Are you autistic and gifted?

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four categories:

gifted & neurodivergent
gifted and not neurodivergent
neither gifted nor neurodivergent
not gifted and yes neurodivergent

just like a Punnett Square

of course, then you have to define "gifted" and "neurodivergent"

not everyone uses the same definition

not all diagnoses are correct

I am unusually good at solving certain types of puzzles, I can memorize (and intelligibly repeat) songs in languages I cannot speak, and I am very good at masking.

When I was a kid, my parents thought I was a very smart kid, and they thought I was gifted (like my grandfather). This is not true, but when I had problems with other children, they said that gifted people are always strange. At my school, I was not first in class and I had a lot of bad grades (up to grade 6), because I was not interested in it and I had problems with the answer at the blackboard. They explained my strange behavior with my intelligence

As a child, I was what today would be regarded as a stereotypical autistic savant.

I could neither walk nor talk until I was almost 4 years old. But then, at around the same time I finally began to walk and talk, I also figured out, on my own, how to play the piano by ear, first just melodies, then melodies with chords.

I also did well in school, at least for the most part, and was especially good at math.

I've never thought myself as gifted.

At school, teachers would think I were, simply because I could retain encyclopedic knowledge and copy equations from the whiteboard. Looks good in their books!

It always seems to be framed in that way for others to understand though. Almost used as a tool of inspiration that to me, gives off the impression that we're overcompensating for skills we lack in.

In reality, I think we simply like what we like, and there should be no shame or judgement in that. Unless of course, it defies; law, moral ethics, or causes harm to others obviously.

I have interests with a seemingly narrow-focus on, mainly writing. Whether I'm "gifted" in it or not is entirely subjective.

I simply enjoy doing it, perhaps because I'm less articulate when I speak out-loud, as well being fascinated by the written word, and what stories can be conjured by it. So am I overcompensating?

I had a great imagination as a kid (something Aspie children are supposed to lack). I was creative and artistic, but I think a lot of children are.

I wasn't particularly clever or savant in anything though. I struggled to learn new languages, I failed in math, I was slow to learn technical things like computers (although I got there in the end), I disliked science, and I had difficulty memorising historical, geographical and political facts.

I remember when I was about 7, the class was being introduced to quite a complicated type of mathematics, and me and the other kids with learning difficulties were to learn it in the following year as it may have been too difficult for us to focus. So instead we got to play on the playground equipment outside for an hour, which was a lovely surprise.


But I felt like I wasn't allowed to succeed in high school. When I was 14 I was put in the lower group for art & design, because I suppose me and all the other kids in that group were predicted a C or a D. Having creativity and imagination being the only thing I was good at, I came up with a very creative and authentic design idea for a project, probably the best in the class, but although the teacher thought it was excellent I still only got a C because that was the highest grade they were allowed to give people in that group.
So in the next term they moved me to a higher art and design group where I had more chance of getting an A. I came up with another good, authentic design (decorating some plates) but I FAILED it because it was "too creative" and didn't relate to any artists. So, what the f**k?
A, I thought all art originated from artists, B, nobody told me it had to relate to an artist, and C, I thought art and design was about being creative and artistic. I was told that in art there were no right or wrong answers and that it was all about expressing yourself and designing and ideas, etc.
I suppose they wanted us to get ideas by reading books and learning about artists, not coming up with our own designs. But I wasn't really the sort of child to be able to get information from books, as I hated reading books.

Yeah, school sucked. Except when I was little and got surprise play times because of being in the extra support group.

I joined the gifted subreddit recently. There's more than a few 'Non gifted people are too boring and slow for my liking' types there.
At school I was a mediocre pupil. Often described as 'disorganised and messy'. I like doing quizzes and tests from popular 'lowbrow' ones to ones that tax your brain.

A few years ago I started doing 'high range IQ tests', and joined an FB group that discusses them The author of the 1st test I did said there was more than one possible answer to the questions and he'd decide which was the best one. That seemed a bit dubious to me.
I'm self admittedly utterly crap at a vast myriad of things. The vain desire of wanting to be OK at at least one thing was what started my involvement with the high IQ community.

Part of that vanity was posting my best score on the World genius(that's hyperbole!)directory, and several scores on the World genius(again hyperbole) registry.

I got tested and placed in the gifted program when I was in 1st grade back in elementary school. For me, at least, that meant that either once a day or once a week (it's been years, so I don't 100% remember which, think it was once a day but again not 100% certain) I and two other classmates (who were also in the gifted program, obviously, and coincidentally two of my best friends) would be sent out of the classroom for more advanced 1:1 lessons than what we'd be learning in the regular class.

Then in middle school and high school, I just got automatically placed in the advanced/honors classes because of me being 'gifted' (as well as a singular AP class in 9th grade in high school, AP Human Geography to be exact).

Despite all this though, I am generally loathe to really call myself gifted just because being a gifted kid meant that I also had to deal with things like my grandpa (parents divorced when I was young and I was raised by my grandparents) telling me that 'he knows I could do better' on a test or something when I got a B instead of an A or just having any struggles I was dealing with ignored because 'you're smart, you shouldn't have problems' or 'you're smart, you should be able to figure this out yourself'. That just lead to me bottling up all my struggles and privately breaking down in tears as a literal middle schooler and high schooler because I thought I'd never amount to anything because I couldn't figure something out and was too ashamed to try and ask for help because of all of the 'you're smart, you can figure this out' talk really affected me.

While I can definitely see the arguments both for and against giftedness itself being considered a form of neurodivergence (I personally do consider it a form of neurodivergence, for the record), I do think the fact that it's generally viewed by parents as a positive thing ('My son is gifted, he's basically a genius!') is also a negative thing because, like what happened with me, it means parents may ignore or otherwise be unaware of any struggles and issues their gifted child is dealing with, possibly due to something such as undiagnosed autism or ADHD, simply because those things are 'bad' and a 'problem'.

Gifted people’s struggles shouldn’t be ignored.

Saying this, I wish I was gifted.

I admire your wisdom.