Do you think of aspergers as an intellectual disability?

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Just watching Jessica Jane Appelby win an amazing Gold in the pool - her paralympic classification is 'intellectual disability.' I've never thought of ds' aspergers as an intellectual disability, if anything he is more intellectually able than his peers. If anything I would describe it as a social/emotional disability. Wondered what you guys thought?

HereBenson - at the moment, the sub-classification allows LAs to say 'we won't take people who have been diagnosed with aspergers/HFA.' If they change it to only diagnose 'autism' then LAs won't be able to do that, they'll have to look at the person as a whole.

We never qualified with ASD. The criteria was whether you've ever argued with a professional, seemingly.

HereBenson-

criteria vary but our social services and a few other local ones have a policy where they do not offer help, ever, to anyone with a dx of HFA or AS. So my family for example with 3 disabled kids is exempted from respite.

Now, ds1 is severely aggressive and gets HR care; ds3 quite sevee full stop, and ds4 still little but very agoraphobic. They shoudln;t ahev a get out, but they do.

Lougle that's interesting- I think it is the final paragraph that will enable people with an HFA etc to compete. And as long as theya re in an appropriate category, why not?

Peachy that's terrible. DS2 was very aggressive at one stage, but he was the only child we had at home (massive age gap between him and older siblings) and there were two of us. Even so I had to give up work to cope with it all. How people with several children manage I don't know.

Its strange for them to say that 75 is two standard deviations below the mean - it isnt - 70 is. Nor is it the WHO level - they define ID as below 70.

I know clinics that diagnose LD at IQ 60; much of it as set by the PCT.

HereBenson I won't pretend we cope; ds1 is very aggressive and ds3 very vulnerable due to how he presents, ds4 and ds2 get a lot of it too. Muddling through and constatnt supervision is what we do but is also extremely exhausting and as he is almost 13 increasingly difficult. It's just how it is though.

My dd1 has a high IQ but i do know several boy with Aspergers and learning difficulties, both have been kept back a year at school and are struggling to keep up but i susspect its the fact they are not being taught in the correct way, they struggle to listen and consentrate so they are not getting the grades at school? (not that they have a low IQ)?

Could be either Marne.

Now, reality is that an IQ of learning disability isn't what anyone would really call average performance academically: it's usually a pretty noticeable impairment! When apired with autistic spectrum behaviours and language impairments, you can actually be counting a pretty disabled child into the AS category.

It is not a intellectual disability, but more a social one.

It is merely a condition which is highlighted by a differently wired brain to a neurotypical's one.

In fact children that have Aspergers are normally better off at a school for those with special educational needs.

I was certainly not catered for at my schools, and no one cared either.