Do you find that AS gives the wrong impression? (IQ)

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I am gifted and I don't care.

I really enjoy working with kids whose IQ scores fall into the borderline intellectual functioning range because I have a lot in common with many of them.

Obviously, what I have in common with them isn't my IQ score on a standardised test but the unusual learning style, those learning difficulties that are quite independent of the IQ, the sensory issues, the need to plan activities in a slightly different way than what normal people need... first time I got in contact with students like that in 2008, I was perfectly comfortable to be helping kids who have - on the surface - such as different disorder/impairment than me, but who have very similar issues.

It's not all that uncommon for people with down syndrome to also be diagnosed with autism of some form. You don't have to have an above average IQ to have AS, from my understanding, the biggest difference between "high functioning autism" and AS is a speech delay.

I was repeatedly asked if I was ret*d by many of my peers when I was in school. I was also picked on as well. I was even convinced that I was ret*d until my mum told me about my HFA, when I was 15. I wish that I would have known the truth about myself at the age of 9 or 10. I wouldn't have been in the dark all those years, if I knew.

1. Which mentally ret*d people get misdiagnosed with Asperger's? There's actually a genome and chromosomal diagnosis for MR, so I'm confused.

2. If they are misdiagnosed with AS or autism, what difference does that make to you?

3. Come 2013, the term 'Asperger's' may disappear anyway and we'll be included in the autism dialogue. In essence, this brings us closer to mental retardation than Asperger's. In fact, I'm sure that if they did get rid of the Asperger's terminology today, people would leave WP because they'll say, "I'm not ret*d! Get me out of here!"

I'm not expert on this topic, what I know I learnt mostly from young adults who have the disability and their relatives (edit: and reading studies and interesting articles they pointed out). Some tend to be equally outspoken about demystifying their disorder or the disorder of the child and determined to clear up popular and old misconceptions as some autistic people and their relatives are about ASDs too.

Basically, a person with one of the types of Trisomy 21/Down's Syndrome can have any IQ.

That said, statistically, most people with the disorder are said to have an intellectual disability within the range associated with mild mental retardation (and, I think, moderate mental retardation).

Remember that it is an average someone/some people claimed is true. There are those who have a lower IQ score than that just as those who do not have MR but who have a lower than average IQ but there are also people with an average IQ and who may struggle with many other common and serious health issues connected to having DS.


DS isn't simply a low IQ score or a learning impairment. Defining it as such would be like saying autism is a type of speech impairment.

Come to think of it, there are these two really popular persons with DS who are gifted IQ-wise. An Italian guy and, I think, a Japanese woman.

Where are these people who are mentally ret*d that claim to have AS though? Examples?

Really, I doubt you'd find many people with both, as they usually lump people with MR under AD.

(We also know how IQ tests don't always provide an accurate portrayal in people with ASDs.)

I used to score in the mild ret*d range under age eight. Then I scored above it when I was eight and then just about average when I was 10 and then I got a 99 at age 11. Then it was above average in 6th grade I was told.

My IQ score was inaccurate growing up.

Oh God, not another one of these threads, we just had one, didn't we?