Aspergers & Intelligence

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I read Aspergers are very smart, is that just knowing stuff or remembering too?

My short-term memory is non-existent.

My long-term memory is horrible unless it's for useless trivia, or stupid things I've done/said.

According to a recent IQ test, my intelligence quotient is barely over 80.

You'd think someone with my IQ wouldn't know IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient.

People thought I was smart when I was a kid because I could read really well, but that was just from hyperlexia. Meanwhile doing math in grade 3 and learning to tie my own shoes was a nightmare. I think I may have Non Verbal Learning disorder or dyscalculia.

Going by what I've said about myself, and what I've said generally,it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of you think I'm an escapee from the idiot zone.

IQ measurement involves assessing several different mental processes. Memory is an important component in several of them.

It is possible for one person to be weak in certain areas and strong in others while someone else has just the opposite configuration and both to have the same IQ.

If i wear shoes with laces I still do bunny knots. They come undone time and time again.

Whatever gets the job done....bunny knots or whatever.

I tie my shoes "regular"----and they still get undone sometimes.

Interesting , until about 16 yrs old , had almost no short term memory . And I was realizing these and other deficits
Then started looking into nootropics , and stamina building herbs , And regular exercise , for many years .
But even these days my short term memory can be absent from my conversations. But Weirdly enough my long term
Memory got stronger . Now just seems glad my memory remembered to work .

I have to tie my shoes twice to keep them on. I have high arches, and it puts extra strain on the knots. So I tie them "regular" then take the loops and tie them again. Sometimes three times. Otherwise they always come undone.

As a kid I could to the "first part" (the knot with no bow) but not the second part (the bow part). So I came up with my own method: I tied the first part, then did it again. And again. And again. Until I ran out of lace. This worked in that it kept the shoes on my feet but my poor mother could not get them off of me at the end of the day. It was a real problem.

I eventually learned, but it took a very long time. The other kids in class did not have such trouble.

ADHD and Autism have Executive Function problems. This can effect learning by making it hard for memories going from working memory to short term memory, and them from short term memory to long term memory. This means that things that you have to "just learn" (called rote) take more times to practice, more "impressions". Without the "more impressions" the leaning might never take place (which is why I never learned my multiplication tables). I most schools if you don't learn something they just give you poor marks the move on. There is no real commitment to teaching every student no matter what. If you need 40 times practicing or 400 times practicing to retain the information and the curriculum only calls for 20 times, you are just out of luck.

The brain is complicated.

I also struggled for many years with tying my shoelaces, despite testing well above average for IQ. Not sure why!

I think people with Aspergers are often very logical and detail orientated, sometimes to a fault. Perhaps due to difficulty understanding the emotions of other people there is a preference to focus on the facts? I believe that many of the smartest people I've met had Aspergers.

(not to spend too much time on the shoelace thing)
When I taught my kids to tie their shoes I would stand behind them and reach my arms around.
This way then they saw my hands tieing laces they were not "up-side-down". I think that was part of my problem as a kid.
Also every time they struggled I would tie them (from behind) and tell them they must watch.
Sometimes I would then untie them and ask them to try again and coach them through the process.

My mother would just sigh and tie them herself as quickly as she could to get things over with.
(We were usually late for school at this point).
Getting me to dress myself in the morning was apparently another major chore.
I recall the trials of trying to find two socks that matched. (Or find two socks at all somewhere in the room).
When I write I often misspell thing, and when I write by hand I sometimes get letters reversed (or I would as a child - often).
I think this "keeping things in order" and "not turned around" was part of my problem with the shoe tying.
The order of the steps needed to be right, and the "right over left" type stuff with the laces had to be right too.
This could be Executive Function related.

Knot tying could be a new topic.

This thread was supposed to be about IQ and Aspergers.
(Sorry Kitty4670)

There are a number of good articles on IQ and IQ testing here:

https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/testing.htm

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 56084/full

"Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized as a very heterogeneous child-onset disorder. The clinical picture including the severity of the core deficits of ASD varies significantly among individuals leading to individually different degrees of functional qualities in ASD as well as to difficulties in correctly recognizing and diagnosing ASD (1).

One key aspect of the heterogeneity of ASD symptomatology appears to be the heterogeneity in intelligence quotient (IQ) (2). For example, Fombone (3) reported of 20 epidemiological studies of ASD, published from 1966 to 2001 and deduced that the median percentage of individuals with ASD and cognitive impairment (IQ < 70) ranged from 40 to 100% (mean 70%). This indication is also in line with statements in the current German and British ASD diagnostic guidelines (4, 5). In the early 2000s another large epidemiological study reported that an IQ < 70 was observed in only 50% of children with ASD (6), while a more recent epidemiological study (7) reported a further decline toward an amount of 31% of children with ASD, that were classified in the range of cognitive impairment (IQ < 70). The latter study further reported that 25% of children with ASD were in the borderline range (IQ 71–85), and 44% had IQ scores in the average to above average range (IQ ≥ 85). Unfortunately, epidemiological studies report about their individuals with ASD with above average IQ less accurately or rather insufficiently, i.e., either offer no information (8) or summarize the percentages of the group with mean and the group with above average IQ (7, 9). Compared to the accuracy of the presentation of IQ data in epidemiological samples, data in clinical studies are often even less precise. Nevertheless, one clinical study with slightly more precise information on IQ in ASD reported that 23% of the participants had an IQ < 85, while 45% had an average IQ, and 32% had an IQ above average (10). Another clinical study divided the children with ASD in a group with an IQ < 80 (32%, mean composite IQ of 66 ± 11) and IQ > 80 (68%, mean composite IQ of 99 ± 13) (11). These numbers deviate from those in epidemiological studies, as they report of substantially more individuals with above average IQ and fewer individuals with below average IQ including ID. Finally, we recently observed in a larger sample of patients, who presented in specialized outpatient clinics for ASD, a bimodal IQ distribution within ASD individuals [38.2% below average intelligence (i.e., IQ < 85), 40% with above average intelligence (IQ > 115) and 21.8% with an average intelligence (IQ between 85 and 115), see Figure 1]. In addition, we could show that only a third of ASD individuals, included in these analyses, are on average under the age of ten when receiving their ASD diagnosis, while another third of ASD individuals are on average older than 20 years when they received an ASD diagnosis. However, these cross-sectional clinical findings are observations, which require further clarification."

(click on the link to read the rest of the article)

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 56084/full

Oh My , Right hand , or left hand …it was not until my twenties that , that was conquered by me. Always bluffed my way through right and left situations and would watch others out of the side of my vision . And imitate . Was partially / mostly ambidextrous. Actually gave up caring about it . Until eventually it was kinda automatic .