As an aspie, how does your intelligence compare with others?

Post Reply New Topic

i've tested from mentally r*t*rded all the way up to gifted range, i guess on the days i felt rotten i didn't fare well. i have never ever felt smart to any degree, i long have felt like my life would be so much easier if only i had scored 2 or more standard deviations above the average, on a consistent basis. in my next lifetime i will be a genius, by gum!

And just what constitutes the standard deviations ?
And by the way what brand of " gum" to buy?

Everybody thinks they know far better than they do, it's not worth reading about how intelligent people think they are.

I don't think I'm more intelligent than average, and if I was I don't think it would be due to autism. It can probably shuffle my stat points around, but I haven't seen a reason to think it gave me more points at character creation. I'm more curious than average, yeah, and absolutely more honest with myself. I'm not sure what role autism played in my curiosity. I have special interests where it probably drove me to delve deeper and ask more questions; but outside of those I haven't noticed a clear effect.

For self-honesty - I seem to be able to walk away from my own internal narratives more easily than other people can, when those narratives are flat wrong or just unlikely. That's not to say I can't get 'stuck' on a belief, but overall other people seem to have much more difficulty letting go of questionable beliefs than I do. I guess the way to say it is: I define my beliefs more than the other way around. But that doesn't seem to be true for most people.

I don't have evidence that autism improves my self-honesty - Lord knows I've met autistic people who fool themselves all the time - but I've wondered if it's relevant. I had a number of shocking experiences when I was a kid/teenager/young adult, where I learned the hard way that my core beliefs could be just as wrong as any other belief. I didn't grow up in a cult, but my family had strong tendencies in that direction despite being Roman Catholic. I had to unlearn a lot of crazy as I got older - for instance, that it wasn't actually necessary to keep a gallon of holy water hidden beneath the cabinets in case of demonic invasion. They were also just manipulative in general, so I had an onion's worth of layers to unravel.

Were those experiences what taught me to walk away from bad beliefs? Was autism - which has often felt to me like a more straightforward view of the world - what let me escape from them with no lingering effects, when many others fail to? I don't have any way of knowing. But I do think about it sometimes.

Intelligence in the NT world is gauged by the application of one's intelligence in terms of achievement/outcomes.

I recall a documentary on the world's highest IQs ever scored and the top guy was a truck driver, second was a college drop out and the third was a housewife.

Many of the people who have achieved great things in life have fairly ordinary IQs.

I'm pretty stupid overall. Just being honest. lmao

The only thing I'm really good at is memorizing facts and taking care of animals. I have no other skills. I can't even pay attention to reading something for more than 5 minutes now.

to answer your question: smarter people than me describe/measure intelligence using a device called a Bell Curve, aka "the normal [statistical] distribution." it is all about statistics.
the IQ score chart below shows a graphic scale of a normal distribution. you can think of the horizontal axis as all the different scores one could possibly get, lowest through highest. the vertical axis represents the number of people that obtain that specific score.

an IQ test score calculation is based on a norm group with an average score of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. The standard deviation is a measure of spread, in this case of IQ scores. a standard deviation of 15 means 68% of the norm group has scored between 85 (100 – 15) and 115 (100 + 15). IOW, 68% of the norm group has a score within one standard deviation of the average (100).
95% of the norm group has an IQ score within two standard deviations of the average, so 95% of the norm group has a score between 70 (100 – 30) and 130 (100 + 30). what this means is that scores of over 130 only occur in 2.5% of the cases. as an example, the Netherlands has 17 million inhabitants. so based on chance, only 25 of these inhabitants would have an IQ score of 170. there would only be one person with an IQ score of 180. only 4 out of 1000 would score at least 140 on an IQ test. lots of online tests give you a gifted score of 130 or higher fairly easily. these tests often have a different goal, like collecting information for marketing purposes, so there's reason to believe they give you an unwarranted break just to keep you with 'em. a more typical academic or lab-grade IQ test will give you a more reliable and accurate IQ score.
and "by gum" is slang for "pretty surely."

my friend, please don't call yourself by that word, you have the intelligence that you need. i have trouble paying attention for more than 5 minutes also. give yourself a break every 5 minutes and you'll get where you wanna be, at least if it is important enough.

Yes. This. And to those who say IQ doesn't measure anything or that it's nonsense: out of everything that the field of psychology has produced, IQ testing is the most reproducible measure that it has produced. IQ testing is so useful that your job fitness and responsibilities in the US army and armies across the world is determined by such testing. Colleges give precious admittances to people in large part because of their scores on standardized intelligence tests like the SAT. Quarterbacks going into the NFL are given the Wunderlich test, another intelligence (IQ) test, which is a big factor in who a franchise chooses to sign to multimillion dollar contracts. Intelligence testing is NOT bunk.

Knowing someone's IQ can be lifesaving. Read up the sad story of what's referred to as McNamara's Morons, or when the US army lowered standards on IQ tests in order to draft more soldiers for Vietnam. Some of the soldiers admitted couldn't tell their left from their right, or had a hard time following basic instructions like directional arrows. These soldiers had a 3x higher fatality rate in the war compared to the soldiers who met the previous standards. Truly a shameful decision to draft these men

Had seen that during my time in the military . And very Sad about their mortality rate. .
It caused me much disillusionment back then.

i was put in charge of training a mentally dull soldier in my army unit, he never should have been admitted into the army medical corps. sad. he was a reservist.

Depends on how you define "Aspie".

If you define "Aspergers" as it was originally intended as Autism without being intellectually disabled I am probably in the mid-range or a bit below the mid-range.

If you go by the DSM 5 era colloquial definition of high intelligence to a genius I don't qualify.

Just to give some historical context. Before the development of the current global IQ test for adults (WAIS-IV) the US army was one of the first to introduce the use of the precursor intelligence testing called the Stanford-Binet intelligence test.

The US army was motivated to introduce intelligence testing in 1917 due to a demand for a systematic method of evaluating the intellectual and emotional functioning of soldiers. This would be the precursor to the later development of the WAIS for adults and the WISC global intelligence test for children.

What generated the demand for such testing? there was a warped concept called eugenics which was at its height of popularity in the US at the turn of the 20th century. The armed forces were driven by a need to genetically screen applicants and intelligence testing was a way for screening out weak prospects. Concurrently the tests were being used to weed out those deemed generically inferior including the :feeble minded" who were sterilised. Among it's proponents were the erstwhile brilliant scientist Francis Galton who practically invented eugenics.

So the IQ test has a rather dark history,

am quite sure Eugenics is still practiced en masse to this very day . But the heresy of saying so, is not tolerated especially by government entities,and their corporate supporters . I believe it is merely practiced under various other titles in the more modern world. But if oneself finds existence too tedious or absolutely intolerable for any numerous reasons . And they share that information .
There is a high probability that they will find themselves incarserated often in much worse circumstances than they were in before. And with no potential recources for themselves . Regardless of their IQ .Finding themselves at the mercy of a often inexperienced mental health system . Whom will put the individual through all sorts of medicines and potential procedures . Even some with the intent of damaging a persons brain . As apposed to trying to actively alleviate the condition in the brain or effect circumstances that underlie the condition. Have a bad time and become mentally depressed to the point of fearing for your own safety, considering your own demise . And not successfully attempt this, And have discovered through Mental health pros. and you will be branded a faker. Have actually spoke to some professionals that still branded them as fakers even after the patients death.
This is my personal perceptions of what mental health industry has been up to . All in the name of promoting a industry and a image of compassion. These experiences may not apply to the multimillionaire class of Mental health industry , for which i have no experience . Btw attempting self destruction, Will cause you to have certain civil rights removed, at least in the USA.
Often i wonder about the direct cause and effect of a IQ test may have on a person longevity in modern society ? Sorry about the rant it just came out.
This post does not apply to TMS treatments or EMDR . As occassionally possibly some therapies can move out of the dark ages . IMHO

if the IQ-based eugenicists had their totalitarian regime and tested me on a bad day, i'd likely be fit for the glue factory in their view.

The mental health system is designed to reprogram or manage people who's behaviour makes them a risk to themselves or other people. Their brief is "rehabilitation" but effectively it's about removing non-conforming individuals from society and pumping them full of drugs.

They are not set up to improve intelligence.