IQ

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IQ testing is not so straight forward as suggested by this discussion.

Depending on what you are testing IQ tests can give wide ranges of results when taken by people on the spectrum. In the 1950s IQ tests were very simple things often testing something like problem solving ability or math abilities or dexterity. When I was in the second grade my mother and my teacher had a major fight over weather I was capable of staying in school (back then there was no "main streaming"). My mother out witted the teacher by making sure the IQ test that was administered to me was strongly centered on problem solving and when the test showed that my IQ was above 190 the school district kept me in the school - and did not renew the teachers contract for the next year. Of course a couple years latter someone tested me with a test that was centered around social skills and development - and came up with something like an 80. The over the next few years I was given several different IQ tests (at the district's expense) that each placed my IQ at many different levels.

Today one of the methods of verifying Asperger's is to give a bank of IQ type tests and then examine the results - if you have a nice level line through the test results all at about the same level - you are not Asperger's, However, if your scores vary widely then you are likely to be Asperger's (you also need to show deficits in social ability). My son's diagnosis was confirmed by a bank of tests that placed his social abilities in the lowest 2%, his visual organizational skills in the lower 10% of all people yet place his problem solving ability better than 99% of all takers of that test and very high levels of pattern recondition and logical progressions. In the end the testing agency estimated his "over all IQ around 125". Note that his IQ is estimated not given. Both the fact that some test results were so far off the norm that they could not get be sure of the accuracy and also no one knows quite how to average out such wide variations and come up with a valid answer.

So one must take IQ numbers with a grain of salt - especially for people on the spectrum.

Testing the IQ in autistic ppl is not very valid, my IQ in the subareas on those tests differs around 40 points from test to test.

So my IQ in certain areas could be nearly everything.

To all of you in the spectrum whose IQs are off the charts:

Be very proud about it.

Why? Because IQ tests have been designed for us (NTs) and if you score above average in a test that wasn't even designed for your brains, then it still means you have superior cognitive skills. The fact that some values in the test are much higher than others does not diminish the final result.

However IQ does not measure capacity or potential. Someone with a very high IQ can have limited capacity due to a biological dysfunction or psychological issues; which ,sadly, seems to be the case of my son.

According to the numerous online tests I've taken, mine is somewhere between 115 and 126 with a verbal IQ of 134. After you pass IQ 120 individual drive and interest in learning are really all that matter as far as potential and ability are concerned. Case in point, I have a friend with an IQ of 145 who spent his entire first year at college smoking marijuana only to drop out the next year.