"How do they perform on intelligence tests?
No formal tests resulting in I.Q. or other quantitative scores were conducted because of the problems in communication with the children, and their unwillingness or inability to direct attention to the test administrator and perform requested tasks. Instead, selected subtests were used to examine, observe, the children's modes of problem-solving and other aspects of their personalities and disorders. It was observed they did best on tasks that allowed spontaneous production (as opposed to following instructions), in particular on problems that require one to recognize and think in abstract concepts, such as problems that ask for the difference between for instance a ladder and stairs. On the whole they appeared to be abstract thinkers by nature, and the quality of their spontaneous production in some cases revealed they were years ahead of their biological age, despite poor school performance.
Also, they displayed a remarkable originality in thinking and experiencing; In the best cases this originality bordered on genius, in less able subjects it was deviant rather than original, far removed from reality and without much relevance or value.
It too became clear that the children were not inclined to accept knowledge from adults, teachers, to learn and automate skills according to instruction. They could only be original. As a result, a possible I.Q. based on their (good) performance on logical-abstract tests would overstate their school performance. To obtain a balanced impression of their functioning, it was necessary to also take their learning skills, mode of working, concentration and distractibility into account.
Asperger explains that the personality of the child has to be considered when conducting tests, so that for instance fearful, inhibited children are encouraged, helped, and over-talkative, noisy, busy children are kept tight and forced to get down to business.
As a general observation, Asperger says one can not assess each aspect of the personality in isolation, as they influence each other such that the whole is more than the sum of parts, and one therefore has to observe them in combination in the individual, not in a formal test situation but in the individual's own environment and daily activities.
Comment
Although no I.Q.s or other quantitative scores result from the tests, it is clear from Asperger's description of the test administrations that the children would have scored quite low I.Q.s, had the tests been conducted in a formal, objective, standardized way, without taking the problems in communication and attention into account. In particular, the children with apparently good capabilities of logic and abstract thinking would have scored lower than one would guess from their spontaneous production. Here one sees at work how the Aspergoid condition depresses psychometric intelligence when tests are conducted objectively and in the standardized way (so, in the only good way).
However, if the test procedure is forgiving with regard to these individuals' problems in attention and communication, and if only the types of tests at which they do best are used, the resulting scores will be elevated compared to their true level of functioning, their general intelligence. Intelligence is a very large factor in real-life functioning, but it is not the whole story, and Asperger is probably right that one must observe the integral personality, of which intelligence is only one important aspect.
Nowadays in the world of "giftedness" one often hears the notion of "Asperger is really giftedness turned into a disorder", implying that the diagnosis is incorrectly given to children who really are highly intelligent, and that the symptoms of Asperger Syndrome are really the features of "giftedness". This notion is of course popular with the parents of diagnosed children. But although some Aspergoid children are indeed intelligent, this does not make their handicap less serious. And the real confusion may lie in cases where the child's inclination to abstract logical thinking causes one to deem it "gifted" while this is not the case. One-sided abstract-logical tests tend to overstate the general intelligence of some Aspergoid persons. Finally, given the conspicuous nature of the Aspergoid condition, it seems unlikely that truly intelligent but otherwise normal children would be incorrectly diagnosed".
-Paul Cooijmans
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hidden Smarts: Abstract thought trumps IQ scores in autism
Bruce Bower
There's more to the intelligence of autistic people than meets the IQ. Unlike most individuals, children and adults diagnosed as autistic often score much higher on a challenging, nonverbal test of abstract reasoning than they do on a standard IQ test, say psychologist Laurent Mottron of Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies in Montreal and his colleagues.
The same autistic individuals who score near or below the IQ cutoff for "low functioning" or "mental retardation" achieve average or even superior scores on a test that taps a person's ability to infer rules and to think abstractly about geometric patterns, Mottron's team reports in the August Psychological Science.
"Intelligence has been underestimated in autistics," Mottron says. Autistic people solve problems and deploy neural resources in unusual ways, which are poorly understood and might contribute to problems with IQ tests, he asserts.
Mottron regards autism as a variant of healthy neural development. For that reason, his group—including study coauthor Michelle Dawson, herself diagnosed as autistic—prefers the term "autistic" to "person with autism."
The researchers studied 38 autistic children, ages 7 to 16; 13 autistic adults, ages 16 to 43; 24 nonautistic children, ages 6 to 16; and 19 nonautistic adults, ages 19 to 32.
Volunteers completed an age-appropriate IQ test and a Raven's Progressive Matrices test. The latter test includes 60 items, each consisting of a series of related geometric designs and a choice of six or eight alternative designs, one of which completes the series.
The nonautistic children and adults scored slightly above the population average on both tests.
In contrast, autistic kids and adults scored far higher on the Raven's test than they did on the IQ tests. These youngsters' average IQ was substantially below the population average, but their average score on the Raven's test was in the normal range.
One-third of autistic children qualified as "low functioning" by IQ, but only 5 percent did so by Raven's scores. Moreover, another third of the autistic children achieved "high intelligence" on the Raven's test.
As in previous research, autistic volunteers performed well on an IQ task that required them to reproduce geometric designs using colored blocks.
The new findings confirm prior indications that autistics score poorly on IQ tests despite processing perceptual information well, comments psychologist Uta Frith of University College London. In a 2000 study, Frith's team noted that autistic and nonautistic children made equally rapid and accurate visual judgments, such as discerning which of two lines was longer.
In people with autism, a lack of social insight derails the ability to acquire skills and information from others, a key to IQ success, Frith theorizes. Autistics thus succeed only on self-explanatory tasks, such as the Raven's test.
The Raven's test may measure autistic intelligence better than an IQ test does, adds psychologist Helen Tager-Flusberg of Boston University. Nonetheless, many autistic children are extremely impaired intellectually, she says.
Researchers generally sell short the unique features of autistic intelligence, Dawson responds. For example, autistics shift flexibly back and forth between focusing on details of a scene or its overall configuration, whereas nonautistics single-mindedly concentrate on the big picture, she says.
For those of you who do not subscribe, this comes from the "Schafer Report." It is a great email and really we should all be subscribing as it has incredible information regarding things that pertain to our kids.
Although... often also has some eally nasty and even defamatory comments towards autistic self-advocates. In fact, the Schafer report once posted that one of the researchers who worked on the study just described, could not possibly be autistic, accused autistic people who could do public speaking of not being autistic, and accused this researcher of having borderline personality disorder and of being a journalist rather than a real autism researcher. [QUOTE=fred]
So, I guess I'm asking, what's the point of this? How can we make use of this data?
[/QUOTE]
To me, the point is that most parents needlessly freak when their ASD kid is given an IQ test and he scores so very low. If we parents understand that our kids do know a lot but have difficulty communicating it, then we will not stand for the "low intelligence" BS many of us are handed. To me, the point is that when a child is put in a "low intelligence" category, he is not supported or encouraged in his abilities. Nothing is inherently "wrong" about an MR diagnosis, but in the case of ASD kids, it is more than likely, false, and it implies a cap of aptitude.
I see reports like this not as coddling ASD kids, or as making excuses, but as education for parents and for people who work with our kids. To help us all better understand how autism works. We, as a culture, have changed our thinking about a whole host of "disorders" including cerebral palsy, femaleness, left handedness, non-white skin tone, etc. etc. "Society" does indeed change its attitude over time and because of reports like this one.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the link:
The same test has been used for a long time to be fair to people from different cultures and languages. It's no different here.
Thanks for sharing the article.
I'm not sure how my son would perform on the Raven, but I'm all for research that chips away at the "autistics are almost always ret*d myth". My son got a mild retardation diagnosis that we disagree with, because he was basically untestable at the time, too unfocused and unwilling to really show what he is capable of.
Since this topic touched on the subject of autistic strengths, I'll re-post my previous links on this subject:
---------------------------------------------------
Autistic Strengths reviewed for the workplace:
At its best, autism can offer these strengths:
strong conceptualization skill
(able to mentally model complex systems, may develop instinctive understanding of the system from this internalized model)
logical thinking
(strong skills in technical research or computer programming)
exceptional memory
attention to detail
(can identify inconsistencies in processes or communications)
honest, straightforward
(can treat people fairly)
intense focus
willing and able to learn great depth of information in specific field
<end excerpt>
I think the Raven shows the POTENTIAL our kids have and that is something we shouldn't ignore. It also shows the difference between what our kids' functioning level is versus what their potential is. That shows academic deficits in my opinion and can be used against school professionals who say that a childs' ASD is not impacting their education. You would have to use this with something like the Vineland in order to measure their level of functioning in daily life to make the comparison. As far as the Schafer report goes - I agree with gtto. I subscribed when it was free, but when it went to $35 a year - I stopped it. I would wade through to find articles that I thought were of interest (which was sometimes difficult) and I ignored all the ones that I thought were controversial and wrong. But, I would not pay for that! Just my opinion, though...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
22 Jun 2011, 6:19 am
