Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, I just stumbled across this site and found myself reading the discussions which are very interesting. I set up a profile which you’re welcome to ignore because I don’t really know completely what I’m on about but these are the half unformed thoughts about myself and my life that I have been wondering about.
How do you know if you’re just above average intelligent/academic or on the autism spectrum?
I might say something wrong while explaining this, I’m sorry if I have already, using wrong terms etc because I’m not deeply educated on it.
I’ve kind of been thinking isn’t it rational to shun socializing if you’re intelligent and not necessarily in an environment where you have connection with other intelligent people?.
Isn’t preferring objects to people rational for someone academic? Humans are quite silly and frivolous and unless you’re working at a top uni, not going to be highly intelligent. But does avoidance of them mean you’re arrogant or use your brain in a more productive way. Some people take drugs or drink so maybe they’re not going to be using their brain to its full capacity.
So isn’t it just a survival instinct that if you’re clever, you’re going to prefer to be alone rather than settle for averagely intelligent humans, which might look like there’s something wrong.
Isn’t it a fact that we live in an unaesthetic, Capitalist, Consumerist driven world that often makes the man/woman made world quite ugly, full of fake advertising and trash. So isn’t avoiding all that sensory disingenuous junk again rational?
Isn’t it rational to order the world around us, so isn’t keeping collections and cataloging the height of intelligence?
Doesn’t it just mean that you’re a good person if you like rules and like them to be followed?
Isn’t the best way to get things done during the day to have a repetitious routine? And not liking it when undisciplined people come along and try and tear you from your strict routine, just because they’re lazy and lack focus and are addicted to frivolous hedonism.
Might be utter junk coming out of my head, thank you
Thank you so much. I just read some of the discussions and thought ‘wow these are highly intelligent people, the like I’ve never seen online before’. And I don’t normally like talking to many people or think ‘oh that’s interesting conversation, I’d like to be involved’
Ahhh so even if you’re highly intelligent you’ve still got to be good at the small talk to succeed there. I was thinking that as an academic you could kind of escape all that. I remember reading or hearing descriptions of academics as being obsessed with their specialist subject and in their own world. When I was there 18 years ago I remember being disappointed that people weren’t like that at all. Maybe it would be good if there were Autistic universities.
Lol. I like some of your "junk" coming out of your head. Couldn't agree more about the Capitalist consumerism.
You don't have to be autistic to be bright, but, I think, there are different types of intelligence, which combined with personality lead to different applications of that intelligence.
Plenty of 'frivolous', 'capitalist', 'comsumerists' are mega intelligent, but I am left to wonder how many of them are autistic. Not many, I suspect. How many autistic people would rather apply their logic to the well being of the many, than that nonscense? I'm imagining more than a fair few of us will pipe up - 'well, I would, for one'.
Is this social intelligence v dispassionate analytics, perhaps?
Another point I will make is that of course the population in general will share traits with autistic people.
However, to actually receive a diagnosis, is a different thing altogether.
My own path to diagnosis consisted of demonstrating the triad of 'impairments' both present and historic and I was asked some other questions that are not directly related to the triad, but the answers can be autism signifiers.
A person can be autistic and a high academic achiever or be allistic (not autistic) and a high academic achiever. I can tell you, in general, the allistic high academic achiever will do better in university employment than the autistic, even if their intelligence is on a par. I worked for 34 years in two Russell Group universities, and in universities, like just about everywhere else, success is based on playing the system and dependent on the type of 'soft skills' in socialising and politicking that autistic people are notably poor at.
Thank you for your replies, that’s really kind, they have helped make things a bit clearer in my head.
You may have seen this thread, but in case not, there are some good explanations in it appertaining to physical differences in the autistic brain:
https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/33576/the-autistic-brain
I've just skim read as I can't read terribly well large tracts of text (your paragraphs make it much easier) but here is the 'triad' that's used for diagnostic criteria:
Language and communication: difficulties in recognising and understanding verbal and non-verbal language, such as gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice.
Social Emotion: difficulties with recognising and understanding other people's feelings and managing their own.
Sensory Perception: Many autistic people experience some form of sensory sensitivity (hyper) or under-sensitivity (hypo). There are 7 senses - auditory, visual, touch, taste, smell, proprioception and vestibular.