When I was young…

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When I was young I did very, very well on IQ tests but was still very socially ret*d. Now, I’m older and not as smart as I once was but I’m better socially. Life, eh…

I can relate, my best guess is that it has something to do with executive function.

I think that when we a children we can thrive intellectually and academically because our parents help us take care of ourselves. Once you grow up your mind has to allocate more time and energy towards basic tasks like cooking, cleaning, hygiene, etc. We autistics are not good at multitasking generally speaking, we are monotaskers, meaning we great at specializing on one thing while neglecting everything else. If you force a monotasker to multitask you end up with someone who is tired and scattered that ultimately can't focus on anything, because their mind is not designed to constantly be switching from one thing to another.

Anyway, that's just my two cents on the matter.

Nice post, Canadian Freedom Lover. As for the bickering about words, that’s dumb. Socially stunted? Is that acceptable. The r-word has meaning and it has nothing at all to do with anything derogatory. Context is important.

I'll kindly expand your vocabulary:
Social development impairment
socially impaired
socially awkward etc.

I would also not use "dumb" or "socially stunted' to describe people I don't know but hey I guess that's my preference

Just some friendly advice, carry on...

It's harder to police that word when a lot of us would use it self-referentially.

That's a slur doesn't mean that the slur doesn't also do the best job of encapsulating what the person means. The baggage the slur carries is exactly what makes it the most precise, most easily understood way to say what they're wishing to say.

A lot of people (especially when we're young) don't really understand the difference between intellectual impairment, slow cognitive tempo, developmental delay, learning disabilities and extreme social impairment, especially if the few people they've met who those labels could be applied to have more than one of those. They don't understand the differences particularly so their diagnosis is never more precise than ret*d, and once that label is assigned they assume the entire stereotype because if they could understand different things get conflated together under that label they'd already have the nuance to understand differences between the proper terms.

It's one thing to complain about people calling other people that word, but if someone gets hostile over someone else's choice to use it self-referentially they need to be told where to stick it and how.

I kind of agree that if its used self-referentially then the intention might be for the purpose of self-deprecation. However, I think the OP was searching for a "cool" way to describe his social impairment by inserting the r-word. I mindful English is not his first language so I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

I also know at least two regular members of WP who were my friends described themselves as "low functioning" in the real world who left in the early 2010s because of too many younger WP members throwing around derogatory language which triggered them. Chief among them was the r-word. I recall many younger members thought it was ok to use the word because a) it was cool and b) it was being used by people in the media.

there is actually a movement in the disability community for neurotypicals to stop using the r-word. Even for self-referential purposes. Many WP members have described being bullied with the r-word in school. Anyway, I don't want to be a prude, but my preference is people not use it like the f-word and the n-word.

Just one more point, if neurotypicals are being mindful of not using the r-word, its a little embarrassing for WP to be giving a free pass. Again its just my opinion and not my intention to stifle self-expression.

I'd say just stick to the topic introduced by the OP. Which is valid. I think it's been established that even for autistics, social skills improve with age, but the brain slows down. Sometime in my 60s I finally found ways to interact with a group without getting ostracized, at the same time I'm no longer the "gifted" kid I once was.