People seem to mix up autism & intellectual disability (ID)

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Haha love it!

hooray for YOU !

I’ve seen it on social media and also in my previous college, people using autistic instead of the word ret*d. Hence our beloved “you don’t look autistic!”. I’ve seen many kids with severe autism actually understanding some simple things which means that they don’t have intelligence issues, unless they go-exist with the autism. I attended a seminar where a specialist said “autistic people do have ideas and thoughts, it’s just their communication system that’s different. Intellectually disabled don’t have ideas and thoughts”

Regarding ideas and thoughts, it's the type that is different than "typical". I can look at something complex and call out an insight (brilliant!) and I can stand in front of a common item and be clueless (dullard!). I definitely have the "absent-minded professor" persona going for me. If folks just witness the "absent-minded" and not the "professor", I don't make a good impression.

Regarding communication, as an adult I am diagnosed with reading/verbal learning disorder so technically I have an "intellectual disability" that way. That along with the poor working memory makes me "average" that way. It wasn't identified as a child b/c in a mostly supportive environment, "professor" outshone "absent-minded". I definitely felt it.

That’s right! I think he confused it with very low intelligence, aka I.Q. , and regarding that how would he know? He never existed as a mentally handicapped person and turned normal.

I can see sometimes why the mix up happens . It's the "Why can someone so clever be so dumb?" syndrome .

If people knew me in a non-verbal dominated environment .




Verbal- 1st making not much effort and second making a lot more effort.

Totally Understand this syndrome.

It's not just communication it's structure and stuff needed,...hence therapy's benefit for ALL levels..

since the brain can go haywire processing at so many more levels or u shut everything out to avoid that.. like my son refusing to eat or drink despite starvation because his brain needed structure to focus his attentionn..therapy gave him that...the therapist even explained when i commented on how drastically happier he was from therapy...

she said even if XYZ activity she is doing seems irrelevant from an outsider's point of view to a proposed goal (like drinking water)...She said for him it's focus, executive functioning/structure, developing motor skills as WELL as overcoming psychological blocckage ffrom 'failing' so offten before (he was stuck in a sense of hopelessness) and almost anorexic mindset fromm ffear of food and water by association (it traumatized him).

she devised those programs specifically to activate the neural pathways needed to do the goal too ..but in a way that isn't threatening/overwhelmming for him (breaks it down so it's a little bit harder at a time)..
so confidence AND skills come about over time..it's not alll communication.
(or other goals like not self-innjuring and learning to commuicate instead of giving up),,the pathways basically create the structure for him to be more independent and accomplish what comes naturally to less severe ASD...

since they showed that ASD brains process more areas of the brain fr the same input compared to NTs and (neurologically) psychopathic people (the latter two are almost identical in the brain pattern of processing, actually..

this last paragraph is not very clear to me.