AUTISM AND MENTAL RETARDATION ARE DIFFERENT!

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It is to bad that some people who are aspies don't realize how hard it is for some of us to watch these videos that have poor sound without transcripts or subtitles but like some girl said 'we're just supposed to click on the link and watch it' so it's obvious she hasn't a clue about autism.

I guess I messed up. I was PM'd that the 'girl' is a guy who isn't diagnosed but she/he was trying to tell me how to watch a video like a regular person, not realizing of course that I'm not a regular person, but an autistic person who apparantly is a surprise for her/him to encounter on a site for autistic people.

Dave is right. Austism and metal retardartion are two separate, but sometimes, overlapping issues. I understand that it can be very frustrating for a young man who has been identified as autistic at an early age to be also labled metally ret*d by people who don't know any better. This is one advantage to NOT be diagnosed with an ASD in childhood.

When I was working with boys were classic Auties, one could not communicate very well. I never assumed that he was mentally ret*d. I always thought there could be a very intelligent person in there, and I thought there was. It's ignorant to make assumptions about someone's intelligence if they have a communication impairment.

I think maybe you really identified Dave's situation in that he has a problem with being labeled autistic or ret*d and would prefer to be seen as being an Aspie of some sort for some reason so he can calim to have some superior intelligence beyond that of those people who are putting him down for being somewhat lame on some website for one reason or another.

There are people who wouldn't even know the difference between Down's syndrom and autism. Some autistics have low IQs in the "ret*d" range and some way pas the genius mark but either way autism by definition is not MR. According to Facebook, I'm 128...I like the message.

"Mental Retardation" isn't a single disorder, it has various causes and manifestations, and Autism does, and is one of the causes of it in the majority of cases of those with Kanner's Autism.

Taken from the ever-present DSM-IV-TR on Kanner's Autism/Autistic Disorder:

What would you do with a guy who was a ret*d with an IQ of 80 but at the same time designing rockets for NASA and doing advanced work for the DOD and it just so happended that he was also diagnosed as being autistic as a secondary comorbid condition to general retardation. I know this is a complicated train of thought so try and stay with me since you are so smart.
Now considering this how is the original post valid to begin with since retardation is the diagnosis but autism is the secondary contributor to the persons general condition. A very similar situation to Kim Peeks who is not autistic but diagnosed as being ret*d under one set of criteria but autistic under another set of criteria.

"According to Facebook". Are you really serious about that statement you just made and do you realize how uninformed it sounds?

Does the topicstarter realise that PDD stands for pervasive developmental disorder?

Apologies to the topicstarter but your voice is hurting my ears so I didn't listen much longer after you talked about PDD

I think he said "progressive"

I don't know, I had trouble with the audio.

I have to admit that if the guy knew how to do real vids at a technical level and and took some more voice lessons that he could be almost as convincing as Alex when it came to making pitches about Aspergers and social integration and other yuppie topic type stuff popular at colleges.

One thing what gets me with these things, it's if people wish to disassociate themselves from mental retardation because it's somehow "inferior" or a "defection", i.e., they have "Autism", but no, they don't have this defective disorder called "Mental Retardation" in addition (even though most individuals with Autism proper have mental retardation--the irony just kills me).

There's two points to mental retardation, one which is an IQ test, which only measures how well you can do in social schooling (however, in ASDs, there is a correlation between more severe symptoms and a lower IQ), and adaptive functioning*.

*I guarantee that most individuals with Asperger's would be ret*d in regards to adaptive functioning compared to their peers (and they are, as I have a nice little study that says such), as well as social and emotional retardation.

For people who so happen to have "high IQs"..., so many are so blind to logical discourse; the irony just kills me again.

I don't care if I repeat someone. I never read the topic beforehand but while I write.


I am sure that autism can influence the IQ negatively.

To have an ASD can lower your verbal score for one - even if you're a verbal individual - drastically, because you probably did not experience the social context and meaning of several words.

Perhaps you also have what is commonly called NLD/NVLD which affects your performance score significantly.

To have an ASD also means you probably missed part of a standard education (even just by being thrown out of the classroom) and this lack of general knowledge also lowers you score on several IQ tests. Another reason for not having a normal amount of general knowledge (basic physics, chemistry, history) could be special interests too. This lowers your verbal IQ score and might also give your problems with the overall understanding of the instructions. (Understanding most academic instructions right away is a learnt trait and something children learn starting with kindergarten/preschool/school.)

If you had a non-standard education or less than that your maths skills might be affected negatively. As could be your spelling knowledge. This does not mean your maths or spelling ability are impaired, but your knowledge of the subjects is atypically limited as compared to that of someone with a standard education.

More directly, sensory issues, communication impairments (speech and language), social deficits and repetitive behaviours and activities can occur in ASDs. These can also affect and lower the IQ score on a standardised test. And not so only temporarily but also for a prolonged period or all the time if your impairments are hard or even impossible to make up for.

And this is not even touching upon a possible direct genetic or neurological relationship of a cognitive delay and classical autism and PDD-NOS.



Next;

I do not think that physical/neurological aspects cause a cognitive delay on their own in many autistic people. Just personal perception though. I mean, look at the surprisingly many people labelled MR who fight different battles (metaphorically speaking) due to sensory issues or than some of non-autistic people also labelled with MR. How many are left that seem to have a low IQ and miserable adaptive skills due to more than ASD symptoms?

MR (as defined officially) is truly a huge part of the autistic spectrum.

Many autistic people test for a low general IQ and have issues with adaptive skills which absolutely is MR.

Doesn't mean they all have a single reason for their MR. And it's not as if MR is something horribly bad.

Besides,

maybe rather than pushing it far away, you should learn what it means and refrain from allowing that any person is treated 'like a ret*d'.

How is 'a ret*d' treated? You do not seem to accept it - just like many others find the cannot accept to be treated like that too.

Yet I don't see why those without MR are offended by the treatment and accusations they receive when they're thought to be MR. When at the same time, by explaining they have nothing to do with it, they don't mind that those with MR receive the same offending treatments and accusations.

'You can have everybody else but leave me alone'? I don't understand why anyone would have that thinking.