Is Autism Mental Retardation?

Post Reply New Topic

Is autism just another term for higher functioning mental retardation? And is one's (intelligence quota based on written, verbal and cognitive analysis an exacting science in which one is to guage development of the brain? Or are other factors necessary, such as taking in account memory, facial recognition, ability to bond, empathize and emote vital in an accurate assessment as well?

1. No, but autism can co-exist with mental retardation.

2. No, but people seem to think so.

3. In an autism assessment, yes; in an IQ assessment, no.

The stereotypical view of autism is that of retardation,
but it seems that mostly comes from the not so invisible people with both mental retardation and autism.

The prevalence of autism is significantly higher within the engineering departments of the world's most prestigious universities than it is in the general population. There was a recent thread here which discussed researchers in Japan whose studies concluded that Aspies generally have superior reasoning ability.

It depends on what you mean by "retardation." I buy into the theory that our processing skills are slightly slowed down, that certain things take reactions and read times faster than our brains are capable of. I guess that's retardation of a sort, but our brains also compensate in other ways - we get a focus on things we can perceive of a greater quality than those with normal brains, the unused portions of our brains are refocussed toward something we can deal with. So part of us is ret*d, but another part is increased in quality. It ends up being a difference in qualities and focus.
In the ways most people think of retardation, I would not consider us to be ret*d.

Autism has to do with trouble socializing and communicating. The more different you are from everyone else, the harder it is to socialize and understand each other. I think thats why many people diagnosed with autism have very low or very high IQs.

I think people with mental retardation are more likely to be autistic for the same reason that blind people are more likely to be autistic in that they both have differences that make it harder to connect with others. For people with mental retardation, they don't have with intelligence to understand as much as most people. From what I've read, blind people have a difficult time with nonverbal communication. It could also be that people with normal IQs are underdiagnosed because they appear more normal.

Do you have any evidence for that statement? Are blind people more likely to be autistic? It's the first I'd have heard of it.

You mean with the stuff that requires you to, er, see?

I remember reading something about it awhile ago. I searched a little and posted what I found below. One study found that 12% of blind people meet the criteria for autism. That's compared to less than 1% (1 in 150) in the general population. It makes sense because nonverbal communication is so important to understanding other people. Autistics either don't look for it or aren't able to interpret it whereas blind people can't see it. Either way, it makes it hard to socialize when you can't understand what the other person means.

Autism is not mental retardation. But I read 75% of them are but then I got told it is not true because doctors mistake autsitcs for being ret*d because they are non verbal.

I think the statistic of intellectual disabilities in autistic people is eventually going to be found to be extremely similar (if not exactly identical) to that of the general population. They are already finding that the tests are biased and that the 75% statistic could be probably easily reversed if not made even smaller than 25%.

the missus swears it is...

There used to be other indices of intellectual development. As far as Social intelligence, I'm certifiable...

I'd like to take a social intelligence test. Is it available and do you know where I can get this test?

I think intelligence is variable and diverse. People can be ret*d in one area but highly intellgent in another. It is nature's trade off.

Autistics probably are ret*d in several areas, such as social skills and body language reading. But to them average people are ret*d in other areas.

Einstien is probably ret*d when it came to being a proper father and combing his hair. But being a physicist he was probably one of the greatest in world history.

People can be both brilliant and ret*d. I think Autistics are just more likely to be both at the same time.

Best,

Idaho Aspie
www.AllThingsAspergers.com

Before the DSM, Autism was regularly mis-diagnosed as mental retardation. Even after that point (1980) it was continuing until 1994 and the DSM-IV.

I'm not saying it makes the two the same - it doesn't. Many on the border of LFA in an IQ sense were missed in this way. It's why there has been an explosion in the figures of ASD diagnosis. And a corresponding drop in the diagnosis of mental retardation.

I don't know how long MR has been an accepted diagnosis in general, but I'll bet it goes back to before the mercury militia's buzz year - 1931!

It depends on the form of autism. People with Asperger's are generally of above average intelligence. Girls with Rett syndrome generally function in the moderate or severe range of mental retardation. People with classic Kanner's autism may or may not be mentally ret*d. I don't think autism and retardation are synonymous.

I found some interesting documents while looking for other things.

This is from the autobiography of Isabelle Rapin in a journal (can't remember which one):



She's describing work she did in the 1950s.

Someone replied to my post about that with this link:

http://disstud.blogspot.com/2005/08/dis ... age-3.html

Which describes a Ruth Austin (1892-1918) who might have been autistic.

And on that one someone posted this link:

http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/2006/01/boy-trouble.html

Meanwhile, I had found a document from 1912, a letter from Mary Dendy to Karl Pearson. It read, in part:



She also describes "low-grades" as sometimes having special mental gifts, but more commonly "low-grade all-round".

So basically... before autism was described, the people we would today call autistic were spread out among a variety of intellectual and psychiatric disability labels, as well as probably sensory ones like blind, deaf, or deafblind (when we weren't either blind or deaf). Additionally, I know from my family history that some people who would today be considered autistic were simply not diagnosed with anything officially, and may or may not have accrued unofficial labels such as "slow" and "tetched". And those without even unofficial labels might've been considered a bit odd or eccentric at most. It really depends on which community a person is in.

(This is something a lot of people have trouble wrapping their head around when it comes to disability. Even some things that would now be considered moderate or severe disabilities, are tolerated as within the range of "normal" at some times and places. Even if, in some of those times and places, it was on the far borders of "normal". There was still a definite place for said people in the societies they were in. I remember reading a book where an author from white frontier America in the 1800s described her mother as having what today would be considered pretty significant physical disabilities. She could not stand, for instance. She described in a matter-of-fact way how her father built a chair for her so that she could do her work around the house without falling over. Her difficulty with standing was something they adapted to and then moved on without a lot of comment on how awful it was or something. I used to have a staff person whose parents came from a Mexican village. Some of her uncles had what in mainstream American culture would be called intellectual disabilities, not always mild ones. But they were just part of the village's life like anyone else. Some of them had families. Similar reports filter down from a bit longer ago in my family in parts of rural America.)

Additionally, some were probably hidden. I just started reading a book that doesn't have autism as a primary focus, but some of the things it described happening to people with intellectual disabilities could have happened to autistic people. The author, who was about 12 at the time in the forties, saw a boy standing at the window of her friend's house and then when he saw her the curtain would shut really fast. He was her friend's brother, who had Down's syndrome. The family was keeping him hidden in the house because they were afraid that some do-gooder would put him in an institution if they saw him outside. I am almost certain this happened to some autistic people too just because of sheer statistics.