thing I feel safe assuming when somebody on the spectrum says they have a low IQ is that they aren't any good at taking IQ tests!

I think KingdomOfRats is one of the most sensible and insightful people on WP. I always enjoy reading her posts and find them thought provoking.

Whilst there's always exceptions, it goes that those with LFA are more impaired than those with HFA/AS as a whole. It's generally speaking, and it holds true, but this isn't to say that those with HFA/AS aren't impaired, it's just that they're higher on the "spectrum" in regards to fitting into society better.

I understand what you mean: my father is far worse than me in regards to insight and perspective taking (it's all about him, in other words, and he can't see that what he does affects others). But, if you had "normal" people looking at us, the outcome with their words would always be the same, no matter who it was; I'd be the LFA one (he actually has AS).

On IQ, the funniest thing I've read is one theory that states the lower the IQ in people with Autism, the "smarter" they are. It's just that the human mind can't handle what they perceive (it's why they appear and are more impaired). IQ and Autism isn't the same thing as IQ and "normal", and most experts will tell you that.

I didn't say that it equalled. In fact, I specifically used the terms separately, i.e. "low functioning AS (low I.Q.)" to make it clear that they are not the same. Obviously I didn't make that clear enough.

If you read my whole post, you'd see there were several places where I mentioned my view that it wasn't really possible to measure the I.Q. of AS people.

It's really hard for me to see where you could have gotten that from my post, except if you were making assumptions and projecting them onto me. Perhaps you got that from where I said I didn't think low-functioning AS understood some of the discussions of high-functioning AS. But to me that is more having to do with high functioning AS having more experience with analytical debate, a communication skill issue, than I.Q.