[user104658]

Originally Posted by Redway

Too right. If anything people with Asperger’s tend to be more intelligent than the average person almost inherently and that’s well-established: I know the most recent version of the DSM canned it but it does still get used unofficially by people who’d rather identify with that than a label which makes it sound like they have special needs. But then every third person doing bits on TikTok these days wants be autistic or otherwise neurodivergent these days and self-pathologise even the most normal of traits. It’s ridiculous. I’m not 100% sold on the validity of the concept of ASD (not just because the spectrum’s so broad) but that’s a completely different discussion altogether. I won’t go into that now. But what I do know is that I’d rather not call people autistic unless there was a reason for it or it was their preference. If I can refer to someone as having Asperger’s (sometimes just ASD), I will.

I think there's often just a failure to realise that there are different aspects of what makes a person intelligent. People with ASD can tend to lack some (typical) social skills and that can lead to struggles with emotional intelligence and there are sometimes some communciation and language issues. On the other hand, ASD people tend to be quite systematic thinkers and will also have had to find "workarounds" for things that come naturally to non-ASD people (often called "masking") and those combined can lead to well-above-average improvisation and problem solving skills.

On a basic level that really applies to everyone I suppose; a brilliant author can be borderline innumerate, and vice versa extremely talented technically minded people can struggle with language nuances.

A good friend of mine at school for example was offered an accelerated start (skipping 1st year) at University for Computer Science, but needed Higher English. His grades for CompSci, Maths, Physics etc were off the charts but they had a basic requirement of at least a pass in English. He failed it miserably on his first try, I managed to coach him to scraping a C on his second attempt. Extremely intelligent guy, not on the spectrum (or at least not apparently), he just straight up couldn't do it .