On this whole AS="genius" thing...

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Another high IQ f**k up here, dropped out of high school, barely tried, probably would have done poorly had I tried.

Aspies are pretty quick to explain how IQ tests don't work properly on them when the study or theory shows them in an unfovorable light, but when something or someone suggests aspies have high IQ's they're pretty quick to jump on the bandwagon and say aspies use their massive intellects and egos to become masters in any field they're in.

But everything I know suggests autistic generally arn't even employed and that the OP is just mixing up intelligent people with autistic people, which isn't a hard mistake to make.

It's like the ultimate sport of this community to take intelligent or popular people and claim they're autistic, always basically to give autism some street cred, who was it this week? Avril Lavrign? Robert Downey Junior before that I think.

I don't mind being labeled a genius...it's a lot better then the opposite, 'stupid' or 'ret*d'.
I always considered myself more of a specialized genius rather than a general one. Good in certain areas terrible at others.
I always found IQ tests to be subjective anyways. You could be a genius at art and music yet fail horribly in math and science. (Most IQ tests I've seen seem to measure math, science and writing only. )

What good is it having a high IQ if you can't actually DO the things you know your intelligence should make you capable of doing?

I don't judge anyone for doing "less" with their abilities than what they are thought to be capable of. You don't know what people are actually capable of. People assume if you're smart enough, you can do anything with your mind and IT'S NOT TRUE.

I think a large part of the reason people with AS are often tagged as "highly intelligent" has more to do with the way we measure and identify "intelligence" in children and less to do with any actual correlation. The typical tests I took as a child involved rote memorization, logical word relationships, and such. I have always had an extremely accurate visual memory, so memorizing the meanings to made up words was about the duh easiest test I could have imagined. I also had a huge vocabulary for my age so I was automatically at a tremendous advantage in any sort of word logic. I have also had a talent for seeing similarities, differences, relationships in words, objects, situations, etc. Further, I had an extremely logical unemotional way of thinking. Add to this the fact I have never experienced test anxiety, and the situation becomes clear. All these things are common in aspies, and all these things give one an unnatural advantage in the sort of tests used to measure intelligence. My IQ on tests when I was a child was, I believe, somewhere between 120-140.

The simple truth is that, if you measure intelligence by memory, vocabulary, and reasoning ability, then aspies will automatically be more intelligent because we possess those traits. I think the confusion is likely because people with AS don't achieve as highly as those without. Many of us are unemployed, unmarried, have few friends, are poor, etc. By most of the typical measures of life success, we are underachievers. The logical conclusion is that the traits measuring "intelligence" are not as important as others in determining financial and social outcomes in our society. In my experience, our society invariably rewards conformity, social skill, outward appearance, and class status, above all other factors.

Or, to put those paragraphs into one sentence. Yeah, we're more intelligent, but so what; it doesn't seem to make very much difference one way or the other.

IQ is essentially a meaningless number. It's a bragging right.

The more important factors are drive and creativity. Someone can be amazingly brilliant and just not care enough to do anything with it.