All four of us are dreadful at maths.
Three of us also poor at understanding time eg I can understand a normal clock, but have terrible problems with the 24 hour clock.
I had been told, though, that a good command of words was unusual for AS...
You have been told wrong. Just have a look around at the posts in this forum.
"Just 12 of us in this forum" are bad at Math? To be honest, it might be more like 50% of all Aspies.
It was suggested somewhere (not sure which magazine/publication had it, tho) that 10% of Aspies have exceptional gifts in Math and/or science.
If we take that literally, it means the stereotype that any given Aspie "needs to be good at Math to have Asperger's" will be wrong 90% of the time.
This is the last straw for me, anyway. If I find even one more post on AFF that says "Aspies are usually great at Math," I will depart.
I had been told, though, that a good command of words was unusual for AS...
You have been told wrong. Just have a look around at the posts in this forum.
Language Aspies walk among us. Language is my thing - I did well in English all through school, write for fun and my job also involves writing. I've always had good language skills, and when I was given an IQ test as part of the official diagnosis my linguistic quotient fell off the high end of the scale.
The thing about Aspie skill sets is they tend to be scattered to the four winds, much moreso than one would expect from a neurotypical person. So, my overall IQ (if you consider such a figure remotely relevant to life, the universe, or anything) didn't come out much above average, despite the high linguistic quotient, because some other sections were quite woefully below par.
My language skills actually prevented me getting diagnosed for the longest time. If I'd had excellent maths skills and poor verbal skills, I reckon that combined with all my other Aspiecentricities would have scored me a diagnosis as HFA as a kid (Aspergers as such wasn't recognised back then.) But because it was the reverse, I was just considered a bit odd.
My language skills actually prevented me getting diagnosed for the longest time. If I'd had excellent maths skills and poor verbal skills, I reckon that combined with all my other Aspiecentricities would have scored me a diagnosis as HFA as a kid (Aspergers as such wasn't recognised back then.) But because it was the reverse, I was just considered a bit odd.
It's been the same thing here. I'm good with language but basically disabled in Math. And I would have benefited from having my AS found out earlier. In fact the person who had the best chance of discovering that AS was the source of many of my problems, later told me they didn't consider it for two reasons:
1) If I had AS, I'd probably be great at Math
2) I'm too "self-aware" to have AS
If I had the great Math skills along with Math/science interest, I guarantee you I'd at least be "discovered" by someone in real life by now, diagnosis or not.
In general, in this science-techno-centric crazy old world we live in, I think maths skills are generally held in higher esteem than humanities skills anyway. So a maths genius Aspie is a bit like the equivalent of the boring guy with a great DVD library - not a lot of fun, but comes in handy.
At school, the one year I managed to talk my way onto the Tournament of Minds team (it was quite prestigious, all the 'smart' kids did it, except me. Never knew why.) I really really really wanted to do the Language And Literature challenge. The task was to write a malapropism version of A Bush Christening, and I could see it being just hilarious. But I was told no, and kicked off the team, because even though we were likely to win anyway (we were practically the only school competing) it would "look better" if we did the Science And Engineering challenge instead, even though it was naff.
I wouldn't be able to do a literature challenge to save my life. I have poor essay writing skills (trouble with central coherence), I cannot write quickly (takes a while to get my ideas out, if I ever do get them out), it takes me forever to read anything, and I do not usually understand what needs to be done anyway (reading comprehension deficit--semantic pragmatic difficulty.)
In other words I have neither functional Math skills nor functional literary skills.
Ethel, it is also incorrect for you to assume that if you're Aspie and not a Math/tech genius, you're probably going to be a Literary genius instead. I am, factually, none of the above.
Really, I'd like to also challenge the "academic brilliance" stereotype.
I was only talking about myself.
I was only talking about myself.
My fault, in that case. Apologies...
I guess my point is, you can have AS without being great at anything. Especially academic stuff--you don't have to be exceptional in any kind of academic area to have AS.
Every Aspie's skill profile will be different.
I guess my point is, you can have AS without being great at anything.
Yes! The way neurotypical people don't have to be great at anything... because Aspies shouldn't have to have some special "gift" to justify their existence. It's what's always bothered me about listing intelligence, savantism etc as the 'benefits' of autism. Not just because not all people with autism have those things, but because they shouldn't have to have some superpower just to earn the right to breathe.
Otherwise we end up back in "some people are worth more than others" territory.
I fall on the creative side of the coin. I like making things up, have always had imaginary worlds in my head, I have contributed a couple of paragraphs to a book on autism, I am predicted an A* for my English GCSE and I hope to pursue a career as an author, journalist, scriptwriter or comedienne.
I also fall on the creative side of the coin, but unfortunately don't have half the brainpower that you have at your disposal.
I actually have no functional ability in any area, at all...
Memorizing movie scripts.....
I was so worried about memorizing my lines in King of the Golden River (I was the Mayor), but I memorized everyone's eventually.
We had girls playing the roles of each of the three brothers (Schwartz was played by an African American girl, maybe intended as a pun as Schwartz means black, maybe not)
The plot was deviated, we had the Dawn, Princess Aurora, instead of the fair child, whose light drove back the malicious trolls for Gluck (Dick), but not for Hans or Schwartz
We should not have portrayed dumb Hans as overweight with her wearing pillows padding her buttocks......