Gifted vs Aspergers

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Great visual memory.

Fantastic long-term memory.

The ability to take large chunks of disparate information and make sense out of it.

Intense drive and focus that allows me to work on projects for long periods of time - even years.

That's more than one thing but I think they are related.

Z

I've got more of a hypothesis-finding 'gift'. My memory is hopelessly unreliable (brilliant on obsessions, terrible on anything else), and I can't concentrate on complex things for long, but given a bunch of facts which don't seem to fit together, I can instantly come up with the best explanation.

At first, I have trouble saying why I think thats the best one - it just makes sense, but I eventually find the words and prove what I thought.

Welcome to the world of non-linear analysis and dynamics. I gravitate toward activities where this gift is useful. Design, advance physics theory, advance abstract mathematics, natural sciences analysis, and emergency services etc.

bookwormde

Daniel, hasn't your IQ been measured at 160+ on one occasion?

In grade 5, yeah (I took it twice for the gifted program, which lasted for less than a week); grade 11 was...nothing (I was going downhill here). The only psychologist administered one was "high" in grade 2 (this is the only official one); I just say my IQ is 115 to be conservative, i.e., the beginning of above-average/high (no higher than 130).

My rote memory is far in excess of my IQ now, I'm quite certain of such; I can remember details of all my interests as if they're painted on the inside of my eyelids (other things I have listened to too, not just that which interests me). I'd say that that single facet of intelligence is of a "genius" level, and it hasn't changed at all over the years; the rest is "high" [or less].

When I said connections, I meant INTERNAL(Dendritic, if that is a word). The ones going to the amygdala, corpus callosum, etc... tend to have less. I said in an earlier thread I thought that might explain the skewed senses, emotion, and meltdowns. As for the size, the article seems to talk about the size of the collection of cells, and not each neuron. Still, as I said, as I recall, they are smaller. Where is sophist when you need her.

Hey, don't sell yourself short. From your posts on here, you seem like a very intelligent guy. 160 may be your IQ under optimal conditions. Unfortunately, because of your disability, I would guess that it would be fairly difficult to replicate those optimal conditions. It seems more likely that your disabilities are interfering with measurement of your actual intelligence (producing artificially low scores) than that you somehow managed to score in the genius range on one freak occasion. Underestimation of autistic intelligence seems to be a fairly common phenomenon.

With my visual memory, I would still hesitate to call it visual even though I can tell you what color, shape, and fashion things were at places that I was only at once.

Some things in my long term memory get hazy, still an average of over 20 years with no real use is still pretty good.

I'm just a bit older than you, and I stopped letting myself go full bore a few years ago.

Still, you kind of described me as well.

It is amazing. I would say that around 7, 19,28,40 I have reluctantly let various parts of my aspie character(Diagnosed or not, those attributes are rare and some here say that they have or had them) kind of fade away. It is interesting when you consider that some that fought against me might have believed in the idea of a future heaven yet, if the world was full of honest, ethical, altruistic, diligent, inteligent people, this world WOULD be heaven!

Used to think that I'm just weird, but it's been great to (virtually) meet others who have some of the same traits.

I can tell that my memory isn't quite as sharp as it was a few years ago, but I attribute it to some intense stress I've been under. I have definitely switched some of my interests, but the intensity of focus seems to still be there. It would be heaven to be able to find and work with others who are wired similarly to the way I am, but right now I'm experiencing a bit of purgatory.

Z

Oh, the INTENSITY is pretty much still there, just not the duration. Then again, I have spent DAYS on a little task to get it just so, and then finally decide my time is better for something else. Sometimes even the seemingly harder tasks seem easier, and definite progress makes it more enjoyable.

Sorry to hear about the purgatory.

When I scored 160x2, I actually was at the highest level of functioning I have ever been (grades 3 to 7); the "high" from the psychologist was during the few years where I couldn't read/write (I'm sure if I scored below-average they would have pursued such further; I just missed out on the start of "high-functioning" autism/AS years). If my verbal IQ improved, and it did, I can see how I could score so high. Now, and since the later years of high school, my functioning level has dropped dramatically due to the resurgence of Autistic Disorder (it's a common thing to have happen).

A "high" IQ probably fits me better than the extremely high scores I got when I was at my highest level of functioning.

I know my overall IQ is affected by the ASD, but it's not in a good way. Both my parents have "high" IQs, so I'm assuming that if I didn't have the ASD, I would have the stupidly high IQ as a baseline (considering that they don't really change much for "normal" people over the years), or perhaps not and the compartmentization of my brain due to the ASD makes certain cognitive functions more advanced than what they'd normally be. If I weren't as "severe", perhaps AS rather than AD, I'd be as I was when I was at my best, always.

As a total aside: The irony of being included in the gifted class in comparison to my usual negative view of autism isn't lost on me.

Just been reading a paper by Agnes Burger-Veltmeijer, "Gifted or Autistic? The "Grey Zone".

But until psychologists have worked out how to do that, and her paper looks at one approach which is being piloted, how do you tell if you are "just" gifted/GFT, or whether you are gifted/GFT with "Aspergers" ( I can tick everything on the above list ), or whether people diagnosed with AS are "just" GFT suffering from extra disadvantage/environmental stress/overload?

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http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199 ... ger-s.html

Here is another one.

I do wonder if some people on here (small percentage) fit the gifted but not completely Aspergers criteria. It doesn't really matter as long as people have a sense of belonging.

Often times, they really do seem very similar. My husband is globally gifted. I had to teach him eye contact and how to pay attention and seem interest when you really aren't (faking it) yet at the same time try to not encourage people who are boring the hell out of you to talk more.

I often state that he is undx AS yet when I read articles like this, I still wonder if he is just not extremely globally gifted without AS. His father, however, is a different story. I would say with 90% certainty, he is AS.

As for AS, I fit a lot of the typical Aspie characteristics in the areas my husband doesn't, especially with spatial reasoning difficulties, fine motor skills problems, not reading between the lines, sensory issues, etc. My husband fit the dx more than me when it comes to social intereraction, flat affect, lack of reactions to situations and being more monotone.

Perhaps together we make Aspie LOL.
We did make my two sons - one who is on the spectrum and the other who is extremely hyper and verbal already so perhaps together we did make Aspie.

Very interesting discussion

I tend to think that the difference is a matter of perspective. When one is looking at the good traits, the traits that are helpful or one sees as helpful, one sees gifted. When one is looking at the traits that hinder, one sees Asperger's. An Aserger's diagnosis requires that the traits hinder one, socially, in school, or work-wise. Gifted doesn't have a single agreed on official definition, but the label comes from traits that are seen as pluses.

It does seem to me that, well, why not a label that doesn't have either of those biases. Though, actually, I think Asperger's does, despite the official definition, get used that way. I think many people do see it as covering the whole range of traits.