AS and intelligence.

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I quite often think that i cant possibly have aspergers because im not smart enough. I mean, im not really very good at anything, i dont have anything specific that im good at, except horses, and i dont think im any better than anyone else with them. I know a guy with aspergers and hes REALLY smart, he's got a great mind, hes an engineer, and i guess, if i have aspergers, im just not a very smart one. Anyone else the same?

AS only requires absence of mental retardation, not being a genius (if you are capable of using the net, discover these forum and write your post, you are smart enough to have asperger)

I don't have good intelligence either. When I was at school, I was always slightly behind the rest of the class, and seemed to be on the same level as the 5 or 6 other kids that had learning difficulties, mostly with maths, science, and computers. I was OK at english because I had good spelling and could read at normal rate. But I was never, ever ahead of the rest of the kids in my class. Never.

In year 10 and 11, we were all put into maths sets, which were numbered 1-4. The mathmematical genuises were in set 1, and the really, really slow ones were in set 4 (and the ''inbetween'' ones were in sets 2 and 3). I was obviously put in set 4, and I still struggled. So I had to be taught one-to-one with a special ed teacher in a corner in the office, and she had to teach me on the level of a 4-year-old to finally ''get'' the maths what needed to be taught (I was actually aged 15-16).

A lot of intelligent people have AS like traits (mainly introversion and intense interests), and thus are sometimes misdiagnosed as aspies. This is where the stereotype that aspies are smart comes from. It's just a stereotype. It's not true for everyone.

When I was a teenager they tested my iq and said it was 130 or 131. I can't remember which.

That never really did me any good and it just meant that I was good at taking iq tests.

I think something like that may have even actually hurt me as it made people expect more of me and think I could do better. If I was just stupid maybe I would have been helped or diagnosed with something.

My brother isn't a math wiz or anything but he found something he enjoys, He doesn't complain, is always looking forward to it. Maybe you need to find an interest that you can't keep your mind off.

My interests are generally based around social-related stuff. My main obsession at the moment is over certain people (most of them are men who I fancy). I like to write stories and draw pictures of people, and on the Sims 2 I like to make characters of the people who I'm obsessed with, and get them to all live together and have a ''social life''.
And notice that I mostly find topics on WP that are based around the social part of life, and keep bumping the topic to give replies, because lot's of stuff keep coming into my head what I just have to write down. I especially like finding topics that are discussing general day-to-day life social interaction. I don't tend to reply to topics what are about things like films or drugs or stuff like that.



You wouldn't think I have Social Phobia, would you?!

I guess the biggest interest in my life, and the one thing i am good at, is working with horses. And they have really become part of my life, i work with them on a daily basis, but still, although i love them to bits, if im obsessing over something, like my current obsession which is bbc drama Merlin, sometimes i dont even leave the house much to do anything with horses. I never thought of myself as obsessive about horses, but maybe its just mellowed over the years ive worked with them or something. I dunno. its just strange.

I'm not the brightest bulb in the shed for sure, but I am very good at writing (informally, F*** formal writing) and I guess my one big interest, at least right now is society and how messed up it is. I think I am smart though, regardless of what my recent grades in college say (rocking English like a boss though) but that is because I really don't care so I'm not really giving it my all (save for math, I'm just terrible at it =P). Philosophy is also great, love pondering life, the universe, and everything. (also videogames, oh god yes videogames)

While I've never been formally tested, it was once proposed to me that I might be gifted, and from then on I always assumed that I was. I had a natural flair for the sciences and english, but very little else, mathematics being one of the poorer areas in my set of skills.

At one point in high school, I managed to score 98% on a science exam - the highest in the class - with only a previous night's worth of study for an hour or two before bed, while also ditching school on a routine basis with very little interest in education. To compound my confusion at my success in this test, I was also not very fond of science and hated the very thought of the Periodic Table. Very un-Aspie of me, I know.

Come time for diagnosis a number of years later, I'm told that I need to take an IQ test, the results of which revealed me to be painfully average. While it was discovered that I had a freakish affinity for language-based intelligence and some ability in other areas, that was it!

What the hell happened to my so-called "giftedness"? My psychologist was very impressed by my linguistic skills, but I was totally underwhelmed by my performance. I felt that I should've placed somewhere in the 120-130 bracket, but it seemed that I was only deluding myself. Annoyingly, I'm constantly being informed of how intelligent I am by total strangers, making me feel like an utter fraud.

Wherever I go, it's like I carry the average IQ label with me in all that I do, and being told that I am "intelligent" only makes it worse, because it isn't true, at least not as I perceive true intelligence to be. Maybe I shouldn't be bothered by a mere number, but it really irks me that my intelligence fails to match my ambition, which towers beyond it in all conceivable ways.

I now have no idea where life will take me, and my dreams of being a script writer have dulled in light of this information, as it seems that were I to take the plunge I'd merely be punching above my weight.

Thanks, OP, for bringing up some painful memories.

Just read the majority of posts on WP ... you will eventually change your mind regarding any correlation between AS and IQ.

My AS step child only scored a 70 on his last professionally administered IQ test, but to be fair, if he was tested on History or Geography he would have aced it, and he said he wasn't really trying. I laughed at his misfortune, as I was constantly informed that my intelligence was far inferior to his (by him) for many years previously.

PS: (As a supposed "NT" I scored a 120 IQ at five years old, but was severely socially withdrawn.)

Also; his mother sucks at spacial geometry and reading comprehension, so I regularly beat her at IQ type tests. She however stomps me at logic puzzles. IMHO, IQ doesn't mean much, if anything at all.

I think intelligence takes lots of different forms. IQ tests measure one specific type of intelligence expressed in a particular way, that's all. Not scoring highly on an IQ test says nothing about how talented you are or your value as an individual. And having a high IQ is not a requirement in order to have AS.