Am I really mentally challenged?

Post Reply New Topic

I take special ed classes but they are all resources rooms besides my 5 period which is the Life Skills class. This is my second year in high school but in reality shouldn't be in the freshmen/sophomore classes since I'm older then the average age there. I'm 17 years old but my mother didn't put me in school until late. Or it might have been the school system fault? I might be average but the scary feeling is that I'm not really sure what my IQ is since I never did a real test in real life. A neurotypical thought I was normal when I was playing on a baseball team with mostly these people. I hit myself with the bottle until I was 16 years old. That is not normal for people my age and starting to mature my age since then. I think I have PDD-NOS but my mother thinks I'm not on the autism spectrum, though it was she that think back around when I was 2 of 3 that I might have had autism. I have a IEP and want to graduate high school with what most of the normal have, which is the high school diploma.

Can any of you aspies/auties answer my question?

Special ed isn't just for people who have low IQs. If you're autistic, there's no real reason why you might have one. I honestly can't tell you whether you are or not. Special ed is for people who have some kind of special educational need. For you, maybe that means something other than the simpler material they teach to people who have cognitive disabilities. If you're behind, you may be behind simply because your mom didn't put you in school at the same age as your peers.

Honestly, from what you are saying, it seems like it must be really frustrating for you not to be told so much about your own education and your own diagnosis. You're seventeen now; that's practically adult. Even if you were mentally challenged (like I said, I don't know), you'd still be far older than you'd need to be to start taking a much more active part in your education and treatment.

It's likely that you're autistic. PDD-NOS (also known as "atypical autism") is the most common sort of autism. Your mom honestly doesn't sound like she knows very much about autism--if you were autistic back then and you still need help now, then you're autistic now. But like I said, you're practically an adult, and you're about to start taking care of this stuff for yourself.

Your mom goes to IEP meetings, right? I would suggest that the next time she goes, you go along. Tell them right up front that you have a lot of questions, and this is not going to be a short meeting. Write down your questions ahead of time. You have a right to know about your own diagnosis and how your school is going to meet your needs. IEPs are, as you know, lists of goals that you're working toward plus how your school is going to adjust its education style to help you meet them. So, your goal at an IEP meeting is to make sure that your goals--your regular high school diploma--are being taken into account, and that you are making sure your needs are going to be met.

One more thing: At eighteen, you can dump your IEP. I suggest you don't, though. Having an IEP has nothing to do with having or not having a regular diploma, and it sounds like you are going to need adjustments to help you get it. You will likely stay in school past eighteen, if you are behind. I think they are required to keep you until twenty or even older. Take your mom along to meetings--she may not be ideal, but she's NT, and that's the important thing (she'll probably be needed as an "interpreter" of sorts). Maintain that you want a high school diploma, that you are willing to work hard and make adjustments to get it, and that you are willing to stay in school longer to finish up the work.

BTW: Lots of us hit ourselves or bite ourselves or whatnot. It doesn't have a relationship to our IQs. I've got scars all over and I'm in college studying pretty challenging stuff. This quarter I've got statistics, computer programming, and psychology. I still get special help in college--the disability services department does stuff like giving me a quiet place to take my tests and help with paperwork and organization and things like that. So, if you want to go to college, you can continue getting help like you do in high school.

You sound like me except I didn't hit myself with bottles. I was in special ed for most of my classes and I wasn't mentally challenged. I had started to think I was because I needed all the help. I even felt younger than my age too and couldn't relate to other people and I preferred younger age groups and I couldn't tell when people were joking or teasing or being sarcastic so I thought I must be ret*d (literally).

I was also in life skills. I just felt I was behind my peers. Mentally and socially and emotionally.

Yeah. Just because you're behind in social skills and stuff doesn't mean you're worse at learning and school (which is what "mentally challenged" usually means). Autistic people are usually way better at some things than others. I'm really good at school, kinda bad at taking care of myself, really bad at dealing with people, really good at reading and writing. So--your best bet is simply to figure out what you're really good at, and find a job doing that. It's really a pity they don't let you look at your test results, or at least discuss them with you. Educational and neuropsych testing often tells you where your strengths are, which is really handy information to have. Your flat IQ score actually wouldn't be really useful--but how you did on the sub-tests could be. Maybe one thing was really easy for you and another really hard. That would be good information to have.

To clear everyone up.


I go to my IEP meetings with my mother. My mother doesn't think I'm mentally challenged now but back awhile ago, I was really really slow. The experts thought I was autistic, so my mother went with the flow. And she does know lot about the spectrum.

Nothing was ever found that I was mentally challenged. I just assumed because I was in Special Ed classes.


I was in the honor rolls for the entire year last school year and I was only in two resource rooms and the life skills class for the rest of the school day.

Yes exactly! I think mental challenges are determined by IQ, but just because you take special ed does not mean you have a low IQ. It could mean that, but you could very well have an average IQ or even an above average IQ.

I'm thinking I'm likely have an average IQ.

Last edited by qasic17 on 08 Sep 2011, 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

How are the IEP meetings going? Are you and your mom getting listened to? Are you getting to ask questions and make suggestions?

We are both having a IEP meeting sometime soon and I will talk about this when we have the meeting in October. Yes, I'm getting ask questions and making suggestions to where I think I should go and I discuss it with my mother.

I have been embarrassed by some of the students in my classes for the fact some of them think that because I'm in Life Skills means I"m mentally challenged. And I'm only in that class for one period and then I'm off to my last class in Algebra 1.

5 resource rooms. 1 Sped class.

My learning style is combination of listening with read/writing. I may not seem stupid if you chat with me in subjects that I have of knowledge in but then something I don't know like would start to really make me challenged.

Last edited by qasic17 on 08 Sep 2011, 4:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Man, I wish I'd had a Life Skills class in high school. I had to learn all that stuff myself when I got dumped out into college, completely unprepared--everything from taking regular showers to paying bills. I still couldn't drive, had never ordered for myself at a restaurant... etc. Needless to say I crashed and burned before you could say "welcome to the mental ward". Just being good at school doesn't mean you're good at everything else.

It's pretty normal for autistics to be behind in that kind of thing even when they haven't got an overall developmental delay. Algebra I sounds like it's on the normal high school graduation track, too; if they were putting you in vocational classes, they'd be teaching you stuff like comparing prices or balancing a checkbook. Algebra is more general, more flexible.

I think you should ask when you are on track to graduate--how many more years you'll need. Algebra I is typically a ninth-grade or tenth-grade math class; depending on your school's requirements, you might need one or two more years worth of math. The school should have a list of graduation requirements. Ask to go over that and sketch out what classes you'll need to take over the coming semesters. Often times you have choices for electives. Maybe your Life Skills class could be such an elective; or you could take something like home economics, which teaches cooking, sewing, cleaning, maintaining a budget, and similar skills you will use around the house, which definitely come in handy.

The requirement to graduate is passing the biology test and this is the same for anybody that is taking the regular MCAS. And don't worry, I'm a do nothing in the class since I'm only in there for one period and the class is sop easy.

I took a Algebra quiz today and it's f*****g difficult. However, one of the aids in the classroom said it's tough for anyone that has never done Algebra. Open house is next week, so my mother would come with me and I'll show her all my new classrooms besides my life skills class.

I did horrible in my first algebra class too, but ever since I've been one of the best in the class. I'm very good at math, but believe me, algebra was very difficult at first.

http://www.free-iqtest.net/iq-score/iq- ... ore-94.asp

My highest was the 103 score but the site quiz was not correctly done well. Either that or 96 from the site I'm posting. This proves I'm not mentally challenged but just little bit slow and need some catching up to the college level kids. Or if I don't have the college level for a 4 year college, I would commit to a community college and do my catching up there.