Though most symptoms of autism are deficits by nature, some people with autism, known as savants, display special abilities as a result of their condition. Savant abilities are not just special; they are extraordinarily special abilities that cannot be duplicated by most other human beings.
Savant syndrome is a rare condition in which persons with various developmental disorders, including autistic disorder, have an amazing ability and talent. The condition can be congenital (genetic or inborn), or can be acquired later in childhood, or even in adults.
About 70% of autistic people have an intellectual disability, which means they have an IQ lower than 70. The remaining 30% have intelligence that ranges from average to gifted.
Are People With Autism Smart? People with autism can be smart, but autism itself doesn't make people smarter. Autism also doesn't guarantee intelligence, though many people with ASD do well in academics, in the workforce, and in IQ tests.
Conclusion: Our data suggest that nearly half of individuals with ASD have average or higher IQ. Boys with ASD are more likely to have average or higher IQ than girls. Patients with ASD and higher IQ remain at risk for not being identified.
However, the fitness tests showed that aerobic fitness, flexibility and body mass index of children with autism spectrum disorders was similar to the children without autism. The strength test was the only one that children with autism spectrum disorders did not perform as well in, the study said.
This is mainly because of how their brains process data which makes them better at understanding numbers and patterns. Other studies have found that because people with autism tend to excel at visual processing they are up to 40% faster at problem-solving than other people.
It's long been known that one symptom of autism is a difficulty in recognizing faces. The Stanford study suggest that the brain has repurposed the area devoted to that function to augmenting arithmetic functions instead.
Autism is a neurodevelopmental difference that affects the way people think and communicate with others. A preference for logical thinking is a characteristic of autism in many people. Not all autistic people lean on logic to guide their thinking, though.
Associative Thinking: Most individuals on the spectrum are associative thinkers rather than linear thinkers. In other words, one thought connects to another and so on through sometimes loose or seemingly irrelevant connections.
Sensory Issues
Many people with autism experience sensory processing disorder. This is more commonly known as sensory overload. Noise, crowds, bright lights, strong tastes, smells, and being touched can feel unbearable to someone with HFA. This makes going to restaurants, movies, and shopping malls difficult.
Many autistic people are thoughtful and respectful and polite and don't want to be disrespectful which can exacerbate this issue. Others find practicing assertiveness almost impossible. In some intimate relationships, autistic people can be manipulated and taken advantage of by their partner.
Children with autism have memory challenges that hinder not only their memory for faces but also their ability to remember other kinds of information, according to new research from the Stanford School of Medicine.
The extreme attention to detail common in autistic people may manifest as talent in mathematics, art or other fields. Autistic persons who have talent in art are often outsiders in the art community. Unlike with common art, there is seldom any tradition or academic criteria in their creations.
Also, autistic children are often visual learners. This might be because visual information lasts longer and is more concrete than spoken and heard information. It might help autistic children to process information and choose how to respond. You can help your child learn by presenting information visually.
The high-functioning person with autism is not a manipulative, scheming person who is trying to make life difficult. They are seldom, if ever, capable of being manipulative. Usually misbehavior is the result of efforts to survive experiences which may be confusing, disorienting, or frightening.
Evidence for autism being subject to assortative mating comes from a study by Nordsletten et al. which reported that a person diagnosed with autism is 10–12 times more likely to marry or have a child with another autistic person than is someone without such a diagnosis.
Many people in the autism community also prefer identity-first language. They view autism as a central and important part of their identity and take pride in it.
Low functioning autism refers to children and adults with autism who show the most severe symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder and are diagnosed as having Level 3 ASD. They are usually unable to live independently and require support from a guardian throughout their lives.
Level 3 ASD, formerly known as low-functioning autism, is the most severe form of autims. People with level 3 autism require very substantial support.
“Autistic people may also have trouble sorting different objects in the home. For example, we may not realize that the enormous pile of 'stuff' on the bed can be broken down into separate piles of clothes, books, papers, and trash, and therefore managed more easily.
People with autism tend to have insomnia: It takes them an average of 11 minutes longer than typical people to fall asleep, and many wake up frequently during the night. Some people with the condition have sleep apnea, a condition that causes them to stop breathing several times during the night.