[This report comes from FEAT newsletter editor Catherine Johnson.]

My neighbor Laura, who is a clinical psychologist, found this and pulled it for me. Ed and I were thrilled to get it because this is***exactly*** how we feel about our kids, and about all autistic kids in fact.

They're smarter than they look. Over the years I have been constantly told by one professional or another that the only autistic children who "recover" are the kids who don't have "the syndrome of mental retardation." That's how these people always talk: the syndrome of mental retardation. If your kid has it, we can predict his future with certainty. (I've been told this, flat-out.)

Since hearing Margaret Bauman lecture on the autistic brain I've become aware that in fact at the neuroanatomical level our kids do *not* have THE SYNDROME OF MENTAL RETARDATION. Moreover,

Edie Gordon and Rose Kraft's presentation at the last FECA/NAAR conference--something every
parent should see--gave us ample evidence that autistic children who had been considered profoundly retarded in fact were not. (Gordon and Kraft developed an all-visual discrete trial methodology to teach their children, both of whom had not progressed in standard discrete trial teaching. While their visual approach did not normalize their kids it did bring their learning up to grade or near-grade level.)

So lately when school professionals start filling me in on THE SYNDROME OF MENTAL RETARDATION I'm not having it. This abstract is going to be helpful in such conversations, too, since it shows speedy processing in our kids--something I wouldn't actually have guessed. (I do know that speed-of-processing has been shown to be directly related to IQ. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN PRESENTS devoted an issue to IQ a while back, and speed of processing was one of the issues discussed.)

Francesca Happen, btw, is the author of AUTISM A PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY, a wonderful book (you can find my book review on the NAAR web site, www.naar.org). Happe is a theory of mind person, so it makes sense she would look to see how social deficits in autism are related to IQ. (I'm not a theory of mind person, by the way. I'm an executive function person, which is the opposing camp. But I love Happe's work anyway)

One last note. I have ordered a book called CHILDREN SOLVING PROBLEMS, by Stephanie Thornton. Here is the write-up:

Stephanie Thornton surveys recent research from a broad range of perspectives in order to explore why successful problem-solving depends less on how smart we are--or, as the pioneering psychologist Jean Piaget claimed, how advanced is our skill in logical reasoning--and more on the factual knowledge we acquire as we learn and interpret cues from the world around us.

In other words, developmental psychologists are starting to see that a huge amount of what we always thought was basic or innate "intelligence" is actually factual knowledge that can be brought to bear on problem-solving.

Since our kids are not absorbing a huge amount of factual knowledge, particularly in the social realm, they are naturally going to appear far less intelligent than they could be if we could find a way to get these
facts ***in.***

Here is the abstract (thanks, Laura!)
Catherine:


High "intelligence," low "IQ"? Speed of processing and measured IQ in children with autism K Steffen, F Happen, M Anderson, U Frith
Article 83-90

Abstract: The uneven profile of performance on standard assessments of intelligence and the high incidence of savant skills have prompted interest in the nature of intelligence in autism. The present paper reports the first group study of speed of processing in children with autism (IQ 1 SD below average) using an inspection time task. The children with autism showed inspection times as fast as an age-matched group of young normally developing children (IQ 1 SD above average). They were also significantly faster than mentally handicapped children without autism of the same age, even when these groups were pair wise matched on Wechsler IQ. To the extent that IT tasks tap individual differences in basic processing efficiency, children with autism in this study appear to have preserved information processing capacity despite poor measured IQ. These findings have implications for the role of general and specific cognitive systems in knowledge and skill acquisition: far from showing that children with autism are unimpaired, we suggest that our data may demonstrate the vital role of social insight in the development of manifest "intelligence".


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