HFA People With No Intelligence or Talent

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I know many people assume that all autistic people are intelligent and talented in some way or another (not helped by movies like Rain Man), but does anyone know any high-functioning autistic people who are not intelligent or talented? I do. I know a high-functioning autistic adult who has no intelligence or talent and his autism is only marked by his severe social awkwardness and his one or two obsessions - sex and strip clubs. Does anyone else know anybody like this?

I'm not intelligent or talented. I think my autism makes me seem significantly less intelligent than I feel inside my head, anyway.

I wasn't always that way. I was a child genius. At 11 years old, soon after I first used an internet-connected computer, I was designing websites when the 'net was all new to everyone else. That was my main talent, and served me well.

I definitely went through that 'genius talented' stage, but it ended in my teenage years when other people caught up and I didn't get better at things. Now, I use computers for forums and social media, and not much else.

Today, I'm average at best. My communication skills are very much lacking. I can talk, but I feel like my head is full of good things to say and I can't get them out, so I think what I actually manage to say to people is relatively limited. I'm not the most interesting for conversation and I can't (or don't?) follow what's going on in the world around me, so I can't join in any conversations about politics, TV, the celebrity world...

As for skills? Practically none. My parenting is my exceptional skill, I suppose, and it is the best exceptional skill I could want, but I don't think that's classed as a talent.

I've tried all sorts of things to find myself a hobby and I manage sub-par cooking and baking.
I get tangled up with knitting and sewing.
I can't do any sport - even with running, I was horribly inconsistent in that one day I could run a 10k non-stop but it took me about two hours and another day I could barely run 100m, and I never improved my speed so I was always last at events.
I'm not creative in any way. I can't do crafts or draw. I'd say I have the motor skills of a clumsy pre-teen!
Even gaming, which my husband enjoys, I struggle with because I get frustrated by puzzles and I'm no good at games that require more than basic controls.

Any skills I do develop are to a basic level and I don't seem to have the ability to maintain for long. I knew the basics of 10 languages as a child/teenager, and today I can't remember a thing. I studied a technical degree just a decade ago, but if you put any hardware or software in front of me now I wouldn't remember a thing about how to use it.

Music has always been my passion but I don't have the dexterity to play instruments. I've signed up to a choir in the new year because I love singing and music means so much to me. I'm hoping that turns out to be my first ever proper successful hobby.

Everyone I know is good at something. I seem to be below average in pretty much everything.

And it is a shame, because I often feel like there is a smart and talented person trapped inside my mind. I didn't understand why I seemed to struggle so much to develop any skill, talent or knowledge. My diagnosis helped me realise that it's actually my autism that causes a lot of this. I clearly have mental and physical limitations that I didn't realise I had.

This sounds like a story, book, novel in the making.

I have no talents that anybody wants to pay me for. it was ever thus. oh well. my numeric intelligence test scores do not correspond with my daily reality, I am below-average in the kind of practical intelligence that most other people take for granted.

I'm NOT intelligent or talented. I struggled in school ALOT because of my dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, & ADD. I don't have any special skills or strengths because of those things & because of physical disabilities.

Talent, Mostly no. Unless you consider remembering high digit numbers and data easily as a talent. Which I wouldn't

Probably the majority of students in the schools for autism I've attended, have been average or sightly above. And plenty have been below average. Same with talent.

I have some talent but then for every good theres a bad. that being hand writing , spelling and grammar.

Theater and music in college cracked opened up many doors.

A note on them , at the
bottom of my resume 17 years ago, got me an interview and continuous employment.

High Functioning Autism is defined as average to above average intelligence/IQ 70 or over, so you do not need to be near Rain Man's intelligence to be defined as High Functioning. If you do not fall within that definition you are defined as low functioning. There is no medium functioning autism for some reason.

Intelligence as defined for autism, and actual ability to function in society can be two different things

I am not particularly talented in anything. I have a good memory (unless I have a bad night's sleep), I write and spell well and live an active life. I do a lot of things, none at a level which could ever be considered "professional," but I now have fun and I am improving my social skills.

An IQ of 70 means that a person likely has a hard time processing information quickly. Not always true, but usually true.

"Low functioning" vs. "high functioning" are not so strict! They did not have much in the way of real rules for it. And a IQ cut off, if it ever existed, was never actually used by professionals. Today, the term HFA isn't used much for just that reason.

As for the OPs question: The majority of people with any kind of autism are not of the Rainman-type. Only a small percentage have savant skills. That's an isolated area of talent that is far above what most people can achieve. Like knowing the days for all dates throughout history. Most people can't do that. If someone who is otherwise pretty average or slow, it's called a savant skill. It think the statistic is 10% of autistics have a savant skill? I can't remember where I heard that. But it's a minority.

On the other hand, if you look at movies and tv, 100% of autistics have savant skills. So...yah...something is off there, don't you think?

Whilst I know my squared numbers up to at least 36 and can spell relatively well, I cannot profess to have any intellectual gifts or talents. I would surmise that my IQ is within the 85-95 range.

Working as an apprentice over the past week has made me realise just how severe my learning difficulties are. I seldom retain anything and it's quite an embarrassing difficulty of mine. I try hard to listen to others but invariably I drift off into my own world, in which there's no real activity. For the most part, I am the very definition of "'gormless".

Yes, that does sound like a fun story.

However, it seems like the strip clubs would require a lot of social maneuvering that an Aspie would have difficulty with achieving. Also, it seems like there would be a lot of unspoken rules Aspies may miss.

I had a "genius" IQ when tested as a kid.

I had an "above average" IQ when tested as an adult for a job.

I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, and I can do very well academically if I'm interested in the topic. I can frustrate others with how fast I pick stuff up.

The problem is that I clearly am never the "most knowledgeable" person about stuff. The gaps or deficiencies is why most people disregard what I have to offer even though I am correct in my assertions.

I suppose most "mundane" people excel in one area, and that's how they attain value in the view of others. A "true genius" is insanely smart and is indeed an expert in a given field.

I think it's a contradiction to be HFA. You're functional enough to have a few exceptional quirks, but you aren't "good enough" for those quirks to be of value to others. Likewise, you're not "autistic" enough to be seen as someone with a disability.

It's a cruel Catch-22.

How could a person have no intelligence at all? She'd be brain dead.