Eliminating Aspergers IQ Subtest Scatter

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A lot of people with Aspergers who take IQ tests have signature subtest scatter, including signature weaknesses in certain areas; in fact, this is a requirement for diagnosis. I was wondering what would happen if someone actively targeted these weak areas to improve them. What effect would this have on aspie symptoms?

I suppose someone with a high verbal IQ but a lower performance IQ could, in an extreme example, deliberately neglect their verbal abilities while targeting their non-verbal abilities until they balanced out. Has anyone tried this, and what was the result?

I don't think that's correct. It's something the doctors look for, but it is NOT a requirement for diagnosis.

To answer your question though - I think it depends on the person. I think my deficits (no visual spacial ability) are directly related to connections that don't exist, at all. Since the ability is completely non-existent, I really can't practice with it to make it stronger.

It's not a requirement for diagnosis at all. I don't have subtest scatter. I'm diagnosed. My symptoms are noticeable.

For me I didn't purposefully train getting rid of subtest scatter though, and don't have any information on how it'd affect someone because I'm someone who naturally doesn't have subtest scatter while being autistic.

(Passive people tend to have less scatter)

I don't see the point of balancing out the scatter. I mean--I think it'd be counterproductive. Essentially, you'd be ignoring your strengths to work on your weaknesses. While weaknesses do need to be addressed, it's usually better to use your strengths to find other ways to do them effectively. If you try to balance out the scatter like that, you just end up being mediocre at everything. I'd prefer to be a specialist.

None at all? Not even psycho-motor processing? I was sure that it's a requirement for diagnosis to have low psycho-motor processing? I thought having impaired sensory processing in one or more areas was the reason we can't process nonverbal cues and that most aspies or similar PDD-NOS's had NVLD in some form. Or maybe that's just me...

I am very passive and shy IRL, and I have huge scatter, over 60 points in some cases.

One path to balancing out subtest scatter is for kids with classic autism and language delay to improve verbal abilities as they grow up. So some of these kids may have a big non-verbal > verbal gap in childhood, but the gap may decrease as they grow up and their verbal abilities improve.

I have read that gifted people with high VCI and/or PRI have a gap between those scores and lower WMI and/or PSI.

When you think about it it's actually normal to have varied strengths and weaknesses, it's expected on an IQ test.

Pretty sure the main purpose is to gauge your strengths and weaknesses and to determine where on the Autism spectrum you fit as we all know Aspies generally have an above average IQ. It's not a requirement for diagnosis the social emotional tests/scales (not part of IQ tests) are though along with observation, developmental history etc.

These things contribute but are not mandatory.

I don't have NVLD, for whatever that's worth. I am not sure that impaired sensory processing has anything to do with processing nonverbal cues, either. I can look at people and not pick up anything nonverbal. I used to think that people were lying about how much stuff is communicated in a nonverbal sense, vs. verbal.

OK, firstly, you may not be very successful. Whatever cognitive characteristics cause the scatter won't just disappear when you start focusing more on your weak spots. You'd be most successful if you figure out a way to use your strengths to help your weaknesses, eg talking your way through nonverbal problems if you have VIQ > PIQ.

Secondly, it would be a bad idea. The most successful people are not well-rounded - they're experts in a particular area. All you need to do is make sure your weaknesses are just good enough to avoid getting in your way, and let your strengths be amazing.

Anyway, according to this study, the low Weschler Comprehension score is correlated with Theory of Mind performance, although since it's correlational I have no idea if trying to improve Comprehension would improve social skills. (I suspect it would be more likely to go the other direction.) However, Digit Span and Block Design peaks have no relationship with Theory of Mind performance.



No, social difficulties aren't due to sensory processing issues. They're separate problems.

No relation at all? But then why do they come together?

In my experience I would often mistake forms of physiological arousal or even being tired from my senses for physiological arousal for emotions and then at a young age became confused about my emotions and of course if you have trouble telling when you are stressed due to emotions v. a noise then you'll have trouble piecing together other people's emotions. At times I would also think "I feel depressed Why am I depressed?" and then come up with reasons why I was depressed when really I was just tired. Autism can cause you to bs yourself about your own emotions, something that happens to everybody but not on as pronounced a level. They did a study that showed men crossing a suspension bridge who talked to a female interviewer while they did it reported feeling sexually aroused and were less likely to report fear of the bridge or of heights(this bridge was very high) than were men who didn't speak to a female interviewer.

I no longer treat emotions as objective, at least not purely objective. They have an objective component that is what ever happens to the body. But the subjective component is the explanation the mind assigns to it. Now I don't even care if a negative reason started the "arousal", because emotions is one area where reality is truly irrelevant. Those men may have had their physiological arousal come from fear but they experienced sexual tension instead, and what you actually experience is more important than some physiological reaction to the environment. So when I'm anxious about something and it's not something that's actually important for me to deal with in real life I just tell myself I am "imagining that reason" and then look around the environment for some reason to feel "excited" instead. The physiological reaction is the same, it's just one is labeled "anxiety" and another is labeled "excitement".

Low psycho-motor processing isn't required for diagnosis.

However I am clumsy and have severe sensory issues. I have issues in all senses (including propioceptive and vestibular leading to the clumsy). My sensory issues are enough to consider me disabled just by them.

But none of that has lead to IQ scatter in me. My IQ subtests that I took all were all quite close to each other (Almost all my subtests are describable by a 1 standard deviation spread. That misses only my strongest and weakest subtests, which aren't far out from that.)


Sensory issues, while being common, neither cause social problems (as they can occur without social issues) nor are required. They are associated with autism though.

The being clumsy is required in the Gillberg criteria though.

So no, sensory issues do not mean IQ scatter.

Firstly, there are plenty of people with sensory issues who don't have specific social issues. SPD can be a standalone condition, or associated with many conditions other than autism spectrum conditions. There are also rare examples of autistics with no sensory issues.

Secondly, two things can co-occur a lot without a conceptual link between them, if for example those two parts of the brain are close to each other. For example, a certain type of stroke causes face recognition problems (prosopagnosia), color-blindness, blind spots in the left visual field, and difficulty with navigation (topographical agnosia). It's not because any of those issues cause any of the others, necessarily. For example, there is no causal link between prosopagnosia and color-blindness. The reason that set of issues go together is that the brain regions for all those skills are all fed by the posterior cerebral artery, and so a blockage in that artery starves all of them.

It's possible autism and sensory issues go together for a similar reason. For example, imagine if one gene helps form receptors to a certain neurotransmitter, and there are a bunch of receptors for that neurotransmitter in some of the sensory processing areas, and in some social reasoning areas. (And in case you were wondering, the brain does indeed have specific regions for various social skills.) A mutation in that gene will cause changes in activity in completely separate parts of the brain, just because they use the same neurotransmitter.

Hey Everyone. I personally think that the difference between one sub-test result and another is actually a coexisting condition that is due to the plasticity of the brain AND Asperger's. Kind of like anxiety, in that it can be an indicator but not necessary for a diagnosis. When I was diagnosed at 22 years old, the psychologist wanted to do the WAIS IQ test, simply to get a grasp on my traits i think. he said i fit the differences in sub-test results indicative of Asperger's except for one being slightly higher than the norm for low scores and one being off the chart for high scores. But he said that the two sessions to do it in were only a small part of the diagnosis, and we had long in depth conversations to be as accurate as possible. I wish i remembered what scores i got, because some came so naturally and were quite enjoyable for me. All i know is the final score was 127 (yay me), and the lower scores were quite average and the highest (copying the blueprints with the diagonally painted blocks was between 190 and 200 (it crushes me not to remember THAT score). I remember saying quite disgruntled, "I thought there were going to be some 3D puzzles or something harder!" I went through high school with a scholarship to the best private school in the region, won numerous mathematics and science related prizes for my school, and of course went undetected as a non-earth conceived entity. It was sooooooooooo good to get the diagnosis, after seeing numerous doctors and being labelled a hypochondriac. AAAaaanyway, yeah, I think the whole iq test thing is a result of my obsession with mathematics, and my brain identifies with visual spacial concepts "like" a neuro-unenhanced brain identifies with friends. Don't get me wrong, I love to socialize, just rarely.

I think this depend on the criteria: the former DSM-IV did not make any reference to "clumsiness"; the ICD-10 talks about clumisness but is not mandatory; to the Giiberth (sp?) criteria, is a necessary condition for the diagnosis.

That's interesting Tuttle, is there any research about this as I'd love to read it as this may be relevant to myself?

In a society of one-size-fits-all often the weakest link is what determines your capacity to find employment. Sad but true. Many people on the spectrum will end up having to take jobs that don't fully utilize their full talents because their weaknesses shut them out. Working on weaknesses rather than focusing on strengths is no fun but everyone has to to some degree. It's just the world we live in.

I'd also point out that IQ score scatter might not even detect all types of skill scatter. Also, I have scatter that doesn't correspond with any kind of typical pattern. I find I do much better than average on untimed tests and average to below average on timed tests. This biggest thing is my processing speed is slow relative to my overall intelligence. I also have huge problems shifting focus from one thing to the next plus some ADHDish concentration problems. I have the "hyper-male brain" according to IQ tests but find that terminology annoying since I'm fairly sensitive/emotional and far from the so-called "hyper-logical" male stereotype. I have a more male IQ profile but a more female-ish emotionality.