'Practical' is such a vague word. I'm practical when it comes to achieving a certain goal or completing an immediate task. Maybe 'pragmatic' would be a better word for that though. I certainly don't live my life in a practical way every day. I always do things my own way. I definitely only take advice when it supports what I *want*, and I'm ridiculously, insanely, mind-bogglingly disorganized. I constantly forget what's important to my day-to-day life; I'm always either looking at the teeny-tiny picture (i.e. where's my favourite hair elastic? I can't leave the house without my favourite hair elastic... I don't care if I'm an hour late for work!) or the Really Huge picture (i.e. the fate of humankind and the Universe).
PS: As for the uneven skills profile, I said it before: Without an actual IQ test that measures this you can't say whether or not you do have this.
I had an official IQ test in 9th grade, and the test-giver found a very peculiar inconsistency. Something she said "she almost never sees in an IQ test."
Something like, verbally gifted but impaired auditory skills. I don't think that was the precise inconsistency (if that even would be a valid one) but I can tell you for certain that she found something "odd."
That is indisputable fact, and not subjective interpretation.
I was never diagnosed with ADD. Nobody ever even suggested it to me, not even once, until I got to 10th grade in high school.
I thought you said you were diagnosed with ADHD? AFAIK nowadays people call it ADD instead of AD/HD.
I was never diagnosed with any such thing. They knew I had a lot of trouble listening to/following directions but my cognitive abilities in other areas got me good enough grades all through grade school (1st-8th grade.)
The fact that nothing was ever "caught" or "diagnosed" with me, I think it's kinda strange. People never quite knew what to think of me, I could quite a few things very well but many more things I had trouble with.
I think this suggests that I have a very idiosyncratic learning ability going on, indeed trouble with getting good grades only showed up in the middle of high school. High school is where abstract thinking starts taking over everything, basically.
To me this sounds AS-like, but then I shall admit it is my subjective interpretation, so you don't have to point that out again.
PS: As for the uneven skills profile, I said it before: Without an actual IQ test that measures this you can't say whether or not you do have this.
PPS: Executive dysfunction (integral part of ADD, and often part of Autism, AS, Schizophrenia, Depression etc.) kind of seems to fit what you described pretty well anyway.
In my case I see it as being a more AS kind of thing. The inconsistency within skills, even skills within the same subject such as English (such as being excellent at writing, awful at reading comprehension) suggests something that not even classic ADD could account for.
I have been around a lot of kids with ADD/ADHD and I noticed mostly an even ability among subjects. Their grades were inconsistent because of distractibility, but the cognitive skills they exhibited, were consistent.
That's my take on it.
Well you sure said or rather wrote that you had been diagnosed, but whatever floats your boat. You sure are inconsistent, especially as far as facts are concerned.
In that PM where I said I had childhood ADD, I think I must have forgotten to say that I was ADD then in hindsight. Basically I remember how I was then, and it seems I was very distractable and occasionally hyper. But not to any extreme. And I mellowed a lot when I got to 5th grade.
I wasn't aware that ADD existed back then, nobody ever talked to me about it. I didn't even know ADD existed until 8th grade, and didn't think I even had it until 10th grade, but I still wasn't diagnosed with that or anything else, even after seeing counselours in high school, special-ed teachers, and a few different psychologists. Nobody ever "saw it" with me, or they did, but didn't think it was significant.
I apologize for not making that clear. I should have said my childhood ADD is a self-diagnosis.
I will say again the fact that I wasn't diagnosed with anything, despite having problems across many different areas, seems kinda odd, and perhaps suggestive of idiosyncrasy found within AS.. indeed, I have often read that Asperger's can be invisible, in some ways.