Published on 12, July, 2020
We often get posts on the form asking for advice with autistic children. And I can't help but notice the requests overwhelmingly relate to low functioning autistic children. As someone who is quite high functioning and had a very disrupted and turbulent childhood I can guarantee you it's not because high functioning autistic children don't have just as many issues. Nore is it that high functioning autistic children are particularly rare. We recently had a discussion on this point in another thread and figures I dug up indicated around 40%+ of autistic children being diagnosed these days are of average or above average intelligence.
So the question I'm asking is this. Why don't those parents come looking for help? Is it because the main stream schooling and support systems are so much better at supporting high functioning children? I doubt it. Is it because they tend to think of their child’s behaviour as 'naughty' not 'autistic?' Is it maybe they don't accept or agree with their child’s diagnosis? What do you think it is?
More to the point:
Edit ps: For the simplification of this entire discussion and to avoid a long drawnout arguments over semantics. Instead of high functioning we shall say high IQ meaning an IQ of 85+ and instead of low functioning we will say low IQ meaning an IQ less than 85. As measured on a standard clinically approved IQ test.
I am loving this, arguing with you refining my argument. The problem with your approach is that you cannot include everything. In all mathematical models you have to make assumptions otherwise it would become too complex to deal with. I took a module introduction to mathematical finance and whilst it wasn't the really advanced I felt like the entire module was a scam. It was all about modelling the random variations of the stock market but not once did the lecturer say that stocks are portions of a business, and if the business does well the stock goes up and if the business goes badly the stock goes down. They were too concerned with the modelling of randomness and ignored the fact there is an underlying business behind the stocks. Do you know who sees stocks as pieces of a business instead of just numbers that go up and down, Warren Buffet the most successful investor of all time and probably autistic. They are trying to model a problem which doesn't really need modelling, reducing it down to numbers and probabilities instead of seeing them as businesses. I think chaos theory has a similar perspective where you can't include everything in a model. I agree that the bottom up approach is useful, it is very good for learning things, especially in maths, first you learn the definitions then you learn the theorems and then you learn the proofs and then you apply to problems but it isn't perfect. You will always miss something. Both a top down and bottom up approach are useful in certain situations. I may be wrong though.
Also I don't agree with just taking someones IQ as proxy for exams, I would rather just see how they did on the exams. If you believe someone will do badly on exams just because they have a low IQ then you are not going to put any effort into teaching them properly and giving them good revision methods. So they do end up doing badly on exams. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if you instead took a top-down approach looking at their strengths and their weaknesses figuring out how they learn best then implemented those strategies then they would end up doing much better and have a much more fulfilling life. I don't like your argument because you are just reducing someone down to a number and taking that as their ability to do well on exams, as their intelligence. I don't think there is a need for it. I would rather just see if someone did well on exams. This is the same problem with aptitude tests, what aptitude tests, I would rather hire someone that has a proven ability that they can learn through exams then scoring high marks on your superficially created tests. People aren't numbers. We are far more complex and varied and unique then can easily be defined by a number. Why would you want to? That is what makes us special. There will only ever be one of us. Ever. Why would you just try and sum us up with a number or a label? Oh because this person has a higher IQ they are more likely to be a better programmer so lets just look at people for high IQ's to become a programmer. That is very dangerous thinking. Our uniqueness should be celebrated. If there was a computer programmer with 60 IQ then they would probably have a completely different way of thinking about it which might make them a much better programmer, because they have had to struggle and figure there way around things. Find tricks to deal with problems they have encountered. Which is far more important then intelligence.
Also I may be misremembering but in the book neurotribes there was this bit where autistic children where treated like animals because they didn't grow up to speak, because they were never taught to speak because to them as they were just autistic there was no use trying to teach them to speak. Why bother, autistic people are just animals. So being autistic was a good proxy for not being able to speak. This was used to justify their abuse. That is not ok. It's not ok to just take IQ as a proxy for exams because if you do that then that could potentially lead down a dark road where people are valued only in terms of IQ score and people are ranked based on IQ score. In some specific cases it might be useful but not as a general measurement for intelligence. It's just a number but it shouldn't define a persons whole life. Richard Feynmann supposedely only had 125 IQ and yet he was still one of the greatest physicists of his age. IQ doesn't really matter. Does knowing someones IQ really improve their lives? I think it might only make things worse, like pigeonholing them into certain categories. If you never try, how will you know what is possible.
Got a bit extreme there. Sorry.
By definition, 50% of any sample would be below average, given that on a standard distribution the mean, median, and modal "averages" are 50%. In terms of diagnosis, my unscientific guess is that individuals who are at the lower end of the spectrum will have the highest support needs, comorbid learning disabilities, extreme communication difficulties etc., and would come to the attention of services. Those at the higher end of the distribution are more likely to be employed or in education, and to be experiencing other issues such as specific learning difficulties (60% comorbidity) and stress. My guess is that someone with an "average" IQ (say 1 standard deviation, 85-115) could be masking and getting by, possibly employed below their capacity, and may not seek a diagnosis. In the same way, some dyslexics survive school but struggle with the increasing demands of higher education, and get diagnosed at university.
Then you have a different understanding of reductionism than I do. When I think about reductionism I think about reducing all problems to their most basic elements. Building an understanding of systems up from the most fundamental and well understood units. That doesn’t mean you ignore interactions between different units. Emergent behaviour comes from complex interactions between very simple elements and very simple rules. But you build your understanding of that emergent behaviour from the bottom up.
that is a power of reductionism, The power of bottom-up thinking.
that said. if by saying that intelligence is more of a spectrum multifaceted thing then I understand your assertion that people with the same IQ can have quite different intelligence. however IQ is still useful. people with significantly different IQs typically have significant differences in intelligence. I would go further in saying in autistic people IQ is a good proxy for the ability to superficially mask. IQ is a good proxy for an autistic persons ability to pass exams. IQ is probably a good proxy for an autistic persons ability to do the task oriented aspects of a job.
people with higher IQs are more likely to be able to do more complex jobs. someone with an IQ of 100 has a much better chance of making it as a computer programmer than someone with an IQ of 60.
How are they useful? I feel like IQ is just a way to bin people into categories
I don’t feel they are useful, I completely agree with you!
No I have not read the book, thanks for the recommendation!
I think the solution is simple. AI, but I also think AI is going to massively decrease the intelligence of the population because children are just going to use it to cheat without really learning anything and in order to access the higher level stuff you need to have a strong foundation but in certain cases it can be very useful.
How are they useful? I feel like IQ is just a way to bin people into categories but how they get binned into those categories is different so two people with the same IQ don't have the same intelligence. Also not all measurements are useful. It is better to just take an individualised approach like with most things. Have you read the book the one straw revolution about this japanese farmer who got amazing yields without listening to all of the advice of modern science, science is all about measurements, and it is very reductionist, where you say this thing has this effect if you ignore everything else but the problem is you ignore everythin else. You don't view it as a whole, but instead if you viewed it as a system you might get better results. I don't know.
I understand and respect what you mean, but I don’t agree with this:
Peter said:It is precisely because IQ tests are limiting that they are useful.
It is precisely because IQ tests are limiting that they are useful. They are specifically designed to exclude all kinds of factors. factors like social norms and memorised topical knowledge. They are meant to be a measurement of the ability to learn and reason and solve technical problems. It’s precisely because they exclude social elements that actually very useful for autistic people. Because it can give an impression of what a person can achieve if society isn’t in their way.
Slow Clap. Well played my friend. Well played.
Also, I don't know what most of those words mean but to me it seems like they are using an intelligence test to diagnose autism but how well does the intelligence test actually correlate to intelligence not just for autism but in the wider population is there a noticeable difference between someone who score 10 points higher on a test then another person. To me it seems like an IQ test doesn't really test intelligence. It tests your ability to perform well on a specific test if that makes sense. I thought I read somewhere about a study that looked at people with high IQ when they were kids and when they were adults and they weren't noticeably different in some way from the population. I may be misremembering.
I’m completely open to having a discussion about fixing the entire schooling system but I think that’s a discussion for another thread.
No I don’t want to cite any research, all I want to say is that intelligence can be measured in many different ways and the IQ test is limiting. I mean this because it does not suit the way many people’s brains work and also once you measure someone’s intelligence immediate unhelpful assumptions are made about them.
You can’t value someone’s intelligence by looking at them. Also life skills are much more important and useful for lots of people.
Your wish is my command
www.tandfonline.com/.../15374416.2020.1846543
You can't. The school system isn't designed to deal with different people, it is designed to create factory workers so in order to fix it you need to fix the whole schooling system. I may be wrong though.
Sorry, don't mean to be rude but I am going to uno reverse you and say can you cite sources stating the measurement is meaningful. If you can I would love to read them.
Iq tests may be less accurate than for neuro typical people but that doesn’t mean that it is meaningless. Unless maybe you can cite some source stating that the measurement is meaningless?
I see where you’re coming from now. But my assumption is that a lot of these kids do have a diagnosis. But Because they are high IQ their parents are not making the connection between the diagnosis and the issues they are facing at home and in class
Intelligence can be measured in many different ways, the Intelligence Quotient is not accurate or representative of all humans, particularly those who are multiply neurodivergent.
The perfect solution to this is with AI like in the book diamond age where each kid is given a book that teaches them things specific to them in ways they learn best. So you don't have teachers teaching large classes each kid has a teacher that is specific to their needs, but that is fiction. That is what is needed.
Also, I didn't mean to say teachers would deal with neurodiversity. I meant that if you raised awareness in teachers to neurodiversity they can spot it and then raise that up the flag pole so that kid can get tested and more specialised support. So the parents are aware. Does that make sense? Sorry if I am being rude.
You are so welcome!
Here’s a more controversial point of view. maybe if you have rich parents that make you play with puzzles you actually grow up to have a higher IQ. There is some evidence to suggest that a lack of education in childhood can cause adults to have lower IQs than they otherwise would have.