Do you find that AS gives the wrong impression? (IQ)

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Yes, I appreciate it since I obviously did not express myself well enough. But I thought I had succeeded with the first edit. Guess not.

You missed the title, that was the most important part to edit. I know what you meant though, even though you're wrong

I can not understand how that title could possibly be offensive, but maybe that just proves that you might consider me a ret*d (a social ret*d) as well. Made a final edit.

You are incorrect.

There is no debate.

Here is the FACT.....Everyone in the entire world with Aspergers has a normal IQ or higher by DEFINITION. This is not open to debate.

OMFD! does this thread frustrate me!

Science defines these diagnostic categories not unfounded opinions and feelings.

AS is going bye-bye anyway, so there ain't gonna be any Awesome Autistic Awesomedrome to contrast with Big Bad Autismism anymore.

But why would you say they were misdiagnosed? How do you know? Are you insecure about being in the same category as someone with DS who also has Asperger's? Why does it matter? People are people. The truth is, the vast majority of people do not know what AS is and when you say you have it, they will assume it's something that makes your IQ lower since that's the assumption when people say they have a syndrome people are not familiar with. They won't assume you have DS, of course, but they will assume your IQ is impaired in some way. It's how most people roll. They make superficial guesses and stick with them.

It's perceived as offensive because at least some of the people on this forum have been called "ret*d" in childhood as a form of bullying. In general "ret*d" is considered derogatory, more so on on a forum like this. After you gave the impression that you can tell whether somebody is "clinically ret*d" by looking at them (this is where I think you're wrong) you hit the point of no return on this thread. I'm sure what followed wasn't the reaction you were expecting but this is a good opportunity for you to learn about social action/reaction. So, don't be bitter, learn from it.

I can smell troll from a mile away and I'm not nice to them, as some of the people on this forum have probably figured out by now. I personally don't think you were trying to be malicious if that's any consolation to you.

*edit* If I were a mod I would have locked this thread as an act of mercy to you. Too bad I'm not a mod

Exactly. Maybe I'm just not uncomfortable at being associated with 'ret*ds' or LFA so all the different titles don't bother me. I'm starting to see what psychegots was getting at but I must say that the topic isn't offensive because people like me are too sensitive, I think it was offensive because he worded himself poorly and I still think it's a strange complaint to have, being upset that two people with Down Syndrome told you they're aspies.

I wasn't offended by the topic and I can't say I saw something wrong with it. I just thought he was labeling random aspies as ret*d just by how they write or process things or function I was guessing. You can't really tell online and I have been labeled as such online usually by jerks. In real life kids thought I was too. Then with my ex, his parents thought I was mildly and I was labeled as slow by neighbors according to him. But he himself didn't see me as such. I didn't let it bother me then because they didn't know me and once they did know me, they would see I was smarter than they thought. By then I just didn't care anymore if people thought I was or not.

It is not a problem that they tell me, I know that they should not have received an as diagnosis if they are in fact clinically ret*d. It is a problem for me when they tell everyone else. Because people around here do not know anything about Asperger's and will then assume that individual was a good representation for what Asperger's is (without taking into consideration various other disorders the same individual might have).

Then I can not later tell these individuals that I have Asperger's as an easy way to explain my problems as it will just create confusion and wrong impressions of me. I think it is unfair to conclude from this that I have something against clinically ret*d people because I do not want people to think I am one.

I do not want people to think I'm a savant genius either, because that is also a poor description of who I am, and what problems I have.

I apologize for the wrong impression I obviously gave starting this topic. Thank you for your support Rascal77s, I will try to learn something from it.

[edited to fix quote, Mummy_of_Peanut]

Just that bit there makes it all a bit clearer. At the beginning it sounded like 'Damn ret*ds! Calling themselves aspies! Now people will think I'm a ret*d!'



And here you do sound kind of like that but whatever, at least I think I have a better understanding of what you mean now.

Actually, that is not quite correct.

A person with an IQ of 80 is not mildly mentally ret*d (though they might meet the other criteria of MR) but their IQ score of 80 also isn't "average".

As for what the DSM says about "IQ" or rather, what it says about early cognitive development:





Many (all? I don't know about "all" for sure) of the developmental milestones within the first 3 years of life are considered "normal" as in "not a clinically significant delay" for as long as they fall within a certain but wide range usually defined by several months.

Babies/toddlers tend to start talking at around 12 months but a baby started talking "on-time" and does not have a speech delay even if if he or she figured saying words isn't worth it before 22 months.

As long as major milestone are met within the usual periods associated with when children with "typical" development hit them, the toddler isn't yet considered (globally) delayed and/or diagnosed with MR even if he or she is rather late on everything compared to toddlers of the same age.

Especially in the range of IQ scores that are considered to be mild MR, the fact that a child is diagnosable with mild MR may not have seriously occurred parents, (mental) health professionals and teachers until ages 3-4 when the delays of some kids tend to become more obvious when they're compared to typically developing children with an at least average IQ.

Besides all that, there is also a section that covers those rarer cases in which AS can be co-morbid with the diagnosis of MR:

It's more complex than you might think--"By definition" is not how the diagnosis is made. If it were, practically everybody with Asperger's would be diagnosed with Autistic Disorder, not Asperger's. That has nothing to do with IQ; it's just that the diagnoses are just so close together that most people who are diagnosed with "Asperger's" also qualify as "Autistic Disorder", and "Autistic Disorder" takes precedence.

My point in bringing that up is that the way the diagnostic categories are written is not the way they are used in real life. If the criteria were used as they are written, most people here would be diagnosed with plain old classic autism rather than Asperger's. Did you ever have trouble with conversations? Is your speech at all unusual? Did you avoid engaging in pretend play? Do you tend to speak in repetitive, scripted, or idiosyncratic ways? Were you at any point less independent than your same-age peers? If any of those are true, then chances are your correct diagnosis is not Asperger's, but Autistic Disorder.

The reason many peoploe aren't diagnosed with classic autism, when they should technically be, is that they can talk. An autistic person who can talk, and didn't have a huge amount of trouble learning, is likely to be diagnosed Asperger's whether or not that's the technically correct term for them. Similarly, someone who has something like Down syndrome, but didn't have a huge amount of trouble learning to talk compared to other people with Down syndrome, may be diagnosed with Asperger's rather than classic autism because their autism is more like Asperger's than like classic autism--even though, technically, due to their entirely unrelated possession of an extra chromosome, they are excluded from Asperger's.

The fact is, the diagnostic criteria aren't used as written; and if they were used as written, wouldn't be practical. That someone with a developmental delay is diagnosed with Asperger's doesn't surprise me. If the Asperger's diagnosis makes it easier for them to get whatever services they need, then I'd make that diagnosis too, however technically incorrect it might be. If you complain about it, you might as well complain about all the "Aspies" who have problems with conversations, seem to have an odd accent, speak in an unusually formal style, or don't join their peers at playing house or cops-and-robbers. Me, I'd rather forget about the awkward and unusuable sub-categories and just call the whole thing "the autism spectrum".