Can being 'gifted' be confused for autism?

[SpinningTops]

My son is 5 and on the waiting list for an autism assessment based on a previous need to routine and big meltdowns!
He seems to have mellowed a lot over the last few months though, he still has his odd ways and speaks a bit like he's a 70 year old man but I wouldn't have pushed for an assessment based on his current behaviour.

I'm wondering if he's just really clever but I realise there might be an overlap. He's definitely got a maths / engineering type of mind.

The thing that's chilled him out is him really getting into chess. He's great at it, beats us all, solves puzzles and anticipates moves. He loves it but not in an obsessive way. It's almost like we've found something to occupy his brain.

I realise chess might go hand in hand with autism but I'm wondering whether I've misjudged things and he's actually just a bit peculiar because he's so bright. He seems to have outgrown the autism traits and now is just a slightly quirky bright boy.

Has anyone been in a similar situation and it so, how did it pan out?

Smi is severe mental impairment, for dla you can get higher rate mobility even if not physically disabled under smi criteria, someone with a high iq can still in certain circumstances qualify under smi depending on how they are effected

I was a gifted child (sadly no-one cares when you grow up hahaha) and now looking back, especially in our age of autism awareness, I reckon I am a bit autistic too, but it was just assumed to be the gifted package. A few of the kids I went to (selective) school with I think the same about too, looking at us.

We were just an adorable bunch of nutters! What can I say!

Good luck with your son, being gifted (and possibly autistic too) is great fun. Nothing more lucky than find joy and satisfaction in the things that society looks up at you for being good at.

Thank you for explaining. The person I care for receives HRM in this circumstance, I just didn’t know what the initials stood for.

Just because something is your experience doesn’t mean it applies to all.

It is surprising someone whose DC receives HRM DLA under the SMI doesn’t know what the initials stand for since it is a common acronym for those in receipt of it just like the acronym DLA itself is.

@BarkLife
Interesting how many 'narcissistic' mums are mentioned on that thread. I thought my MIL was textbook Cluster B personality disorder but I've come to realise that she's developed maladaptive coping mechanisms in life due to her own autism.

there a huge overlap of symptoms between autism and CPTSD. The CPTSD is from childhood abuse from a narcissist parent

@IOSTT

There appears to be a correlation between chronic illness such as ME/CFS and autism. Autistic burnout is increasingly being recognised as something which can leave the sufferer severely impaired.

I was gifted, hyperlexic, and am now a senior academic. I am not autistic. I obviously don't know if any of my colleagues have a diagnosis but I would be surprised they did in almost all cases.

Rather than being a correlation maybe it’s just misdisagnosis of the me and cfs. There are also a high amount of anorexia girls who go on to be diagnosed as autistic nowadays

@Morph22010

I didn't want to use the term 'misdiagnosis' because it's quite loaded - but yes. And also anorexia/gender dysphoria.

@AuxArmesCitoyens

You're not diagnosed autistic; there's an important difference

Just because something is your experience doesn’t mean it applies to all.

This is obvious.

It is surprising someone whose DC receives HRM DLA under the SMI doesn’t know what the initials stand for since it is a common acronym for those in receipt of it just like the acronym DLA itself is.

Is it? My child now receives PIP, perhaps the acronym is different or perhaps I just have a poor memory for acronyms. Or are you suggesting something else?

Is it very professional to suggest someone might be autistic based on a two-line social media post? I don't meet the triad of impairments, ergo I am not autistic 🤷‍♀️

@AuxArmesCitoyens

I wasn't suggesting you were autistic. Nobody apart from a diagnostic team can know that.

It's a spectrum, some people with will be highly intelligent ,some will have average intelligence ,some will have profound learning disabilities.

This is obvious.

Then you should realise for some your experience doesn’t apply and just because someone has a high IQ doesn’t necessarily mean they “have the ability to apply your intelligence to the challenges you face” or necessarily mean a “higher iq allows you the advantages of using that iq to support your needs.”

Is it?

I think so yes. Feel free to disagree. I find it surprising someone whose DS had HRM DLA under the SMI criteria doesn’t know what SMI stands for because the acronym is sometimes used by DLA themselves. The most prominent national charity supporting parents with DLA claims, cerebra, also uses SMI.

If your DS receives PIP he doesn’t have SMI for DLA or PIP purposes because SMI for DLA purposes doesn’t exist for PIP. There is no SMI criteria for PIP so DS can’t receive PIP under the SMI criteria. The criteria for the enhanced mobility component of PIP are different to the criteria for HRM DLA.

Or are you suggesting something else?

I haven’t ‘suggested’ anything. Last time I looked at a dictionary ‘surprised’ and ‘suggested’ have different definitions.

Not a misdiagnosis. Correlation does not equal causation.

Potential risk / contributing factor.

I had an abusive childhood. For a long time I assumed this was the reason for my difficulties but it's as I got into my 30s and lots of counselling I'm realising adhd/autism is likely there too. I was the crazy bright child at school and never quite "got" other children. I would have loved to be in a school with clever quirky kids or access to online learning as I was thirsty to learn.

Done @StealthSpinach ☺️

You need to be a bit careful deciding not to persue assessment or deciding he's not autistic enough at this young age.

I wasn't diagnosed until 24 and missed out on a lot of support.

Essentially my childhood went in waves of a few years of struggling and feeling behind my peers, particularly socially and then a very quick surge to make me feel ahead again, only for me to feel behind again a year later. It was a constant cycle and I always felt ahead or behind and what I was actually doing was using my intelligence to copy peers and behave in the same way.... only for them to mature, behaviour to change and me to have to learn a whole new set of more mature behaviours. I don't think this cycle stopped until my early 20s and I got tired of copying others.

Also us autistics often use a passion or special interest to mute some of the autism. i find engaging in a special interest to be brilliant at recharging my brain when it was burnt out from social or sensory pressures and use this to my advantage. Sounds like your son may have unlocked this from the chess so brilliant to see you have encouraged this.

Ultimately the assessment is exactly that- an assessment- it can go either way and I was AMAZED at the depth and detail it went in to. It was absolutely designed to get behind any kind of masking behaviours and diagnose based on exactly how my brain is wired. I wouldn't be so quick to assume you know better than the assessment- I told my assessor things my parents would never have imagined go on in my brain. Equally they won't diagnose him if he doesn't meet enough of the traits, but yes, they will test this in SO many ways.

Even if you are nervous of the diagnosis, you can then do what you want with it. It's a tool, not a label and you and your son have control of how it's used. You can chose to only tell people you think need to know, not tell anyone, but if you hit a time in life where support is needed, you have it ready. You wouldn't want to be in a situation where you needed a diagnosis to access support because you desperately need it and land at the bottom of a 2 year waiting list for assessment. I told no one for a good few months, but it made a huge huge impact on my own self esteem to know I was different, I was born different, I couldn't force myself to be another way and just to quietly research and understand my own brain better.

Best of luck, your son sounds fab!

@EndlessLight I believe you felt moved to share that I had posted on a previous thread that I didn’t know what SMI was. I’m not sure why you think that’s relevant or why you don’t understand that when someone says “in my experience” they are highlighting the fact that others may have different experiences and have reached different conclusions.

Anyway I believe that having a higher IQ will help individuals to be better equipped to meet challenges like autism or most things really when compared with someone who has similar challenges but a lower IQ.

I think very few people are aware of the acronyms used by pp even if they have applied for dla or pip or both because they’re not used day to day. It’s a bit like remembering the three letter codes for the different airports you might have passed through.

I think part of the problem is a staunch social denial of the fact that autism can exist at different severities. It's become completely taboo to mention Aspergers Syndrome because that suggests a "milder" form of autism. There's always a very vocal minority claiming there is no such thing as mild autism, even if a person can function socially, they still suffer unmet needs inside etc etc.

I think it's realistic to accept that ALL neurological conditions can exist on a spectrum, because they inherently involve the brain and thinking processes. You cannot quantify neurons and thought connections. You cannot judge or compare one person's anxiety or depression with another. Some might be housebound, some might only feel anxious in a specific environment but still manage to get through life fairly normally.

If someone has incredibly high IQ but needs help eating and dressing, then that is clearly a severe form of autism. There is no point trying to rationalise that away by saying the high IQ in itself means they are better or less affected than an autistic child with average intelligence.

Many ND people can happily coexist in the space of knowing they are "intelligent" by society's standard but still struggle with certain obstacles of autistm and/or ADHD. However if they are capable of living independently, holding down a successful job or career, then they are clearly on the mild end of the spectrum. I find the phrase "twice exceptional" quite patronising and cringy. It's like something a doctor will say to upset parents to make them feel better about their child. In reality, most individuals have high IQ because of underlying neurodivergency and there's nothing double special or exceptional about it.

@TomeTome your post on another recent thread is relevant because there you posted you didn’t know what SMI was yet here you posted “Benefits and accommodations provided by the government do not support the position that IQ doesn’t impact the experience of autism” in response to me explaining that is exactly what HRM DLA under SMI does for some with a high IQ. If someone doesn’t know what HRM DLA under SMI criteria is how can they be so sure DLA does not support the position that IQ doesn’t impact the experience of autism.

Can you please quote where I have said others don’t have different experiences? You will struggle because I haven’t done so. What I have done is point out just because you think someone with a high IQ means they “have the ability to apply your intelligence to the challenges you face” and “higher iq allows you the advantages of using that iq to support your needs” doesn’t make it so for all and it has been legally recognised to be incorrect.

Comparing disability to airports is frankly strange, IMO.

@EndlessLight this is going to be my last post to you because I honestly don’t care if your opinion or anyone’s is different to mine. I’m struggling to respond in a neutral enough way. I didn’t compare disability to airports I was describing many people’s inability to remember acronyms. I’m not going to go back through your posts because I honestly don’t care what you’ve said or not said, it’s irrelevant to OPs thread and if it’s important that you didn’t say something or mean something or imply something that I thought you did, I’m happy for you to be “right”.

@SpinningTops if your boy is gifted and presents similarly to a very able autistic person it may help you to go through the assessment process and for him to be found not to meet the criteria, because you may have people endlessly suggesting he does have asd, and that can be time consuming. He’s unlikely to be diagnosed if he isn’t autistic so I wouldn’t worry about that. I’m so glad you have found chess to engage him, that sounds brilliant.

@TomeTome it isn’t about being ‘right’. You said I did something I didn’t. If you don’t like being called out on that you shouldn’t do it.

I think one of the problems of gifted and potentially autistic children in a school setting is the bullying. There is a cohort of children and parents who are academically poor that in my opinion have a combination of ignorance and jealousy about the gifted. If there is an autistic trait that leaves them a target then that is definite bullying target.

There seems to be a bit of an attitude of 'well they are going to have exams and get good jobs so let's give them sh&t because we can'. It's a horrible attitude but I persisits. I wonder how many kids in an average comp make their gifts or academic abaility?