Rainman

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not sure if this was the place to put this but I get a lot of questions about this movie. I just say that it really does not seem like my life. It is a good movie but there is something troubling about how it has high functioning and low functioning seem no different. I guess what it is that people are most curious about is how we can live normally. I tell them that I can have a better life then them with some work. Do yall agree?

Funny you'd bring this up: I saw the very end of Rain Man at work last night/this morning.

I'll say it Is possible to turn someone like Raymond into a near-NT person. When I was little, I was worse than Raymond. It took a LOT LOT LOT of work, but eventually I came out of it. And now, when I tell people I have tendencies, they're shocked. For the most part, you absolutely cannot tell. So yes, we can definitely live better lives than Rain Man.

The best story of all though was the one in the late '70s TV movie Son-Rise (thread to follow). An autistic boy with an IQ of 30 was completely cured of his autism. I understand he's got a Master's now and is working with his parents' organization.

nice work. heres a toast to you zed

It appears that Rain Man has low functioning autism with savant abilities in Mathematics. However, because it is a movie, it is over done, therefore there are probably several different autistic people put into the one character.

How can someone with an IQ of 30 get a masters degree?

I agree that the movie Rainman is a little overcooked. Nobody with Autism can be exactly like Raymond Babbit. I feel that the movie gave a false impression of what people with Autism are like as a whole. The people who made it seemed to brush all of us with a pretty broad brush. I also hate it when my Family Members use Charlie's approach as an example of how to treat me. I'm very High Functioning. I hate being told, "Calm down", or "Slow down" in very condecending tones. It makes me want to tear my hair out. That's why I'll be moving out soon, very soon. Perhaps in another fifteen yeaer, movies about characters with various Disabilities won't be overdone. I'm sorry about my Attitude. I'm having a little Pity Party, right now. I can just scream!

Alex, here's a bit of Raun Kaufman's story from http://www.son-rise.org:

Raun Kaufman was diagnosed severely Autistic as an 19-month-old child. He was tested to have an under-40 IQ. His parents (who later founded the Son-Rise Program at the Option Institute) created a program for him based on acceptance and encouraging him to interact with people. After three and a half years of this program, Raun emerged from his Autism, and later was tested to have a near-genius IQ! He recently graduated with a degree in Bio-medical Ethics from one of the leading universities in America (an Ivy League college) and is working in education in the Northeastern United States. Raun also lectures about principles of the Son-Rise Program to universities in the United States. He lives a full, fun, enriching life, with no signs of his original condition.

How can someone with an IQ of 30 get a masters degree?[/quote]

We are not held prisoner to the way we were born

thanks for the website zed

Rain Man was a very significant film to me, as it was the first time I ever heard of autism, and the first time I ever started to ponder that that might be what was wrong with me in some form (although that realisation mainly came from watching the various TV documentaries about autism that came out at the same time as it did). It might not be an accurate portrayal of the condition (certainly not that much of it applied to me either), but it was still a very important film for raising public awareness about "us", if nothing else.

There is an autistic woman named Sue Rubin (the Academy Award nominated documentary, Autism Is a World, is about her). She had an IQ of 24, but she graduated highschool with a GPA of 3.98 and scored a 1370 on the SAT. A person's IQ can actually change throughout their life.



Raymond Babbit is never meant to be a representation of all autistic people. He is autistic savant. If anyone is interested in who he is based on, I found this information on http://www.imdb.com: The character of Raymond was based on several real-life autistic individuals including Kim Peek, an autistic savant living in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the son of Bernard Rimland, founder of the Autism Research Institute in San Diego, California. Like Raymond, Mr. Peek is a calendar calculator and has memorized everything he has ever read or every piece of music he has ever heard. Another inspiration was a man that screenwriter Barry Morrow met who memorizes entire telephone books. On their first meeting, the man recited every telephone number Morrow had ever had.

So there are people like Raymond Babbit out there.

MY IQ has dropped some it used to be 135verbal 91performance
i think its now 110/86

i have never had an iq test before
a

I've done 2 online IQ tests, getting 154 and 162 - I'm always incredibly sceptical about IQ tests and their worth..... The fact that that jerk out of "The Sun" (Gary something or other?) has a higher IQ than Einstein merely underlines their pointlessness. So nerrr!

Maybe so, Einstein had ta get his shi* tight to get where he got. NTs can have higher iqs but we gotta work to get ourselves up there
A

I'm not so sure about that. Don't people with AS naturally have higher IQs than NTs do?