"Sounding Intellegent" a sign?

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Oh god yes! It's an insult IMO. I have never used a word I didn't know the meaning of. I don't see how "big" words are wrong unless you're talking to small children or ret*ds. Anyone else I assume has the intelligence or the experience to know something.

I've been thinking this so many times throughout my life.
In jr high my Norwegian teacher said that I used a lot of big words and that she hoped I knew what they meant. That provoked me, as I wasn't dumb or pretentious. I wanted to ask her what she needed me to translate for her, but I didn't dare.

Ditto.

He can't be very bright. Random is a very normal word.

WTF? Unbelivable. Did he think being intelligent is a disease?

Yes, I think that when an autistic person has a talent for using words but not for the other parts of communication, they're highly likely to compensate by being very precise and formal with the use of those words, so as to convey the message they are trying to say. A sign of autism... well, no, not by itself. But a sign of a person who is good at words but not good at communication, yes. And that often does come with autism.

The discrepancy between my Verbal Comprehension Index score and my Perceptual-Organizational Index score was 57 points on the most recent WAIS I took in June. My VCI was 136 and my POI was 79. My verbal scores have been both higher and lower on every other WAIS i've taken. My performance/POI score has never been lower though. The discrepancy between VIQ and PIQ (always in favor of VIQ) has always been present however and it's never been less than 19 points.



As I think you know....I was just rejected as a participant in the autism research study at the University of Pittsburgh. According to their assessment after I underwent the ADOS, I am too "high-functioning"/mild to take part in the study. This ADOS test may be seen as the "gold standard" of diagnosing and assessing ASD's, but I find it to be pretty subjective and situational.

Why is it impossible to believe that person with an ASD may exhibit varying degrees of behaviors (like poor eye contact) associated with ASD's? It seems to me that people with ASD's might make more eye contact in some situations and less in others. For example, I am pretty comfortable around mental health professionals, so I make pretty good eye contact with them. OTOH, if you get me around a group of young NT's, I probably won't make any eye contact at all.

From what I could gather from the researchers at this study, they rejected me because my eye contact was too "good" during the ADOS and because I often bobbed my head when acknowledging something.

Last edited by Horus on 24 Sep 2010, 2:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That sounds like me! I think you're intelligent in general, and there are a lot of smart people who have been diagnosed as Asperger's, such as Albert Einstein and Thomas Jefferson (although my mom disagrees).

Sounding intelligent a sign of autism/as? Not neccessarily. Being considered a genius, while not being able to tie your own shoelaces properly ? Now that's more like it. I'd like to add that while using 'big' words (naturally, with fluency, precision and within the right context) is a sign of high (verbal intelligence), your perspective, reflective and analytical intelligence is also being judged. It's something most people seem to forget, as extensive and large vocabulary has become the golden standard of intelligence. Obviously those with high social intelligence will have an edge (and will often be labeled as more intelligent than they actually are), but then theres also the 'shy genius' og 'awkward nerd' stereotype. Silent types are often (wrongfully/rightfully) considered highly intelligent. From own experience, signs of high intelligence/social intelligence (in conversations) manifests itself as the ability to refer to earlier conversations/information and connect the dots, using witty humour (with puns, oxymorons ,metaphors, similies, actualities and sarcasm), the ability to ask interesting questions rather than answering them, a wide horisont, creativity (and knows when and how to use it), rhetorically and verbally skilled, reflective, is a few steps ahead in the conversation. Some of these do not apply to aspies (who are very intelligent), they are mainly traits of highly intelligent nts. But as you get to know someone with aspergers or autism, they'll get more comfortable around you and show some of these traits.

I can definitely tie my own shoe laces, drive, jump rope (while chewing gum at the same time) and paint with a great deal of precision when I want to.

It took me years to learn how to tie my shoelaces. And it still takes me 10 times longer than the average person. Ah well...

True. Look up eye contact in the adult forum and compare. There is a wide variance....some make it fine with family or friends but no one else too well.




Likely you've improved at 40.
I recall when I was younger, I would consciously use body language because everyone did it. I would bob the head unnaturally and consciously. In fact someone sensed "this" and called me out on it, once.
Now it is "felt," but only after decades. Eye contact is almost natural, but I have to look away occasionally or I simply can't think. Now I gesture with my eyes in a certain context , and communicate somewhat with my eyes, whereas before I didn't.

I can remember feeling 'such a disconnect with people,' but it made its way into me somewhat, now. Interestingly, my mother in law commented that I have made "big improvements" in the 10 years she has known me.... she spouted this out of the blue.

There is a lot of evidence of 'these kind of things' on this board.

The nicest nickname I had at school was 'walking dictionary'. Then I'd ask them, 'aren't I more like a walking thesaurus?'

Same... The things I can do... yet how people tie their shoelaces (so that they doesen't untie) will always remain a mystery to me. Also I learned to to tie a necktie from watching Dexter (The rabbit hops over the log, the rabbit crawls under the log, the rabbit runs around the log, one more time - because the rabbit is trying to outsmart the fox, and the rabbit dives into his rabbit hole.")

I always get this, it's probably because we do lots of research on things and are often well spoken.

BTW, it took me ages to learn to tie my laces too, but I could write scripts and webpages before I was 10

Or how about weirdly balanced skills? For example, in junior high I could read at the college level, but I was spelling like an early elementary school student. On the internet, spell check is my lifeline. Basically, I get all of the non-vowels (part of my spelling problem, I spelled the word I meant so badly, spell check couldn't save me) correct most of the time, but it's the vowels that I get wrong.