Aspies For Freedom

I don't think what you describe here is a lack of intelligence - it is more a different way of learning/different learning style, which is not the same as a low IQ. Even with a low IQ there are people who have good practical abilities and you'd never guess they had a subnormal IQ whereas an average or above (100-120) IQ is no guarantee that someone comes across as intelligent in everyday life.

I'd agree with that. It sounds like your learning style is different from the norm.

Also people mature at different rates. I did particularly badly in school but now have a degree. I get distracted very easily, but have found my distractibility improves my creativity.  IQ isn't everything. It tests only a very limited range of skills.

The school system's set up for a single learning style. And if you don't think in that style, its easy to feel unintelligent and a failure (I know I did).

I didn't mean to imply you were immature...

Just that different skills and can mature at different rates, in different people.

My intellect matured very slowly...but I feel this has been of great benefit to me.

(like a fine wine, maturing slowly...but better tasting because of it).

I have the same problem, I have trawled through some learning style sites over the weekend and apparently this is supposed to be common in "right-brained people" (not that it is as clear-cut as that), e.g. that you learn 'randomly' and don't pick information up in sequence. That certainly applies to me very strongly, I can learn things that are in sequence if I repeat the sequence often enough (usually by writing it down over and over) but usually I just read loads of different bits in a seemingly random order, and over time my brain seems to fit them together (although I do not always have conscious access to the end product).

Problems with sequencing are common among the autistic spectrum and particularly in dyslexia, but as I mentioned in my post above this one, the "random" factor (learning best by soaking up lots of information and having little choice in what your brain "chooses" to retain) has been mentioned in connection with "right-brained learners".

LOL good timing for a typo

Btw I am not dyslexic either. In fact I tend towards Hyperlexia - I read text in chunks, and once I know a word I recognise it and can remember it well, no matter how long it is (within limits), and I tend to spell it correctly whenever I use it.

However, when it comes to numbers that are not "known" to me (e.g. I can't associate them with something like a bus number, for which I also have a good memory), and when it comes to new words and even names (even if I know the words in the name, if I do not know it in that combination), then I do have a horrible tendency to get really muddled up when trying to remember the sequence.

If I repeat it often enough I can easily remember fairly long and nonsensical strings of data, and for a very long time without having used it, but until that point I am forever getting mixed up, because I only remember a few chunks of the name or sequence.

Just a note on the subject of Dyslexia - for me the sequencing problems are predominantly auditory when it comes to language, e.g. when I try to memorise a name by saying it silently in my head, or when talking. Visually it seems a lot better and faster, as well as when it is a PIN or password I type (the movement helps too), perhaps that is why I don't have problems with spelling as such.

That depends... Math certain was the only thing I never managed to "teach myself" (I used to say when I was in kindergarten "I can read and I can write - if I could teach myself maths I wouldn't need to go to school" - Ha, if only! ).

I also found the subject the most confusing even in primary school, but my grades in maths have been all over the place so it's hard to say either way. As far as comprehension is concerned yes I am abysmal, and there were many areas where I had to spend ages at home trying to figure things out (and wherever possible I resported to memorising the solution pattern for certain types of questions, although I quickly forgot them again and if the questions differed too much from what I had practised on, I was lost).

But because we got previous exam papers to practise on I somehow got a 6/6 score in my maths "Matur" (written). Of course a day or two later I had already forgotten the steps to solve each of the different types of questions, and sadly I haven't really learned anything from it, but still, I spent 3 1/2 years in college working on my maths skills and at least as far as grades were concerned there was a massive improvement.

I have recently FINALLY figured out how to do those "If it takes X people Y amount of time" type questions from IQ tests etc. last weekend, I'm so proud because that was one of those things I had never been able to get my head around!

(The test I did was here: http://www.intelligencetest.com/ It gives you a breakdown of different areas of intelligence as well which is handy and you don't normally get that in free tests)

I have a *serious* problem with remembering how to do things properly in Math, above the basics, I mean.  Go past Algebra 1 and I'm lost.

I wonder if this is the "linear thinking, sequencing problem," right brain learning tendency, or Asperger's Syndrome... or all of them together?

Can you simplify things a bit more for me?  I'm even getting lost with your last two messages... I can't find the "underlying" point of them.  I apologize.

Basically I'm asking is this serious Mathematical deficiency of mine a learning disability?  If so, what kind of learning disability?  And is it one that could be tied to Asperger's?

Keep it simple and I'll get it.

thanks...
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I can't really put it in words (the whole 'knowing' a word thing) because while I don't think entirely in obvious pictures, my thinking is not verbal either.

It might be Dyscalculia, and yes it has been mentioned as being a very frequent comorbid with AS (although more in connection with nonverbal learning disorders/left-brained thinking).

The IQ test comes in many different types, but in the end it's just a test and nothing else. It's sad but true that some people think IQ tests are the trueth tellers of real intellegance, when they only test for limited areas of funcion. I passed several times with averge IQ. One of the reasons for that is because I just don't know how to do certain problems in the test.

If I knew how, I would probably get a far higher score. I'm trying to figure out what the problems are lately and how they are supposed to be solved. Any person needs the proper things to fall into place in order to learn in good ways, despite any problems in some mental skills. If we just don't get the kind of edgucation we need, we of course don't learn from the stuff that doesn't work! How does that really make a person stupid when so many other people are involved?

In my oppinion, judgemental people are the ones confused and who need help.

Seeing as though you do not actually have any diagnosis, how can you seemingly dismiss someone's views as not applying to your situation based on them being autistic rather than having an AS diagnosis?

I didn't say that, but if someone has similar problems and makes a suggestion, I wouldn't just dismiss their views or suggestions on such a silly point as a different label! Why shoul what ilikecalico said not apply to you just because of a different diagnosis? If you have dyspraxia that means ou have problems with self-help skills too for example, so what makes you so different? It doesn't mean that someone with AS can't require special ed just because they weren'd diagnosed PDD (autism) instead.

I was lucky because my Dad is a hairdresser/barber, so not only did I never have to deal with strangers touching/cutting my hair, but he washed my hair for me until I was almost in puberty. I hated it, mind you. There was always that bit of water that would run down my collar and under my top *shudder*.

It was good your mother did that, I've heard that of many autistic kids, they are given repetitive work way below their level, because they will do it (it is repetitive and often soothing) and may not realise or be able to tell people they already know it and want to do something else.

Do you mean you hear something and it only 'clicks' (you suddenly understand it) a few hours/days/weeks etc. later? In that case yes I get that a lot too. I often just nod in conversations, or shake my head or otherwise gesture that I don't know when people ask me things and I don't understand what they are saying.

Sometimes that happens when I get asked for directions and then a few hours later or the next day I'll suddenly realise what they'd actually asked for, and more often than not I actually knew the directions to the place they were looking for.

PS: likedcalico, I just realised I'd mis-remembered your username in my response to Batman55. I don't know why I thought it was 'ilikecalico'

You wouldn't, after all you only know what you know (what you are used to).

That plus learning to read and spell (although I could read and write before kindergarten, I didn't understand it as such though) using word strips and later boxes with little letters, and then on little whiteboards, was pretty much how school was for us in the first few years.

I did 1 1/2 years in a special ed kindergarten as a non-disabled kid, and that was ACE and I was so upset that they wouldn't let me stay. They had these tricycles there that I used to ride for hours round the garden, and lots of sensory toys (it was a school for children with visual and motor disorders).

The next year of kindergarten was horrible, the only nice thing there were these coloured bead things we used to lay patterns with.

The first two years of school were quite horrible too apart from the word strips, but the next 3 years were amazing. The main memories I have of school are ones where we did creative stuff and there was lots of that in those 3 years.

I can imagine, it's nice to have rules and it's confusing when there are so many different ones for different people.