About the existence or inexistence of Asperger Syndrome

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The type of giftedness commonly described (which also specifies a high general intelligence, by the way, as measured by IQ), does not encompass the extraordinary abilities found on the autistic spectrum, which are qualitatively different, and based upon a different neurology and different perceptions. The autistic brain cannot be neatly described by the common definition of giftedness, which is mostly based on IQ points and which also covers those with more typical neurology.

Exactly.

Also, if someone suspects they were misdiagnosed, then it seems illogical to attempt to deal with that issue of misdiagnosis/overdiagnosis by arguing that the label/condition/different neurology/difference doesn't actually exist for others either.

It may be the "common" definition, but IQ is no longer considered an accurate/adequate measure of giftedness. That is the old way of classifying children/people as gifted, but more recent study/research has discovered that this does not allow for many types of giftedness, in people who do not do well in IQ tests. IQ obviously measures some kinds of giftedness, but very definitely not all, it is too narrow.

In what way would you say that "giftedness" does "not encompass the extraordinary abilities found on the autistic spectrum"?

If you read the article at SENG and the Wiki page, ( linked to on previous page ), you will see that in fact gifted children/people do have significantly different behaviours, and quite possibly neurological conditions connected with these, ( do you know of any study which has shown whether neurological functioning of gifted people is the same or different to those found in people diagnosed with AS? ), which are so strikingly similar to those used to diagnose AS, that the only difference seems to be in the extent to which these differences have been turned into disability, in the most sensitive, by the environment, ( physical including food, chemicals, lighting and noise etc, aswell as social ).

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The literature often says so, but the majority of children with an IQ of 130+ and 145+ I met and don't have any behaviours associated with AS. I think I know of 3 or 5 children who're diagnosed as AS or autistic features because they have behaviours of AS.

The rest doesn't display such behaviours at all from what I have come to understand as AS.

It's all about definitions of AS. Maybe another will think many gifted kids (who I judge entirely non-AS) as a bit AS or very similar to those with AS, because their definition of AS is totally unlike mine.



It all comes down to definitions.

I think it would help us all to prove our point and understand where the others are coming from if we wouldn't talk about 'Asperger's' but about 'Asperger's as defined by ... '.

As defined by the latest DSM:

I) Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two ... particularly

a) marked impairments in the use of multiple non-verbal behaviours, ( which could describe/ include a highly sensitive/gifted person's exaggerated/apparently "out of proportion" and/or unnaturally subdued responses to overload/saturation in many environments; isn't it Attwood who says put someone with AS on their own in their room and their AS is cured ?) and

b) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level, ( which is the case for many gifted children ), and

d) lack of social reciprocity, ( which if you were bored out of your brain, to the point of coma/irritation/mind-numbing frustration, or had learned that saying what you really "think" about anything is a bad idea, or had learned to keep your mouth shut because your vocabulary use and knowledge had provoked bullying in the past, would not be surprising ... especially if you are thinking about something much more interesting than socialising )

II) Restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behaviour, interests, and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following;

a) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is "abnormal" either in intensity or focus, ( which is a classic sign of genius/giftedness ), and

b) apparently inflexible adherence to specific non-functional routines or rituals, ( which assessment involves not only an entirely subjective opinion of what constitutes "non-functional" in our society, but which someone very sensitive might well do in order to reduce overload ), aswell as

c) Stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms, ( gifted children apparently pace, wriggle, bounce, etc, and this is a problem in schools )

d) persistent preoccupation with parts of objects, ( gifted children "pay attention" more deeply than "normal" people, become more engrossed in/concentrated on "parts"/aspects of things, and make connections between apparently unconnected deep/underlying structures ).

III) The "disturbance" causing "clinically" significant impairments in social, occupational, and other important areas of functioning.
IV) No language delay
V) No other cognitive delay

The descriptions of giftedness in the article and the Wiki page refer to all of these issues/difficulties/phenomena, ( aswell as others that are not included in the DSM but which many people on WP repeatedly describe ).

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Thus, according to the DSM, ( which is the official authority on what constitutes Aspergers and who is diagnosed with Aspergers ), many/most children currently identified as gifted could be diagnosed with AS, labelled disordered/dysfunctional.

It clearly states that there is no language delay, nor other cognitive delay. That appears to be the most important distinction between Aspergers and the rest of the Autism spectrum, according to the DSM, the authority on the matter.

Why are some children diagnosed with AS, a disorder, rather than recognised as gifted? I believe that it probably depends on family background, the school they attend, the food and chemicals they are exposed to on a daily basis, whether their "sensitivities" are such as to cause chronic overload and incapacity, ... and subjective bias among the professionals responsible for distributing diagnoses:

I was reading another article in the SENG archives, ( a "reply" to the piece by Webb linked on previous page ), in which a psychologist justifies making a diagnosis of AS on the basis of, for example, the "fact" that although gifted children can "seem" to show very many of the same social skills impairments as AS, it isn't the same thing, because "although they may not know how to show it appropriately, the concern [ for others ] is there".

ie; People with AS are not concerned about others, whereas gifted people are, they may "simply" not know how to express this concern "appropriately" ! !! This is a practicing clinical psychologist writing to justify a diagnosis of AS.

http://www.sengifted.org/articles_couns ... rder.shtml

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this thread is hitting one bullseye after another....sort of like watching a mental fireworks show..

btw i'm real frakin tired of getting that WP is overloaded, come back in 2-3 min; i've had that screen message about 8 times this morning.

While both articles describe the expanding concept of giftedness, they still emphasise general intelligence (as measured by IQ). The Wiki article says that general intelligence is a major component of giftedness.

The SENG article distinguishes giftedness from certain neurological conditions; it does not say they are the same. There is certainly overlap, and this is why they emphasise that giftedness is confused with these neurological conditions. However, it describes how giftedness can be a co-existing factor and recommends dual diagnosis when this occurs (not just acknowledging one or the other). It also acknowledges that neurological conditions can occur without giftedness and vice versa, otherwise all gifted should be dually diagnosed!

I’ve certainly met gifted people with dual diagnoses. However, this included a range of conditions such as clinical depression, anxiety disorder, and dyslexia. While AS can certainly overlap with giftedness, it is obviously not the only condition. There are also many gifted people who would not obtain any clinical diagnosis. The range is vast; therefore, saying AS = giftedness is inaccurate. They are distinct but overlapping categories, as with other brain differences.




I will outline the evidence in the literature for the specific traits/abilities of autism. However, without settling on a definition of giftedness that has scientific validity, discussion of any differentiation from autistic abilities/traits would not be a scientific one. Therefore, I will use the most widely recognised and measurable characteristic of it: general intelligence/intellect, which the Wiki article says is a major component of giftedness.

These studies cover a wide range of measured intelligence and involve IQ-matched controls for comparison.

A good summary of these autistic traits is found in Gernsbacher, Mottron & Dawson (2006), where they reference studies where autistics perform significantly better than controls “... in numerous perceptual, reasoning, and comprehension tasks: Across a wide range of age and measured intelligence ...” This is found on block design, i.e., “weak central coherence” (Shah & Frith 1993), embedded figures tests (Shah & Frith 1983), recognition memory (Toichi et al. 2002), relative imperviousness to memory distortions (Beversdorf et al. 2000), sentence comprehension (Just et al. 2004), relative imperviousness to misleading prior context (Ropar & Mitchell 2002). Mottron and others argue that such superiorities abound in autism.

Exceptional perceptual abilities are associated with autism when compared to IQ-matched controls. “Weak central coherence”, now referred to as local processing bias, is a detail-focused processing style. As well as fragmented perception, it gives rise to areas of talent and acute perception. Related to this is also a higher than usual incidence of perfect pitch in the autistic population (Miller, 1999). There is also stable memory for exact pitches (Bonnel et al. 2003; Heaton, Hermelin & Pring 1998), and many other processing differences concerning music (which I won’t list and reference unless requested). In the visual modality, there is reduced susceptibility to visually induced motion (e.g., Gepner & Mestre 2002), superior visual search (Plaisted, O’Riordan & Baron-Cohen 1998a; O’Riordan, Plaisted, Driver & Baron-Cohen 2001), superior discrimination learning of highly confusable patterns (Plaisted, O’Riordan & Baron-Cohen 1998b), reduced susceptibility to visual illusions (Happe, 1996).

More recently, there is the visual acuity study of Ashwin et al., which shows evidence that those on the spectrum have superior visual acuity to IQ-matched controls (mean verbal IQ of control group = 122 SD 7.64, performance IQ = 121 SD 6.86, full IQ = 122 SD 8.75; mean verbal IQ of AS/HFA group = 121 SD 9.95, performance IQ = 124 SD 7.99, full IQ = 121 SD 10.62). SD is an abbreviation for standard deviation. There are further results to be published showing similar autistic superiority in other sensory modalities. There is also the recent hypothesis of Markram et al. on autism as hyperfunctionality in certain areas of the brain, but which also leads to dysfunction.



References (think I’ve missed one):

Beversdorf, D. Q., Smith, B. W., Crucian, G. P., Anderson, J. M.,
Keillor, J. M., Barrett, A. M., Hughes, J. D., Felopulos, G. J.,
Bauman, M. L., Nadeau, S. E., & Heilman, K. M. (2000).
Increased discrimination of ‘‘false memories’’ in autism spectrum
disorder. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
97, 8734–8737.

Bonnel, A., Mottron, L., Peretz, I., Trudel, M., Gallun, E., &
Bonnel, A. M. (2003). Enhanced pitch sensitivity in individuals
with autism: A signal detection analysis. Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience, 15, 226–235.

Gepner, B., & Mestre, D. R. (2002). Brief report: Postural reactivity
to fast visual motion differentiates autistic from children
with Asperger syndrome. Journal of Autism & Developmental
Disorders, 32, 231–238.

Gernsbacher, M.A., Dawson, M., & Mottron, L. (2006). Autism: Common, heritable, but not harmful. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29, 413-414.

Happe´ , F. G. E. (1996). Studying weak central coherence at low
levels: Children with autism do not succumb to visual illusions,
a research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry,
37, 873–877.

Heaton, P., Hermelin, B., & Pring, L. (1998). Autism and pitch
processing: a precursor for savant musical ability. Music
Perception, 15, 291–305.

Just, M. A., Cherkassky, V. L., Keller, T. A., & Minshew, N. J.
(2004). Cortical activation and synchronization during sentence
comprehension in high-functioning autism: Evidence of
underconnectivity. Brain, 127, 1811–1821.

Miller, L. K. (1999). The savant syndrome: Intellectual impairment
and exceptional skill. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 31–46.

O’Riordan, M. A., Plaisted, K. C., Driver, J., & Baron-Cohen, S.
(2001). Superior visual search in autism. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 27,
719–730.

Plaisted, K., O’Riordan, M., & Baron-Cohen, S. (1998a). Enhanced
visual search for a conjunctive target in autism: A research note.
Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 39, 777–783.


Plaisted, K., O’Riordan, M., & Baron-Cohen, S. (1998b).
Enhanced discrimination of novel, highly similar stimuli by
adults with autism during a perceptual learning task. Journal
of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 39, 765–775.

Ropar D & Mitchell P (2002) Shape constancy in autism: The role of prior knowledge and perspective cues. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 43(5), 647-653


Shah, A., & Frith, U. (1983). An islet of ability in autistic children:
A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry,
24, 613–620.


Shah, A., & Frith, U. (1993). Why do autistic individuals show
superior performance on the Block Design task? Journal of
Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 34, 1351–1364.

Wow outlier! Thanks for the time and energy you invested in that post and all the research involved. It is very much appreciated.

[alba hunts for a happy dance emoticon but can't find one]

We can google "weak central coherence" now referred to as "local processing bias"......which is a 'detail focused processing style'. From the research you provided, one may conclude this is some recent scientific terminology relating to how the autistic brain processes information. Awesome!

I came across this term in reading through the recent links...developmentally intrinsic and developmentally intrinsic to one another. Einstein was given as an example. "Rather than viewing Einstein's lingual delay itself as a disorder, it may be that Einstein's genius and his delay in speaking were developmentally intrinsic to one another."


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Last edited by alba on 22 Mar 2009, 3:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have just posted a quote from a paper called "Gifted or Autistic" on a thread of the same name, from last year, which I just found and thought was so interesting it seemed worth reviving, as I had also found a useful paper on the subject to quote.

My post at: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp2116419.html#2116419

Thank you, Outlier, for your very comprehensive reply to my question. There definitely seems to be a "Grey Zone" though, as Agnes Burger-Veltmeijer puts it, which I quoted on the above thread.

The fact is that the professionals themselves seem to have difficulty distinguishing between someone who is gifted/GFT, someone who is GFT + AS, and someone with AS on its own. And misdiagnosis clearly occurs.

There doesn't seem to be anything apart from the degree of difficulty experienced to distinguish them, which is why some in the profession are proposing a shift from "Labelling diagnosis" to "Needs-based diagnosis". Something which in view of the current chaos around the AS/ASD/Autism Spectrum aswell as the related ADHD, OCD, PDDs, Sensory-processing differences, etc, seems urgently required.

"Neurodiversity" does seem like the only sane way forward, as the labels have become too much, too complex/confused for even the supposedly qualified to use.
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Last edited by ouinon on 23 Mar 2009, 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

That thread Gifted vs Aspergers is fascinating. Following is re-post of one person's contribution because it dovetails perfectly with what I believe.

5-5-08, p.4

The autistic brain and the NT gifted brain may both be able to process non-linearly. My guess is that the NT gifted brain can process either way and they can switch from one to the other effortlessly. Some autistics can do this as well. But many autistics can't, don't, or won't do linear processing. I agree with bookwormde that the autistic brain has an affinity for non-linear processing.

Last edited by alba on 24 Mar 2009, 11:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

Of course Giftedness is a spectrum too. Confused? You will be...

I have a couple of slight concerns about the use of a label of Giftedness. One is that it is yet another ultimately unsatisfactory 'label'. Just supposing anyone suspects they have been misdiagnosed as AS, goes and gets diagnosed with GFT, then find that they don't actually *quite* fit with the majority of the GFT world, either. Which I'd say is almost inevitable given real people, not mass produced organisms. Can't I just be ME?

The other is that giftedness is a social construct too, isn't it?

Yes, I noticed that, as if "gifted" was becoming a psychiatric condition too, by degrees, which is what a spectrum allows.


Totally agree. With value-judgements on each one, whereas at least astrology allows for almost infinite permutations of qualities without any value-judgement.


Yes, as much as the entire Autism Spectrum, ADHD, OCD, and so on. Myths! A great big made-up thing, which most people believe in like the majority does in the Matrix.

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In her book Autism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2008, Uta Frith writes that there are plenty of differences between the brains of autistic people and the brains of non-autistic people.

In the brains of autistic people the Purkinje cells - which have a particularly beautiful tree-like structure - are smaller and there are fewer of them, in particular in the cerebellum.
Frith describes research which shows areas in which autistic people have shown superior abilities compared to non-autustic people.

She argues that there are tensions in the concept of the autism spectrum. According to her

I don't think anyone has been suggesting that differences in brain structure do not exist, but that labelling people, or even behaviours, inherently involves ( fundamental and mostly unconscious ) decisions about which things to classify people and/or behaviours by. At the moment society seems to be interested in dividing people up in this way, whereas 1000 years ago people were divided up by different criteria.

Each new set of criteria, ( something which is for some reason of "interest" to the society at that epoch; perhaps because of changes in society which put pressure on, and thus make visible, certain people/behaviors ), pushes people to explore that aspect of life/people, until that particular mindset has been exhausted/exposed, ( and/or society changes to reintegrate/re-accommodate those differences ), and a new mindset/perspective grows up, which divides people and the world up according to some other system;

For instance those now grouped together under AS/Autism/Autism Spectrum and ADHDs might at another time find themselves scattered all over the place, with "apparently" nothing ( significant ) in common, as I suspect has been the case in the past. It is society's "lens" which puts us together by declaring certain criteria of importance, and which would separate us all up again with a different set of priorities.

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If women, or black people, for instance, had not refuted the system of criteria that society was using they might still be systematically/legally discriminated against, ( women and black people were equated with children, or even animals, immature, over-emotional, with inferior intellect, etc, etc ).

One way in which women fought against the "set of criteria", and the oppression that it justified, ( in the name of "protection" ), was to insist on their differences/"diversity", repudiate the prevailing attitude that femaleness was the most important thing about a woman, that a woman would automatically have more in common with another woman than with a man.

Rather than dwelling on our similarities, encouraging ourselves and others to believe that AS is the most important thing about us, ( by "expanding" the labels Aspergers and Autism to include the whole personality, as many threads on WP do ), we need to insist upon/publicise our differences.

Otherwise we help society wall us in.

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