2e or not 2e? That is the question

Savants they are called I believe, there’s a man who was able to read two pages of a book at the same time, another had photographic memory and could paints something he’s only seen once without any props in front of him. I think there was a movie covering the same topic called rain man.

Martin said:

Personally, I think that the late developers have added far more to the sum of human knowledge than the precocious

Why did the precocious fail to live up to their potential? Could there have been a problem?

Martin said:

I'm finding it difficult to envisage when, how and why a clinician would diagnose 'giftedness'.

Here's another scenario:

A child in a class is disruptive. They get diagnosed with, say, AuDHD and ODD, or something like that (not necessarily all misdiagnoses). Did anyone think to ask if the child was just bored? Maybe they are lacking sufficient intellectual stimulation. Maybe everything is just too easy and they have so much extra time to waste that they fill it will doing things that are "inappropriate" in a classroom (talking, moving around, etc.). In this case, isn't the lack of acceptance and support for the child's above-average intellectual capacity a "problem"? They might be so distracted that they do poorly in tests and get labelled with a learning difficulty (which they may also have) because nobody thought to investigate further. Kind of like the way that many kids with dyslexia get written off, even though many have above-average intelligence.

So, at 18 you were clearly academically gifted (in the general sense, anyway). You had potential and you achieved that potential: a PhD in a real science (not like economics, or something).

When you were 18, did you take any abuse for being the smart kid? Or did you keep your head down and stay out of the way of trouble? Or was it never an issue?

A sort of late developer, at age 8 I came 130th out of 138 in my school year, by 18 I got the highest scores in my school year at A-level ('advanced level' of the standard public examinations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland - a bit like High School graduation in the US - but usually in only 3 or 4 subjects - more general examinations are taken at sixteen - usually 8 to 10 subjects, which always include English language and maths).

I do not have ADHD, just autism, generalised anxiety disorder, social phobia and a specific form of dyscalculia - I cannot do mental arithmetic, though I'm fine with a pencil and paper.

Martin said:

I had a PhD in molecular biology

Was that something that would have been predicted by your performance in school over the years, or was that a "late developer" thing?

I suppose I'm thinking of people who have intelligence enough to earn PhD, but who have never gotten that far because ADHD made the act of studying impossible.

Having worked in universities all my working life, I would say that people with autistic traits are overrepresented in the academic community, compared to the general population.

Both, I think. Mattia felt like they should be achieving more, others expect that achievement, but it was all a bit too much for their neurotype to handle.

Is that the result of having a gifted brain, or the result of having been given a label of 'giftedness'?

It is interesting that neither Charles Darwin nor Albert Einstein would have been labelled as gifted in their schooldays. Personally, I think that the late developers have added far more to the sum of human knowledge than the precocious.

Martin said:

I would have thought that giftedness would not be a problem

Mattia Maurée of AuDHD Flourishing did a podcast on the combination of AuDHD+2e and described how their "gifted" brain brings an extra intensity to the AuDHD experience that can be problematic. There was an expectation that they'd be a "high achiever", and when that didn't quite work out, they felt like a disappointment.

Ah IQ 130+, so that’s why I had no idea what you were talking about despite being from America.

No, there was no IQ test, if a person were considered by clinicians to present as being of average or above intelligence, no IQ test would be offered in an assessment for autism in the UK. Intelligence is not part of the criteria for autism as such and anyone with problems such as intellectual disability would most probably have had these flagged before autism was considered. I had a PhD in molecular biology when I was assessed, so my level of intelligence was not really in any doubt.

I have not come across anything like that. 

Schools constantly assess pupils’ performance and some pupils might be assessed with a higher than average intelligence/ability than others.

Was an IQ test part of your diagnostic assessment? They would probably administer one to determine if you had a "disorder of intellectual development" (as the ICD-11 calls it in their ASD section). If the results were significantly higher than the average (IQ 130+, 98th percentile) you'd, in American parlance, be termed "gifted" (I think they might call it "superior intelligence" on this side of the pond, which is a bit of a loaded term). So maybe "point out" might be a better word than "diagnose" here.

Sounds very plausible. But surely a teacher would be better qualified than a clinician to decide if a child were 'gifted' or not.

I'm assuming this is an American thing.

I think it is to select people for certain classes or schooling. I don't know how productive it is.

I'm finding it difficult to envisage when, how and why a clinician would diagnose 'giftedness'. They tend to diagnose problems or conditions that are conventionally interpreted as problematic (autism, ADHD, bipolar, dyspraxia etc.). I would have thought that giftedness would not be a problem and that it would be obvious to a layman and not need a clinician to point it out.