aspie and high IQ

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I have an IQ somewhere in the 130s, which is way above average. I'm excellent at math, grammar, and spelling. I don't understand how anyone cannot be good at math - all you do is learn formulas and ways of solving problems and then plug numbers into them! I'm not so good at science though, or at least not I'm not good at learning science the way they teach it at schools.

Dart,

I, and probably the others, ALSO don't know how you can do something as complicated as SPEAK, and not be good at math. Also, one of my biggest problems is trying to do that quickly in my head. Are you talking about using paper?

Think about it! Math is logical and constant, and requires a few, to maybe a thousand or so, formulas.

Speaking requires the ability to discern tones/frequencies/volume, and parse out words. The language may have to be determined. The words must then be compared against a list of thousands to maybe 100,000 words, and it has to allow for different accents, etc....

You have to think about it, and determine a response

That response has to be worded intelligibly, and put out with at least some idea of the emotion/importance involved. Frankly, I'm surprised it works so well.

You get the idea!

Anyway, cest la vie! Who knows. Our opinions are relative anyway! As I said, I was talking about 100% mental. No paper. No pencil/pen. No tricks. Most of the others probably mean the same thing.

OK, one spoke about a particular example that was overly simple. Maybe she was exaggerating.

I see a person like bill, and almost want to say I don't know 2+2=4, or that the cubed root of 125 is 5(and maybe even put in 60 just to make it REALLY bad), just to make him feel better. But that isn't even an option. That might be why none of us spoke about pen/paper.

Steve

I remember they did a similar poll on an ADHD message board. Roughly 1/2 of the respondents rated themselves as being a "genius" and over three quarters rated themselves as being "gifted" or higher. Now I know the average message board user is more intelligence but the results of that poll seem to be very subjective. Actual studies show that the average IQ for an ADHDer is slightly below normal. I'm wondering if there have been clinical studies looking at exactly this question for Aspergers? A link would be most appreciated.

I never took an IQ test so don't know what it is, but when i took the SAT my score was really lopsided. I mean did extremely well on the english portion and extremely poor on the math part. My math score was lower than 95% of the ppl in the country who took the test and my english score was higher than 98% of the ppl who took the test. I thought i might not have aspergers because i am so poor in math and thought all ppl with AS were genius at math like Rainman. I didn't know very much about AS. Sometimes i cannot even remember numbers like my phone number and address. But i got a tutor in math and i was able to learn math and geometry and algebra to my surprise.

Hrm... one test I'd done in the past was...erm...ridiculously high. 162. My claim to fame was being the "ret*d" in 2nd grade that plowed through the basic math book 3 times faster then the rest of the class, wondering why they couldn't keep up. Were they just lazy, I wondered?

Anymore it depends on the test. I've gotten anywhere in the 110-160 range, mid-130s being the most common (I believe it was like... 138? for the mensa 'practice test'.) I don't feel like a genius, however. Blame it on OCD, but my brain's powerful enough to ALLOW blasphemous BS to flow through my brain on a repeat cycle. I hate it!

That, and given i'm subjective, I have a bias; From my viewpoint because I can process information so easily i'm not smart -- every NT having processing problems I see as either stupid or more often lazy instead.

(P.S: I excel at math up until calculus. Then I'm COMPLETELY lost. I think it's because I 'specialize' in social sciences.)

I was given IQ tests when I was 4.5 and almost 10. I scored 125 on the full scale IQ. Nearly all of my scores were in the above average and low superior range when I was 4. THe second time I was tested (in 1993) I scored similarly on the verbal but mainly in the average range for performace. I scored below average on the part that deals with recignizing social situations.

I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was about 8 and took Ritalin for several years although I don't believe it helped and only further served to make me feel even more different from my peers (and I've always felt different, even in preschool). THe year I convinced my Mom to let me stop taking the pills (which I had to chew because I can'[t swallow pills, and I blame this negative experiance for my inibility to swollow pills still), was the year I got the best grades I'd earned since 1st grade. In fact I made high honors on the honor roll and was invited to take the ACT. (I scored a 21, I was 13 at the time).
I never wanted to to do homework. School was a miserable experiance and I didn't want to think about it when I got home plus I get sever writers cramp and I just don't see the point in doing the same thing over and over if it serves no purpose for me. I wish that I could have been homeschooled with a ciriculum that fit my educational needs without boggling me down in needless busywork.

Here are some quick potential pitfalls in drawing any sort of conclusions on what has been posted so far:

1) A lopsided performance IQ vrs verbal IQ is not seen as being valid source of info for computing overall IQ. In that instance, you can not add the two together and then divide by two.
2) We tend to remember the positive things about us, and forget the negative.
3) No one is going to post that their IQ is below average.
4) Some IQ tests mentioned are not standardized.
5) Message boards may attract a more intelligent segment of the Aspie population.

I guess what I am trying to say is that this thread is very subjective. There is nothing of substance here to support the notion that Aspies have higher IQ's. If that is okay with everyone and people just want to report on their personal experiences with IQ tests, then all is good.

Tortoise,

There are several IQs! The general one is based on some sort of mix.
We almost ALL admit our social IQs are low.

And I think we ALL know there are some bad things that are pretty common with AS.

BTW LET'S FACE IT! Autism is a wierd situation. Someone just chose a common mix, to call autism. So it can vary a LOT. And syndromes usually don't have a defined cause, so they can all start out differently.

Aspergers is a refinement that indicates it is not generally debilitating, and the person has a higher vocabulary IQ. It doesn't say anything about Math other than it can't be really below average. In normal autism it can be abysmal, or astounding.

And, for the record, I WISH I could say I excel in every area, but I don't. Math and spatial I am pretty much average. In social, I am below average. I think I DO excel in the other areas.

Steve

I agree with Tortoise, the ppl on this site are just a bunch of dumbasses

To this day, by the standards of school testing, I'm not sure if I'm smart or a dumbass. (take your pick)

When I took an IQ test when I was in 5th grade I got a score in the 130 range. I took it again recently and got a similar score. I was also told that I read on a college level I think way back in the 8th grade?? However I've never been good at school and truthfully I don't know how much I believe in those tests. In sixth grade, I was placed in the "gifted" school due to my test scores, but that only lasted a year. After that, they believed they made a tragic mistake and put me back in "normal" classes. Later that year, I was even put in a remedial math class because I was failing math(whatever math it was at the time, algebra maybe??). In the remedial class(known as the "intro" level class) I actually did so well that I had a perfect score, or close to it. The teacher even made a point of telling the class that I was the reason he had to change the grading curve, which made me "oh so" popular... I did so poorly in my pascal programming class that my teacher promised to fail me if I stayed on another semester(whether I truly failed or not)... Oh yes, my teachers loved me..

If anything my school experience was a frustrating one. I got to go to both sides of the woods(class level wise) and my teachers usually disliked me due to the fact that they thought I was "fooling" them in some way.... They didn't seem to like the fact that I could get a A++ in one class and a zero in the other, all the while I was claiming I was "trying my hardest".... LOL This went out throughout my scholastic career... ... ...

I don't think 'LD' is even a specific condition or diagnosis. There are a variety of different learning disorders, which include issues like dyslexia. Many different learning disorders are common in people diagnosed with AS.

Regarding having AS and being poor at math, I think it should be remembered that most of us have sleeping problems that can affect memory and school performance. And while math is completely logical, it does require the memorization of rules that build upon each other. If you are, as I was, perpetually falling asleep in class because you were up all night then it's rather difficult to pay attention and do the work required to develop one's skills, especially when you're also too zonked out in the afternoon to be able to concentrate on homework. And yes, this really does describe how I spent my junior high and high school years, chronically sleep-deprived. And yes I was awful at math while doing better at other subjects where I could BS my way through with my excellent language skills and knowledge gained outside of class. Ergo, I did well in History (a pet subject) and literature (pure BS) while not so well in Science (never studied it outside of school.) It was, in fact, something of a surprise to find out how well I performed in my logic courses in college since I knew it was similar to mathematics. I still had no idea about AS at the time and didn't consider how my sleep-deprivation, which I corrected once I was out of high school and free to do so, had affected my math and science performance. So, finding myself being able to work proofs in my head and annoy my classmates came as something of an enjoyable shock. I now regret that I didn't made more noise about my sleep problems growing up so that something could have been done. But that's the life of a nearly-mute Aspie, I guess.

I'm not passing judgement on Aspie IQ. Perhaps Aspies are smarter then the general population, maybe into the gifted level on average...even. I just haven't seen anything on this thread that would support such a claim beyond ancedotal evidence.