Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional ASD and Gifted "cannot coexist"??

Hi,

The school psych at our school has stated that it is not possible for a duel diagnosis of gifted and ASD. She is adamant that good social understanding is necessary for lots of verbal subtests on IQ tests, so by definition they can't coexist?

I am well aware that twice exceptional ASD and gifted is accepted.

Does anyone have any references on this issue?

Thanks

Steph

AAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.

I *think* that is a load of bs or misunderstanding on the part of the psycholgist. but then again, maybe I am not getting what is meant by 'asd'/autism spectrum disorder, that seems kind of broad... does this mean Asperger's?

Here is the book I was referred to and I think it is an excellent well grounded book.
Yes these second 'E's will mess with doing well on an iq test, but it doesn't mean a child with ASD can't be extremely smart, in fact gifted.

http://www.amazon.com/Misdiagnosis-Diagnoses-Gifted-Children-Adults/dp/0910707642

also found this...
http://gcq.sagepub.com/content/53/2/89.abstract

Your school psych is sadly misinformed. It is possible for children with limited social awareness to do very well on lots of kinds of verbal tests.

One article (not that I agree with all of it):
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10167.aspx

DeeDee

Oh, and to state that someone can't be gifted unless they score well on one of these tests is a very limited view of things!

My son has an Asperger's dx and he did very well on the verbal part of his Reynolds ...134 which was 99 %tile (very superior) and didn't do as well on the non verbal (101 which is average)....so if that makes him not aspergers I would be really happy, save us a lot of grief if he magically didn't have those challenges anymore.

But I think it probably just means that every child is unique.

My Aspie son didn't score nearly as well on the comprehension subtest of the WISC as he did on the other verbal subtests - his comprehension subtest score was only average - but that didn't stop him from ending up with a 134 VCI, which is at the 99th percentile. His scores on the Reynolds (RIAS), which does not include social comprehension measures in the verbal section, were far higher - 147 verbal composite. So, one way to look at that difference is that the comprehension subtest alone depressed his verbal composite score nearly a full SD, but even depressed, it still fell squarely in the gifted range.

I will vouch for the idea that Aspergers can make it hard for a gifted child to show what they are capable of on some IQ tests. This is a very different thing from it making them not gifted, and it is something to be aware of when having a child on the spectrum evaluated.

I am currently reading Different Minds - which directly addresses gifted children with Aspergers or ADHD (or both). And it talks about exactly what aculady mentions, that on WISC you may see lower comprehension scores, but in a gifted child the similarities and vocab will likely be very high. Sweetie's sons pattern with depressed non verbal is also a recognised pattern according to this book. Which surprised me as i thought that those with aspergers were supposed to be visual spatial thinkers. It's an interesting book.

Tell her that my son does, indeed, exist, and has done so quite well now for almost 9 years.

He is a DYS with Asperger's.

Now, the IQ test, that's a different ball game -- but he's scored heavy 99.9s on WJIII twice, and nobody who's been around him for five minutes has ever doubted that he's quite gifted.

Depressed non-verbal scores are common, but frequently at least partly due to problems with visual processing, visual-motor integration, and fine motor coordination (all of which are common areas of difficulty for Aspies), as most of the subtests used to measure non-verbal reasoning rely heavily on these areas.

My son shows a pretty "typical Aspie" profile in his scores . High verbal skills and poor visual and motor skills are very common in this group. "Classic" autism kids tend to be less verbal and more visual-spatial as a group, since language delay excludes an Aspergers diagnosis and is one of the diagnostic features of classic autism, at least until they do away with the distinction between the two.

Nice clarification, aculady! I did not know that.

The learning-styles business has been called into question: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091216162356.htm

There's no reason to assume most people with AS are visual-spatial learners. It's a stereotype and gets in the way of actually educating them.

DeeDee

And about precluding the language delay...for Aspergers.

My son had very significant speech and oral motor delays. It didn't affect his receptive language at all but if you aren't able to produce intelligible words it does delay your language.

So one psychologist (when he was 8) gave him a PDD-NOS/Aspergers diagnosis because technically he did have a language delay as a young child. But most professionals go with the straight mild Aspergers diagnosis when discussing my son and his challenges because that is the more accurate diagnosis leaving out his language delay as a young child, which was 80% resolved by age 4.

The new proposed DSM definition of autism eliminates the Asperger's and PDD-NOS categories altogether, lumping them into autism, and takes langauge delay out of the equation. The social deficits, inflexibility, and stereotyped/repetitive interests and behaviors become the key defining features.

http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=94#

DeeDee

Well...then my son is now magically cured because he won't qualify under that definition as written. I hope there is a grandfather clause.

Has this http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/fact/asperger.pdf been mentioned yet? I would say that AS can sometimes be harder to distinguish in kids with very high IQ's, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.