Aspies For Freedom

I've been pondering the spectrum, and I think I've come up with an alternative. It's organized like this:


Low-Functioning Autism<High-Functioning Autism<NT<AS<Savant/Geniuses

This is rated in average IQ for a person. Not to call anyone ***, because I know a LOT of High-Functioners that are amazing.

Just something I thought of

Baggs will be SO angry. She has an LFA diagnosis and hates any "aspie elitism" over the LFA's.

LFA's sometimes score very high on visually based IQ-tests, as they don't require any verbal skills.

We don't have acurate enough measurements of IQ in autistics- LFA or otherwise- to make an IQ-based judgement like that.  Also, "Savant" is NOT another word for genius, and in fact part of the requirement for being labeled "savant" is lower-than average intelligenece (which of course can be a misnomer because we can't measure it acurately!   )

Firstly, it's untrue - there's quite a few people with a diagnosis of LFA that have recorded IQ's of 140-190. Not that I really believe in IQ as an accurate measure.

Secondly, the only real distinction between Autism and Aspergers is a significant delay in speech development. As such, it seems very strange to seperate one as a disability and one as not. To put it into perspective, Einstein is widely considered to have been Autistic, as among other things he did not talk until he was 8.

Third, spetrum conditions and NTism all have very specific symptoms unrelated to intelligence - so it makes no sense to say that specific neurotypes are based on intelligence levels.

In summary, it doesn't work in any way, and should probably be scrapped as an idea.

I'd say i have to agree with all the above, this needs revision. You can't generalize IQ scores based on these groups. It's no wonder Droopy got so bitchy at us; she thinks that many aspies tend to put themselves above everyone else (using their IQ scores), and when they say "autism", they mean "aspergers." I'm not a fan of droopy, there are things i dislike about her, but this point she made really stands out to me.

Thanks, luai, savantism doesn't equate to higher than average IQ's. many people with williams syndrome are savants, and they usually have considerably low IQs. but some would consider it to be "asymmetrical intelligence" rather than "lack of .."

I for one don't believe in IQ tests; they only show how well you perform on a certain day. but they don't nessasarily measaure your true ability to learn.

Sorry about the spectrum then.
But I should tell you that this is based off of what the media portrays these conditions as. I once saw a site saying all people with HFA have IQs lower that 70. I think that's wrong; Its just general grouping via the media's eyes.
I'm also not using Savant as a symonym for Genius. There is a difference.
Yes the spectrum could use some revision (I have no Idea how much). Once again I say this is based off the MEDIA's view

Well, since it's based on the media (and we all know how idiotic they can be), I would like to apologize. It's not exactly fair to say most HFA have IQs lower that 10 (as I mentioned someone said in the last post). So let's think of a new idea for this thread: how do you think the spectrum should be?

Apology accepted.

I agree.

Well, take for example the movie Rain Man. The guy is a savant/HFA, and is amazing with numbers. I'm thinking that that movie is the most accurate depiction of autism.

Apparently my mom is giving me a conflicting view about all of these posts. I'm no longer sure who to believe (I'd like to believe you guys, though)

Actually, savants make up a very low percentage of autistics.  I'll bet you haven't met one, and I'll bet you've met more than one Aspy and didn't realize it.  I am positive you've known people with some other letters attached to them, whether ADD or ADHD.  I often get incredulity when I explain to people that my children are on the spectrum.... because they TALK, and they LOOK pretty 'normal.'

A classic response from a summer camp counselor, "I don't know about all that, but he sure is one freaky little kid."  Not autistic, though, because he doesn't sit in a corner rocking 24/7.  People just have a distorted idea of what autism is.

I think that any linear depiction of a spectrum of people characteristics will fail, because it implies that some people are lower than others (often by labelling low-functioning vs. high-functioning), that some people are entirely one thing and not another, and numerous problems that result from this.

I think a better depiction of a spectrum would be a scatterplot of sorts (not sure if scatterplot is the right term). People of all kinds have smatterings of different characteristics usually attributed to autism (such as communication difficulties, stimming, socialization problems, high incidence of affinity for math/science), and that is where the functioning labels lose effectiveness at making useful distinctions, because the real-life distinctions are so individual that to put people in such broad and limiting categories makes no sense.

I for one find difficulty in any of the categories, even though my test scores and love of math and science would ordinarily point me towards being a very stereotypical aspie math whiz. I love math and have done well in it, but I do not feel anything close to this. And when I am in a not-talking day, or when I speak and my grammar is horrendous (despite being a native English speaker and being able to write in a grammatically correct manner), people usually say, "But you're so high-functioning..." and then give me why they don't believe that I can't/have trouble doing something that most people have no trouble doing. Sometimes I don't even get that, and people just assume that I am manipulating them, being difficult on purpose, or am otherwise deceiving them (for what gain I know not!)

There is a great YouTube video, if you look up silentmiaow (I think that's how it's spelled) and there is a video in response to people who assume that "if you can do X, then you should be able to do Y" to challenge this attitude, as it is often incorrect. People very often have trouble with the concept that I'm in a program for creative writing, yet when asked to describe a family member, or a close friend's appearance, despite seeing them clearly in my head, cannot find words to describe.

The savant portrayed in Rain Man was indeed inspired by a real person, but he is only one person.  There is too much variety on the autistic spectrum to be summarized in just one movie character.  

Earthmonkey's right. A linear spectrum is sort of cruel. Maybe we should abolish the difference between "High" and "Low" functioning autism, and just call it autism.

couldbecousin has a point too. Nevertheless, I stand by my previous statement: Rain Man is one of the most accurate media depictions of autism.

I also saw a movie called "Today's Man" about a guy who was diagnosed with AS at 21. Being a docu, I thought it'd be biased. It actually wasn't. I even talked to the guy (named Nikki), and he's anti-cure.

We could use this

Never heard of any of those movies (except ROTN, lol)
I'll have to watch those