"You're so smart , you can't have a neurological disabi

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When people say this, it makes as much sense to me as if they said "You have such a great throwing arm, your legs can't be crippled".
The brain, like the body, has many different functions, and you can be brilliant at some things and terrible at others. Why is this something that many people have trouble understanding?

The simple answer to your question is the people that say that are stupid.

Not just stupid in the sense that they are dumb they are willfully stupid and loud and they like the sound of their own voices.

These are the same kind of people that would of had our kind burned at the stake a few hundred years ago.

It's not just stupid people that have trouble with the concept, though.
Smart people tend to make exactly the same assumption.

Blame ignorance, not stupidity.

Ignorance should have no negative connotations, it simply implies not knowing.

This is what I tell everyone, I bet half of the worlds population doesn't know that ignorance means "not knowing" and think it means "ignoring the facts"...

+1

With some people you have to be blunt.

"An expert on autism, are you?"

"Uh...no."

"Then why would you try to contradict people who are? You don't know the things they know, and you're not an expert in the area and they are. I'm a real person. Please don't force your fantasies on me. This is my life, and this is how things are. If I have to live with it, so do you."

Not ever used on me...

The thread title made me cringe because it reminds me of what my teachers used to say in elementary school ("You're so smart, you don't need any help")

My friends said that to me. I was never offended though. If a smart person had told me they were autistic when I was in my teens I would have expressed the same incredulity. The thing is that mental disabilities highlighted in the media deal with those whose IQs are lower and don't adapt well in mainstream society. Aspies are more fortunate in a sense that a number can go undetected and fit in to some extent and even get jobs.

I've actually experienced both sides of the reaction. Years before my diagnosis a friend disclosed to me that she had Asperger's, and I was like "whoa, you're way too smart to have Asperger's."

Next time someone says that to me, I will recount this experience to them.

I'm intellectually disabled and hear that in the forums.
Especially because of sounding bright for my age.
And I guess I am bright in one sense.
But give me some brain puzzles to do and then you will see where the problem is.

People just don't want to believe that the brains of others can be different than theirs yet still be just as capable of reasoning, at least in some ways, if not more so.
People don't believe things they don't want to believe, generally regardless of the evidence.

The only way to convince people it's true seems to be to make them want to believe it by showing them how it explains behaviors and responses which otherwise make no sense.
Allistic people can be so difficult to deal with at times.

After my bankruptcy was completed in early 2010, my attorney said something like "You know what's weird? The client of mine with a neurological disability is the most pulled together of all my clients. Most of my clients, I have to treat like little kids, but I can talk to you as an adult." She wasn't questioning whether I had a disability, just noting that I was the only client who had it all together. This was after I'd taken out credit cards to finance a business that launched during the financial crisis and failed.

i have never got that said to me before because i am not smart. i have autism and learning difficulties together, which is rather contradicting i know.

but i have got ''you're good with interacting with the public and you are very assertive - you cant have autism'' said to me before, mostly by work colleages. then they say to each other ''she aint autistic, shes just a b***h''.

i got used to it. i dont get involved with people anyway so i dont care about what they think of me. i only love my husband.

People tend to be baffled by the paradox that I'm both highly intelligent and also pretty dumb. My IQ is way above average (I'm the sort of guy who just for the hell of it programs a computer how to play chess analysing several moves ahead) but I'm at a complete loss when confronted with emotional issues or various aspects of daily life. One of my relatives recently said that he couldn't understand how somebody so smart can be so stupid. I have the intellect of a genius but the social comprehension and ability of a small child. I design and sell complex reminder/management software but forget my own important appointments. I design and plan highly complex algorithms but can't manage my own life. I've written software that has increased the efficiency and profitability of many companies and helped them make many millions in profits, but I live in poverty. My whole life is a paradox. I'm a paradox.