One child with Aspergers, another gifted/High IQ

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Doesn't it help that, without a high or at least average IQ, someone is generally considered HFA or PDD?

This confuses me somewhat. Asperger's is generally defined by average to high IQ so, by its nature, would have higher average IQs than the general population. The average could not be lower because below average IQs are considered something else, aren't they?

In general sense your statement is correct (if you have Asperger's and a low IQ you get diagnosed with autism (by definition you can not have cognitive development delays and be diagnosed with Asperger's); however, I believe that wasn't what the poster meant.

If you have a higher than average IQ you are intelligent. You need something else to push you over the edge into "gifted". It is postulated that Asperger's can act as a focusing device on the intelligence and help cross that line.

How many smart people have you met that put their energy into "getting laid", being "popular" or other endeavors that are not working toward the assumed form of "gifted"? it is a semantic issue as indeed the people are "gifted" just not in the way academia defines it.

So, naturally, Asperger's would help push an intelligent person into the realm of "gifted" because it acts as a focus.

I'm a strange case then. Neither of my parent or siblings are AS (My father may have some traits, but not much.) or gifted (And more that likelly, I'm not gifted. ) I've got one or two cousins who are autistics, one propably gifted cousin (But propably not from the side of my familly.), and two kids of one of my cousins who I think may be gifteds. (But that is rather far genetically from me, and is propably unsignifant, as I have MANY uncles and aunts.)
Overall there is not that much AS or giftedness in my familly, and those who are one or another and more that likelly just there because so go statistic.

Tollorin, don't get distressed. In fact your description would kinda indicate the statement may be true.

AS is rare to begin with. Assumed case distribution is about 1:300 and diagnosed (even casually) is like 1:1000. It is actually officially classified as RARE.

By definition high IQ would also be rare. It is a self proving statement so I won't go into incidents rates. If you are looking at the top 5% of the population then it is 1:20.

So the fact that you can identify more than one person in your family with each is pretty darn rare....

GRRRRRR my aspiness makes me want to correct you to insignificant.... but anyway....

Back on track. In the literature clinicians have seen that people with AS tend to have family members with sub-clinical traits. So a more precise statement may be that AS traits (and their cause to different degrees) runs in families. IQ runs in families. It appears that the 2 tend to be more prevalent in the same gene pool.

That said the actual research indicates that DIAGNOSED cases of AS are distributed among IQ as if there was no correlation. However, as you get higher into the IQ spectrum the likelihood that one would get a diagnosis decreases. These 2 statements together indicate, quite logically, that the incidence rate of AS increases as one goes higher up in the IQ spectrum. However, it is still RARE.

My mother got 8 brothers and 1 sister (Normal for rural Québec at that time.), and my father got 1 brother and 2 sisters; which mean a extended extended familly, so as msuch as statistics go... AS is not that rare by the way, some studies say it's 1:88, not 1:300.

Total Autism is 1:88

I can pull up the exact numbers but it is about 1:300 for AS assumed. Actual diagnosis is very rare.

Yes. It is.

Disability: n;
1 A physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or activities.
2 A disadvantage or handicap, esp. one imposed or recognized by the law

It is a condition, dsiability, disease, syndrome, mental aberration, mental condition, mental handicap.

As an aspie, and someone who needs to have the framework of literal definitions more than most aspies... I can say, it is, by definition, all of these things...

If you disagree with the definition, work on getting the definition changed. Simply stating that something is not what it is be definition is as effective as holding a cat and trying to tell the room it is a bearded dragon.

Either that, or go somewhere where AS is not considered a disability... HOWEVER...in places where it is not recognized as such, often, the AS individual is shunned and punished for the inability to integrate socially...

You can't be diagnosed with AS if you have a developmental delay. They don't generally diagnose a developmental delay unless you get a 70 or lower on an IQ test, but for autistics, it's entirely possible to have a developmental delay and still do well on IQ tests because you have trouble learning to take care of yourself. Many people are diagnosed with AS and should not be, because their IQs are 70+ but they are still behind their peers in adaptive skills.

So it's not an IQ cutoff, really. It's just whether you have delays in anything but social skills. If you do, you're excluded from Asperger's and put into either autistic disorder or atypical autism. Of course, plenty of people get diagnosed with Asperger's anyway because the professionals like to say Asperger's if you can speak.