"IQ" and Autism

[cyberseraphim]

I realise testing an 'IQ' in any child is difficult and so it is even more difficult for an autistic child. Has anyone ever had an IQ test done with their autistic child? Were the results useful? I know some autistic children have puzzle solving skills but lack language and sometimes the other way around. Can a test take account of this?

DS1 isnt classically autistic - hes ADHD with very many ASD traits. but he is VERY verbal, but most of it was junk until he was around 4/5y. He had an IQ test done at the school he was at (apparently the lower the overall score the more funding they got!?!).

Anyway he did the test when he was in year3 or 4 (is that around 8ys?) 1:1 with a TA (probably the only time in school he finished something ) and got the highest score in the year at around 120 (cant remember exactly it was 8yrs ago sorry). He was taken out of school in year 5 as his levels were 1c (english - the lowest level attainable, below that its classed as 'W' - working towards 1c which is usually in year1) and his other levels were science 1A (the letters go backwards so A is better than C) and maths was 2C.

sorry to ramble what im saying is that his IQ measured as an intelligent adult, but his academic levels were that of a child at least 4 yrs younger.

not sure that helps at all.

PS that same year he was found almost hanging himself on the ropes of the garden swing, and throwing water on the lightbulb in the bathroom which shattered all over him...

Yes, a friend had it done for her autistic ds, really to prove he needed the extra help - it came out really low, as she suspected. This child also is very chatty but all inconsequential prattle, but she found that it focussed professional's attention on what he needed education-wise.

I don't know the exact test used but can find out if you need it..

I did plenty of IQ tests when younger. The tests I could do showed a very high IQ. The ones I couldn't do showed that I had a very low IQ. It was a big range between the different sorts of tests, and still is.

If asked to match things or rotate things or do maths tasks, I'm normally very good.

If asked to rearrange words, find words, change one letter to make a new word, suggest alternative meanings for words, I'm absolutely useless. Probably unsurprisingly, since our brains don't often have an 'alternative meanings of words' bit.

I wouldn't mind DS2 doing an IQ test, I think he is very bright, well, above average at least, but because he has struggled woth reading teachers always underestimate him. However schools up here in Scotland are very reluctant to test children too much (no SATS here ) so i would have to test him at home i think and he believes home is for relaxing not working lol and I don't think he would co-operate.

Oh well, I suppose I can go round thinking to myself that he is a genius and never be proved wrong!

as part of his joint clinic assessment for ASD last year (ed psych/salt/paed) the ed psych carried out non-verbal intelligence tests. she did 2 - one where DS had to copy her putting blocks in a pattern, and the other one where DS had to pick a picture out of 3 choices that was in a similar category to another picture (e.g. picture of tree, and then he had to choose a leaf rather than a flower or a toy). I didn't get a IQ score, but a percentile score. As DS scored highly in these tests the ed psych never had any more involvement with DS . A mixed blessing as I didn't find her particularly helpful, but who knows she may have had something useful to say to school....

lol tclanger!

DS2 was given an IQ test as part of one of his assessments which was fine but the ed psych at that stage couldn't test him on some of the verbal tests because he couldn't be understood or wouldnt speak.

tclanger, I don't think that was me, no, but it's true. And more to the point, many of the questions are phrased in ways that NT people understand and we just don't. So it's often not fair to start with.

DH took all sorts of IQ tests for Cambridge Uni. He failed some of them so spectacularly that they said he'd have done a lot better by guessing yet he has a fantastic memory and has got to the top of the field of work. They missed out on a fine candidate because of their silly tests.

They tried, he refused to cooperate- which has some benefits as his IQ is 'officially' below 55. This means he is classed as having a severe mental impairment and makes it easier to get higher rate mobility etc.

When I was training as an ed psych, my supervisor suggested I do an IQ test on a pre-school child with autism. It was an unmittigated disaster. Highlightes included having to sit on the Thomas the Tank Engine book I had shown him earlier in the session as he was so focused on it that I couldn't get him to concentrate on any of the tasks. I also remember the child sitting under the table for much of the time because he didn't want to co-operate. Fair enough!

I realised afterwards that my supervisor was making a point. It was a lesson well learned. IQ tests can be very, very unreliable if you have a child who is very self-directed. Subsequently, I generally looked for ways other than IQ tests to gather info about children's abilities.

In answer to your question about whether IQ tests can show differences in skills between puzzle solving and language, the answer is yes. An IQ test is made up of several different sub-tests, some of which aim to look at non-verbal skills (e.g. can you identify which shape comes next in a pattern) and some of which look at verbal skills (e.g. what does this word mean). It's not quite as clear cut as it seems though. Instructions to all tasks are given verbally which may impact on a child's performance. Additionally, a child with poor language skills may have had less opportunity to learn how problems can be solved because children often learn these things by adults explaining things verbally.

If a child had a big discrepancy between their performance on non-verbal and verbal tests, it would probably be pretty meaningless to look at the overal IQ score. Actually, I'm not that convinced of the value of IQ tests in general. I'm not terribly sure what they show and I think somewhere along the line they have acquired more status than really they should.

Interestingly, a good few of our business customers are self-made millionaires. Very few of these have a qualification to their name. Some can't read or write, but they've managed to build a business worth millions. It didn't stop them from using their brains in an entirely different way. Someone said that 4 out of 10 entrepreneurs are dyslexic, for example. Could well be true, and such individuals will normally give a really poor result in standard IQ tests, but often can out-think most others in other ways, and use that extra connectedness in their brains to see opportunities no-one else can see. Now that's intelligence, y'see. Just not the sort that shows up in exams or IQ test.

I was helping at a big autism lecture this week in which Wendy Lawson was speaking. She showed a video of a lady with classic autism. She had been diagnosed with SLD and very low IQ, and indeed displayed huge amounts of repetitive behaviour, no speech, etc etc.

One day, after enough help from a team teaching her to use computer technology, she sat down at the computer and started to type out her feelings and experiences of the world. She wasn't low IQ at all. She was 'locked in': unable until that point to show what sort of fine brain she had.

IQ tests measure only what the question asks, in ways that can only be answered by a proportion of people.

"I'm not that convinced of the value of IQ tests in general"

That's what I think too and even for NT children what they mean is very contraversial/doubtful. I was thinking more at a general level - that if DS1 has some basic language, can ask for favourite things, knows colours, shapes and animals etc in a meaningful/out of learned context way - does that mean he is off the base/lowest level or not?

Maybe best not to know !

cyber - somewhere in the depths of the afasic website they have a good leaflet on IQ type testing - and how a language impairment can mean a child scores lower than they should on a supposedly non-verbal intelligence test.

The only 'IQ' test I've been involved with is the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children. As Neolara said, it is split into different secctions that assess memory, comprehension, processing speed and reasoning. The way I've seen it used it can give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses which helps you use the strengths and unsderstand the difficulties. However, (again as Neolara said) the results are dependent on how well and for how long a child can attend and whether they can receive verbal instruction etc.

My DH did a similar test for adults recently because I suspected that he had a specific learning difficulty. The difference between the scores on the different sections (one normal to high and the other really low) meant we could see why he can't process language well (resulting in seriously shitty spelling and not understanding the difference between similar words) and what we can do to help. The overall score doesn't hold any meaning.

ed psych wants to do iq test on my child. I said no, and asked her to prove it had any merit - in terms of what he really knows (consiedring he cannot speak well) and also in terms of what it was going to do in terms of shaping the plan of his curriculum.

all they seem to do is want to label our children with one more label.

If your hcild is labeled with a low iq will it be very hard to get rid of that label?

Also i know plenty of adult persons with autism who have high iq's one in particular with an iq of 165 who was assessed when he was 6 with an iq of 55.

so its a joke.

the belief is that autism = learning disability when of course that is not true.

do they give sight tests to blind people? why do they give oral tests to our children who often have language probs ? if they have language probs, their comprehension of all things will very likely be delayed impacting on their knowledge and accumulation of skills.

its pre-historic and an affront to my child's rights and humanity.