Are people with aspergers creative or uncreative in general?

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I've heard support for both sides of the argument but I havent actually heard an aspies perspective. Im abysmal at art but Ive been entered for poetry book compilations so I guess there is at least some creativity in me. I like to think that the few friends Ive gained have become my friends due to my creative sense of humour. But, really, I think they just like to laugh at me

many creative people are aspies.
And many noncreative people are aspies.

On average aspies are probably about the same as nt's.

I'm pretty creative, but I've seen many aspies who aren't. Just depends on the person, I suppose.

I find myself with creative ideas, but then get stuck being unable to manifest them on paper due to terrible physical creative skills, like drawing

It's good that I'm never out of ideas p, but annoying that I can't get them down easily. I don't really know where that leaves me in creative/non creative, although I'd guess at non creative if I can't do anything with my ideas.

It depends on the person, more so. I know some NTs who are creative. I like to be creative, but I'm not very original, if that makes sense. Like I can perform songs on my keyboard and make perfect songs that fit background rhythms (can only play with my right hand and control the rhythm beats with my left hand), but the songs I play already exist, like hymns, Christmas carols, nursery rhymes, patriotic tunes, theme tunes, traditional tunes, and so on.

But I remember at school I always got more grades for creating something than I did actually doing it. For example, in carpentry class, we all had to make a CD rack or a table, but not just an ordinary one, it had to be unique somehow. I came up with a design of making a wooden stand of Marge Simpson's head, with her tall hair being shelves what you put DVDs or CDs in. I was very slow on making it, I had to get a lot of help from the teacher throughout the school year to make it, but it was the idea I had came up with that got me the high grade. I think anybody can come up with brilliant ideas if they put their minds to it.

I remember one drama class the drama teacher telling us a fact that everybody has something they can do better than anybody else, which means everybody has some sort of talent in something and everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses.

But I think the fact of this matter is, people on the spectrum (or other conditions I don't know about) enjoy being creative, more so than actually having a better skill than everybody else because that is not always necessarily true. But because people like us enjoy being alone and using more of a creative mind to achieve things, we can then focus better so it looks like we have a better creative mind than the rest, but rightfully NTs are entitled to be talented or creative aswell.

I'm very creative, at least mentally, the problem is actually creating all my ideas. I often get started and later abandon a project.

I've always loved drawing cartoons and have been really good at it since I was a little kid. I don't just make "fan art", either. I have made up my own characters and put in comics and stories that I've also written. When I was a kid I couldn't get why other kids always drew whatever cartoons characters were popular at that time, or why it was such a bigger deal if a kid could draw something like the Smurfs really well and not their own creations. I've even made handmade fabric dolls that look like my characters. But that may be just a talent that I have and not because of Asperger's, although I think my attention to detail and obsessiveness may have influenced my arts. I wish I could upload some of my art on this site but It hasn't been working for some reason. But I have stuff on Facebook.

Long answer; No.

Last edited by Blownmind on 18 Jun 2012, 4:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Every person has creativity, whatever it may be. The definition of being creative is not limited to artistic or musical inclination.

I'm creative in that I like to combine my interests - which always involve fictional characters from various shows/movies - and create new stories and artwork based on what I come up with. However, my creativity is rather limited because I don't come up with my own characters, except for ones that are based on myself and people I know in real life.

Interesting question. I read a study on this, I think it was in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. They did two art tests involving normally developing art students (ND), people with autism, and people with intellectual disability (ID). They discovered that the ND people were the most creative, but the autistic people were creative in their own realm. I forgot what they said for people with ID. It's not to say they weren't creative, and they definitely got higher scores than autistics for a couple of tasks.

As for me, I am limited to a few things. I couldn't be a professional designer, if I were to design for clients and such, as I'm too rigid.

So, they compared creative people with autistic people, and found the creative people to be most creative... Shocker! It's amazing what they spend money researching these days. You would think comparing a random group of NTs(creative or not doesn't matter, as long as its a random group) with a group of autistics would be the way to perform a study to see if autistics are more creative.

Who is to decide what is "creative"? Would that be someone who is "creative"? Is it winning a football game, making a million on a long-shot stock, entertaining a tired child in a car, painting a landscape, or designing a "creativity" test?

I'm like this, though when I'm creating something in a group setting, I am driven to complete it. It might be a feeling of superiority taking over my mind, and me being compelled to assert it in a given area, be it music, art, or anything else of the sort - but if so, that part is unconscious.

I love art and music, and I love producing them, but I don't because I have no reason to, as opposed to sleeping or playing on my computer.

So happy to read this post. I had wondered if being creative and imaginative disqualified me from being an Aspie. This was distressing because in every other way the diagnosis fit me like a glove and explained everything about my life, and learning that means the world to me...I don't want to give up this feeling, take the label off myself, and be back where I started, frustrated and unhappy. I apologize for not getting to the point. Is being unable to get the point, needing to include details about the background of characters, etc., an Aspie trait?

Okay, we are closing in on the actual point I'm trying to make: Since researching AS, I have come across hypotheses about past, historicaly important, possibly-AS people who were in creative fields. In fact, many of named, especially the writers, were acclaimed as among the most important in their field.

And now I also get to hear from real, everyday Aspies that you can be EXTREMELY creative and still be an Aspie!

^^^^ This.

It sounds like a really badly designed study, unless the autistics were also art students!

I don't know if aspies tend to be more or less creative in general, but we certainly are capable of being creative. I do fantasy art & write fiction, and my dad, a professional novelist, is probably on the spectrum himself.