Are AS people truly intelligent ?

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What a prick. If I were you, I'd beat him up with a chair leg and I'd blame it on my autism afterwards.

Go find another doctor.

Oh God, you figure this out, you will rule the world.
This is a great question for a psych student on his/her first day of grad school; coincidentally enough, my mentor asked this of my cohort on our first day of grad school. There are dozens of intelligence tests, all claiming to measure the same thing - intelligence - but all of the tests are different.

Interestingly, I believe that the behaviour of the AS child in this example could actually caused by extremely flexible thinking rather than excessive rigid thinking.

Presumably, the NT child knows the following rules that are relevant to this situation:
1) If I need to pee, I must pee immediately
2) If I need to pee, I must do it in the bathroom
3) The teacher has told us not to leave the room

If the NT child needs to pee, then rules 1) and 2) override rule 3). So they leave the room to use the bathroom.

For the AS child who can think flexibly, rules 1) and 2) need not be rules at all. Yes bathrooms are designed for peeing, but that does not necessarily mean one must pee in the bathroom. It is not a logical necessity that one must pee in the bathroom. So the AS child only has rule 3) to go by, and so stays in the room.

In summary: extremely flexible thinking may appear on the surface as extremely rigid thinking. Be wary of descriptions of AS people as very rigid inflexible black and white thinkers. I believe this is a myth, created by misinterpretations of stories like the one quoted.

I think the peeing eggsample indicates rigidity instead of flexibility. It is too familiar to me to indicate opposite of what I know it is for myself. Although the thought process works in theory, I find rigidity much more plausible in this case.

It might depend on how badly they need to go...

Personally if I could wait I'd stay where I was but if I could not I'd leave the room and go to the loo regardless, although I might ask if it is ok to leave the room first or mention it to the teacher if possible.

If the teacher was not around, I'd just go pee if I had to go badly enough.

Alternatively you could pee in a container in the corner but that would not be very private.

If you are male you could also pee out of a window but that might not be very private either.

It depends...

I'll pee in anything if I am desperate enough.

Yes we are truly intelligent.

I'm reluctant ascribing individuals an IQ score. Does it truly measure the brains potential? Or does it merely tell you how good you are at doing IQ tests.



One area that Aspergoids do perform well, usually in excess of a NT is ........Wide Associative Thinking. I personally scored very high in this area until a psychiatrist labotomised my Pre frontal cortex with chemicals. but that's another story.


*Associative horizon concerns matters like divergent or lateral thinking, mental flexibility, fluency of association, non-conformism, humour, or individuality (resistance to various outside pressures like socialization). These traits provide the "spark" that causes work to be "original", they allow one to see what others miss, to think what none have thought before. Associative horizon is not easy and perhaps impossible to improve, but does relate to one's mental state and health, and is influenced by medication. It is attractive to lazy or unable persons to think Associative horizon is all there is to creativity, but alas; Ability and Conscientiousness, including hard work, are required as well.*

Thank you.

I never heard of the concept of "flexible thinking".

I wish I knew it back when I was small and was told "you lack common sense".

Yeah, cause nothing moves the diagnostics process forward like a stay in jail.

My thinking is flexible in the way suggested by the example: it's not that I don't know there are multiple rules, it's that I know of so many rules that I'm unsure which set of rules applies in the circumstance. It's not just the general rules, there is also the individual understanding of the rules held by the person in authority.

In the case of the example with the kid in the classroom, I know that one should pee in the bathroom, but I also know that under some circumstances it's okay to pee outside or in the company of others (camping, public events, coming home from the bar, if the bathrooms are full, etc), depending on the person and the circumstance. For all I know, there could be even more rules and there could be an understanding of the rules for the teacher that would allow different behavior.

It's more a paralysis of too many options than it is of only knowing the one. And in that case, I would probably hold it because rule three was the most rigid of the presented rules (and the one I could be the most sure of.)

Yes, they are.

Im sure that there are ret*ds out there among us as well

Please do not use that word... in real life or here... ret*d is as bad as many racial slurs...

Well im most certainly not.

Its really annoying to always hear that stupid remark, oh you have autism or whatever, then your like really smart.

Just like no im not why should i be smarter because my brain is all messed up.

Its like oh you only got one leg, than you must be really good at using your hands. what?.

I find that word very crass, vulgar and ignorant.

While I don't agree with her proposed method, I do agree with semota's sentiment. Equating you -and by extension everyone with Asperger syndrome- with an inanimate object, is hugely disrespectful. I'm unfamiliar with your doctor's track record of helping people, but out of context this little anecdote makes him look unprofessional.