Autism and genius

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The cool thing about it is it gives a slightly more positive impression...amongst educated people who aren't screaming that autistic people are ret*d.

The upsetting thing about it is that you can't just tell someone, "Oh, I'm on this area of the autism spectrum," to explain that you're not going to start banging your head against the wall. That can be frustrating.

As for the IQ/Genius thing...yes it does have SOME correlation. However, I don't think that each point matters. I think each section of maybe fifteen points matters. So if you're 130 instead of 140...soooooo? Likewise, 140 versus 130...I should care becaaaaause?

All in all, you have to be able to communicate with people before they'll take you seriously. Sad as it is, even if all people with autism were super geniuses, most of us wouldn't be able to display those traits.

I kind of wonder if the reason for the stereotypical "everyone with Aspergers is a genius" bit comes from the VIQ vs. PIQ spread that you see so often. Pretty much by definition, you have to have at least normal-level mental functioning to qualify as having AS (or HFA) versus LFA. If you combine that with the fact that a lot of people with AS have (just from what I've seen here) a 2 or 3 standard deviation difference between VIQ and PIQ, then you can pretty much assume that VIQ is going to be kind of high. In a conversation, a person with a VIQ of 130 or 140 is probably going to sound really smart, even if that doesn't extend to other areas of their life.