"Sounding Intellegent" a sign?

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I know these topics are annoying, but I was wondering about a comment I get a lot. I can speak to someone I've never met before for 10 minutes about nothing in particular and someone says "You are such an intelligent woman!" My psychiatrist said I sound intelligent and he can tell I have a higher education.

I just can't figure out what people are picking up on. And I've gotten this all my life. I was told I use big words, but I don't think that is true?

Also, sometimes I speak and I don't make it clear what I'm talking about, as if the other person should figure it out. I have no particular examples off the top of my head, but it's like I leave parts out of sentences that would add understanding.

Aspie? Or just something else that is intelligent-sounding in general? My childhood IQ had a huge discrepancy between Verbal and Performance, but Verbal was just near genius and Performance was 100 exactly, so I don't think I'm really that smart.

This is why you see Aspies described as "little professors" - use of formal language. Even if your words aren't particularly 'big' or obscure, your sentance structure can be a factor in how people interpret your intellect and education.

Last edited by OddFiction on 23 Sep 2010, 10:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Maybe it's because you don't pick up on slangs and are grammatically correct? I've noticed it makes a whole world's difference, for example, when you say "Where you at?" instead of "Where are you?"

I've gotten that comment, followed by "Why aren't you insert expectation here?" I don't know what to tell them.

Peculiar speech is a characteristic of autism.

I have gotten it too, once from an attorney. It seems like a very strange dichotomy of being both smart and not very bright at the same time. People expect too much of me because I look and "seem" smart. I'm smart in some ways and incredibly stupid in others. Go figure!

Same here. My cognitions are uneven and people have mixed opinions about my intelligence, which is why I don't worry about it. People are going to think what they want to think, regardless.

Know thyself.

That viq and piq discrepancy could be an indicator. There was someone here (early this year) who had a 30 points difference, and participated in a clinical trial assessment for ASD'S, but was declined a diagnoses. It didn't mean he wasn't on the spectrum; he probably was subclinical.
I've seen here(W.P.) a score of 160+ and 80+ something, and I've seen an absolute even score, but this member had scored in the lower 15% on one subtest of a different test (a test that included executive functioning), and this proved to be the failing link in her cognition.

I've been told by several people in my life that I should be teaching college, but they don't see my foibles, my blatant mistakes, my unorthodox approach to "doing anything"- the ones that do have shaken their heads.

My daughter once wrote me: "i told mom a long time ago that i think you have some form of autism. occasionally i sense a bit of rain man. this ability to think big and deep and disappear in your own thoughts and miss something totally obvious to everyone around you, etc. there's more to it than that, but you just seemed to be one of those functional autistic folks".

Last edited by Mdyar on 24 Sep 2010, 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

it's a sad day when correct grammar is considered "peculiar", although reading papers and books, I see the proof of the truth in your statement nearly every day. It never cease to amaze me just how ignorant people are when it comes to correct grammar. Even people with writing related professions (authors, journalists, language teachers) are guilty of this.


For the record, I have also been told since childhood that I'm bright, smart, knowledgeable and/or reflected.

If you want to know, my childhood IQ test placed me as 128 Verbal and 100 Performance, almost 30 points difference. As one of my former roommates put it "How can you be so smart, yet so stupid?"

One example, you know how hard it is when you can remember the Latin names of many species of birds (I'm not good at spelling though) but when you have to put away something in the fridge, you can't figure out what to move in order to put it away?

I've been told that I lack life skills so badly, that I might need assisted living (but I just got my own apartment in an elderly/disabled community with relatives nearby to see how that works out.)

As you can see in my sig, I do have lots of problems anyway. I get to see new mental health professionals in the new town, so I should get the help I need or a new perspective on my problems.

I've been told that when I talk it is as though my brain were a computer because I am calm and use "big words". I don't agree with that however (especially when I speak English but that's mostly because it is not my native language), but I think most people expect you to speak rather loudly or showing a lot of emotions.

Some speech pecularities may indicate introversion, reflection and culture more than Autism. However, these qualities tend to be dominant in Autistic people because they generally have a special interest and have lots of knowledge about it. Plus, monotone voice is considered as being a sign of Autism.



I can relate to that ! I was the child who could learn the Braille System at 7 but couldn't tie her shoes nor recognize her right hand from her left hand without having to grasp a pen.

Yes, this is an AS trait--it's referred to in the literature as "pedantic speech".

I find it quite annoying that most definitions of aspergers have something like "uses big words in the wrong places, or without knowing what they mean".

It more often seems like the observer simply sees the aspie saying words which the observer considers big, and that the observer is not familiar enough with these words to understand why it is perfectly correct to use them at certain times.

I could never understand peoples' obsession with intentionally talking like idiots, or why there is something wrong with using the most suitable words to convey a certain meaning if those words just so happen to not be part of the local slang vocabulary.

One time an employer even ridiculed me for saying that something was "chosen at random". He found the word "random" absolutely hilarious, and repeated it in a high pitched voice, "OOooOooh, rannndom! It was chosen at random, was it?" while making various gestures which suggested that he thought I was speaking in some kind of overly "posh" way, for using big words like "random". Random isn't even a big word.

Really, it's not. I couldn't understand his reaction at all and I think he must have been so unintelligent that he truly considered such a word to be flashy or used only by the pretentious.


So, in regard to the OP. I'm not sure, but if you say you're not using big words, yet other people believe that you are, maybe they're just really stupid and easily impressed. Even doctors can be like this, with such limited understanding of language that they perceive ordinary words as being excessive, unnecessary or out of place, even when they are the most appropriate and useful for trying to get a specific message across.

It might not be right to say that everyone is stupid, maybe it is better to say that some people are just smart. Even if they appeared to be of seemingly "average" intelligence, perhaps the true average is just so low that even someone who uses ordinary words rather than primitive grunts is truly a genius, with all things being relative.

funny story.. i've just now given up trying to talk to support staff about helping me apply for a specialist college (for today at least) one of the reasons being that nobody but me could pronounce the word prospectus.. now granted it is perhaps a bigger word than random but still, come on!! these people are supposedly well-adjusted 'normal' folk and they've yet to learn to talk..
on days like these it's hard to believe they could possibly land a job supporting adults
i'm no genius or even close, but get told i sound intelligent and this usually helps people form the opinion that there can't be anything wrong with me. i wouldn't mind so much if they weren't in such a position, but i really do need support and really do struggle with basic day to day activities. maybe if we decide to boycott words for a little while they might take us seriously. :/

These are the symptoms that make me know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I have Aspergers. When I was little, I was extremely intelligent. I finished The Apology of Socrates at nine years old. Yet, even at that point in my life I had a lot of difficulty telling my right from my left hand and always put it backwards when saying the pledge of allegiance. I've always used very formal speech since I learned how to communicate, and my communication has always been remarked as being very intellectual, but very absent-minded (like a professor, I would get caught up in a topic and talk about it for hours to people who didn't care). On top of that, I never got jokes and sarcasm, it led me to confess to an entire class in second grade that my brother still wore pullups without, even as I was scolded at home because he ran home crying, realizing it was wrong to say or that the kids were joking when they asked me about it. I've never had any social tact whatsoever. I was diagnosed with ADD, consequently, when I was about six or seven years old---reluctantly. The doctor wasn't sure why I was so intelligent if I had just an attention problem, but autism wasn't a common diagnosis then.

I have even a lot more symptoms than that, obviously, but those are the ones I find the hardest to ignore.

I also have a problem when I feel cornered or condescended in a conversation that the things I say begin making no sense to anyone for how I word them, yet they make perfectly logical sense if reworded. But I find it 50x harder to make sense when I feel annoyed and cornered in a conversation.

Sometimes I give the impression that I should know many things about everything. But my knowledge isn't that wide at all. It must just be the way I present the interesting facts that I do have.


I'm guilty.

And AS doesn't necissarily mean you are of superior intelligence.