How many "real" high functioning autists vs. 1%ers with some attitude are there?

5 points by sonicvroooom 80 days ago | 7 comments

This assumes it's a binary: one is either a "real" autist or not.

But that's not how it works. It's a spectrum.

I was tested last year and diagnosed with minor autism and a top 1% IQ. In my career it did cause a kind of friction, but not "attitude". The friction came about when I instinctively fought for the ability to work in the manner that I needed in order to function at a high level. But I was always easy to get along with otherwise.

Maybe the distinction is that autists will cause friction defensively whereas if someone is being a jerk, that's its own thing.

networkOne 80 days ago |

High functioning autists must have other traits which blend-in into their level of autism. Take a look at Steve Jobs... clearly autistic but had a drive and charisma in order for his level of autism to be (for lack of a better word) supercharged.

xyzzy123 80 days ago | |

I dunno if Steve was autistic or no but there's a subtype of people who develop a "special interest" in reading, influencing and manipulating people and get quite good at it. They study people carefully - each encounter is a new way to find out how people tick, their motivations and levers. They tend to have unusually good memories of specific encounters and conversations. They can quickly and reliably size people up. You need many many encounters to build this kind of intuition up, so there are specific professions they cluster in that give them lots of practice, cops / detectives, sales, even retail - but you need lots of (ideally non-trivial) interactions to supply the intuition pump.

Throaway199999 80 days ago | |

Jobs never struck me as autistic. Quite normal actually.

wredcoll 80 days ago |

"high functioning autism" (these days) is closer to an astrological sign or a meyers-briggs diagnosis.

At it's best it gives you some idea about what things are easier than others.

It's useful as a keyword to search and group some behaviour habits.

It also almost completely hides the diganosed autism people who literally cannot survive without a care taker.

al_borland 80 days ago | |

That’s why ASD has levels based on how much support someone needs.