ASperGers anD aUtisM

Although commonly associated with general intellectual disabilities - approximately 75% of people with autism have a non-verbal Intelligence Quotient (IQ) below 70 - autism can also occur in individuals of normal, or even superior intelligence.

-CogNItion For AspergERS

• Full range of IQ
• Visual spatial deficits are most pronounced: poor appreciation of gestalt, poor appreciation of body in space, sometimes left side inattention/neglect, may have highly developed but ritualized drawing skills that are extremely detail oriented.
• Rote linguistic skills are normal (i.e. repetition, naming, fluency, syntactic comprehension), but pragmatic use of language is impaired: weak grasp of inference, little content, disorganized narrative despite good vocabulary and grammar. Rote recall of a story may be good, but the main point missed. Rhythm, volume, and prosody of speech are often disturbed.
• Motor and sensory findings are common: usually poor fine and gross motor coordination, left side worse than right.
• Attention is usually reported to be impaired and testing supports this, but the affect is desultory as opposed to distractingly impulsive, as in ADHD. It is as if people with NVLD do not know what to attend to, but once focused, can sustain attention to detail. The distinction between figure and ground is disturbed, resulting in attention errors.

-CogNItion For Autism-

• Language impairment is a core symptom of autism, and may be  closely tied with social deficits, another key feature of the disorder. For example, children whose attention is not focused on their parents and caregivers might not pick up on the cues required for language learning. There is also a close relationship between problems with theory of mind, the ability to understand the thoughts and beliefs of others, and language impairment. 

Researchers aiming to understand the role of language in autism typically study children with high-functioning autism, or those with a high intelligence quotient.