My horrible psych evaluation

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I got back the results of the psych eval I got awhile ago and I have a horridly average IQ of 101. My verbal is the highest and is 120, but my visual is only 88. The other two were like 99/100. The lady wrote that a lot of my intellectual stuff was impaired, which made me upset because I don't really think it's true.

She also wrote in my report that my fine motor skills were very good (high average) and that was kind of a WTF moment. I can hardly tie my shoes.

Throughout the rest of the report, she went on and on about me being at a severe disadvantage, and she said that my parents were right about not sending me away, and that I would need cheat sheets, private tutoring, to sit with the professor during class, and to have my mommy check my agenda and take my cell phone away so I can do my homework. I haven't needed that much help since I was like 9, and I don't think I want to show that eval to the disabilities office, so I cancelled my appointment.

Honestly, I don't know if I am going to be able to get other documentation that easily because my developmental pediatrician is leaving and I'm too old to see her. I don't know if I will find another doctor, I've already accelerated my med taper on my own because I don't feel confident in getting a new doctor and I don't want to be on Risperidone forever. I already stopped my Xanax, Concerta (thank God) and Strattera awhile ago.

Anyway, I hear a lot of you guys have high IQ's. Does anyone have one that's lower or the same as mine or am I the only one. I'm kind of curious about other Aspie IQ's and I kind of need some advice about my doctor and stuff.

I think Verbal IQ of 120 is really good. I thought I read somewhere that people with Aspergers do really well with Verbal IQ and not so much on Performance IQ.

I think you might consider contacting your developmental pediatrician about going off meds. Maybe he/she can handle the meds situation for a few months. Could that doctor recommend someone really good for you? For some people, things can look really bleak when they are not on the right meds.

The person that wrote the psych eval may not be all that great. If it was a student or someone new in their career, they may be trying hard to not leave anything out and overcompensating for inexperience by making things bigger than they are.

I don't think my IQ is that high because I always needed help with school work and I didn't make good grades in school until I started getting help. But it has been tested in the average and above average range as a preteen but I used to score in the mild and borderline intellectual range. My verbal IQ has always been low and my performance IQ has always been average. I read it's common for our IQs to fluctuate in difference ranges while for a normal person, they are in the same range. I am not sure what my other IQs were.

OP,
that isnt a sign of intelectual impairment in any form,it shows have got weaknesses in specific areas which relates more to what we call learning difficulties in the UK [or learning disabilities in the US]-people with learning difficulties have a very uneven IQ profile;their VIQ and PIQ are not the same however those of us with intelectual disability have even low VIQs and PIQs.

intelectual impairment or disability can not be assumed or diagnosed based on only an IQ test,a functional assessment is also required as is a complete developmental history that backs it up.

am LFA not aspie but am diagnosed with mild ID, and had originaly been diagnosed with severe ID,until last year whilst sectioned in a specialist ID hospital was reassessed,its very common for people with severe classic autism to have their inteligence scored wrongly because the autism conflicts with their assessment.

dont look at IQ as a barrier or a bad thing,those of us with ID dont.

OP: my IQ is very similar to yours, only with more of a split and a lower PIQ and slightly higher VIQ. I wasn't given a full-scale IQ because I was told that it wouldn't be reliable with such a split. There's a 45 point split which is 3 standard deviations and puts me in only 1% of the population that has such a big split between PIQ and VIQ. That was all in a report I was given. I was told that I had a very significant disability and that my IQ scores are similar to someone who has had a right hemisphere stroke (that wasn't in the written report). It freaked me out at the time too. You're not alone.

On a general IQ test I used to score anywhere between 133 and 143 depending on whether I got bored half way through and strated writing any old answer down just to get to the end of the damned thing (IQ tests bore me).

I don't know what it is these days, my brain is not as agile as she used to be.

My advice: Don't dwell on the fact that they told you it's significant. It's just the same old thing you've always had and you're the same person. Just sign up for whatever accommodations you think you really need. The good thing is that if one day you're in a bad way financially and need benefits then you have documents stating you have a very significant disability and that will help you obtain what you need. Don't expect that you'll need them and try your hardest and pursue your goals but just think of it as security, something to fall back on, which is always good to have because disaster can befall anyone, even the most normal and healthy and well adjusted.

i thought i did have a high IQ but i was wrong, my Visual and Working Memory are fine, just average, but my verbal and Information processing speed is in its 70s

I would get another evaluation from a different person.

Not all 'professionals' are good at what they do. In mental health particularly, many simply ignore their own observations in favor of what a textbook tells them.

The assessment saying issues were significant is useful. Nobody has to see it if you can cope without help but if you need help you have the paperwork to back your request so it's taken seriously.

IQ is funny like that. Firstly don't put too much stock on what people say on the internet, even here. I suspect there are people on WP who haven't taken an official IQ test at all (from their descriptions of the 'test' I'm confident that's true of a few people - They don't describe genuine IQ tests!). Therefore their results are either from 'just for fun' tests or completely made up. I also suspect that most people here who don't have a high IQ are going to think twice about saying so as it's the type of thing people usually only bring up if they feel good about it or found it an interesting experience. Also some people here have never had official testing for anything (outside of school work), they are the self diagnosed and are sometimes cautious of any type of assessments so might be very uncomfortable about IQ tests as well. I myself have had several professionally administered full IQ tests and had the opposite experience - I expected it to be above average but a little uneven and was told each time that it's profoundly high and extremely uneven - I was retested specifically because my results are so unusual. I've spent my whole life being put down by people and patronised and had internalised their attitudes and taken them to heart instead of trusting in my abilities. I knew I had some unusual skills but had been put down for them and told they were nothing special. I am rather literal and trusting I unfortunately believed those who told me my skills were worthless, unimportant and made me seem even weirder. Pretty stupid for a supposedly smart person, eh? Having a high IQ does me no real good in life, please don't worry about not having one - It's not all you imagine it to be.

The bottom line is you are armed with information if you need it and nobody needs to know if you chose to withhold it.

When I was younger (like 10-12), I went for some IQ tests to get into the gifted programs. I had 2, and both of the testers said that I wasn't gifted and that I would be unable to keep up if I was in any advanced programs. One even suggested that I should be in the other end of special ed. I took a different IQ test with someone different, since my parents knew I was smart, and I scored the highest score he had ever seen, apparently off the scoring charts. Nowadays I'm a chemical engineer doing quite well .

Long story short: IQ is just a number, and not a concrete one at that. It's what you do with what you have that really matters. I've known people of average intelligence who come up with absolutely brilliant ideas, and I've known geniuses who waste away and do nothing with their intelligence.

On Raven's I scored as low average, combined score on usual test is very low average/unreliable from impairment.

That is correct: aspies and high functioning autistics have stronger verbal than nonverbal skills (my verbal IQ is 134, nonverbal is 94) however the opposite is often true of those lower on the spectrum. A curious occurrence given that supposedly the only distinction between "Asperger's" and "autism" is the severity level.

As for your score of 120, that is good; it is in the "superior" range, putting you in the 92nd percentile for your age group: your verbal ability is stronger than 92% of your age mates. Even your nonverbal score of 88 is still within the average range; 85 is the cutoff below which one is "below average". It should be pointed out that the wider the gap between verbal and nonverbal subscores, the less significant the full-scale score becomes, because it is not a true measure of your abilities, which are too widely spread to be combined meaningfully.

Yeah, I feel like these people just don't understand autistic intelligence at all.

Actually, if you do a literature review (I did, in grad school), you find that the only consistency is that there IS a gap between PIQ and VIQ for AS/HFA. Although people always seem to say Aspies have VIQ > PIQ and HFA are the opposite, studies are actually split in what they find. Some find VIQ > PIQ for Aspies, some find that Aspies have PIQ > VIQ. The only consistent finding was the presence of uneven skills. HFA is more consistent with PIQ > VIQ, although given the fact that a language delay is required for the diagnosis, that's hardly surprising.

Intelligence testing is really bizarre -- I had mine done a couple months ago, and my results came out that I was both learning-disabled (executive functioning and memory) and a genius (my verbal intelligence is in the 99.8th percentile).

Personally I don't put all that much stock in it. I do, however, find it very amusing to tell people about my disparate results, lol.