Autism & high IQ

Can an autistic person have a high IQ?

(This is an actual ques­tion people ask)

The short answer is yes, obvi­ously!

A photomanipulation of Einstein writing ‘Duh!’ on a blackboard.

But read on to under­stand why gifted people are often tested for autism.


Bell curve

IQ shows a normal distri­b­u­tion (often called a bell curve), as you can see in the image below.

A diagram showing the normal distribution of IQ.

What the image also shows is the 68–95–99.7 rule, where:

  • Around 68.27% of people fall within one stan­dard devi­a­tion of the mean IQ (100).
  • Around 95.45% of people fall within two stan­dard devi­a­tions of the mean IQ.
  • Around 99.73% of people fall within three stan­dard devi­a­tions of the mean IQ.

Or in other words:

  • About 68% of the general popu­la­tion has an IQ between 85 and 115.
  • About 95% of the general popu­la­tion has an IQ between 70 and 130.
  • About 99.73% of the general popu­la­tion has an IQ between 65 and 145.
  • The remaining 0.27% are the outliers on both ends (with IQs below 65 and above 145).

If you want to know more about how the bell curve works, watch the video below by Matt Parker.

Many things follow the same bell curve. Think about height for example. Most of us are around the same height (average), but some of us—like many profes­sional basket­ball players—are much taller.

For example, Serge Ibaka from the Toronto Raptors (my son’s special interest, and thus well-known to me) is 7 feet! That is obvi­ously much taller than most people. So while most of us would count among that 68% in terms of height, Serge will be on the right tail end of the bell curve.


What IQ measures

IQ measures specific things. First of all, it measures skills that are impor­tant to society. And it also measures the ability to make predic­tions, memory, and puzzle-solving ability (i.e. the ability to make connec­tions and see patterns).

These are skills we autis­tics tend to excel at. We are amazing at predic­tions, and we are excel­lent puzzle solvers which is why research by Anton Gollwitzer et al. from 2019 indi­cates that we make great psychol­o­gists due to higher social psycho­log­ical skill.[1] I have talked about the advan­tages of being autistic as a psychother­a­pist before:

An autistic therapist

So that gives many of us an advan­tage. Articles based on the research study indi­cate being surprised about this. As an autistic psychother­a­pist, I’m not so surprised. And I suspect that to many autis­tics, this doesn’t really come as a surprise either, given our often analyt­ical nature even in social inter­ac­tions.

But what is partic­u­larly surprising is that autis­tics have an inverted bell curve for IQ!

In other words, there are rela­tively few autis­tics with an average IQ; we tend to be at either extreme of intel­li­gence (both high and low). Call it extreme intel­lec­tual polar­iza­tion if you will.


IQ in autistics

In the image below, the first bar graph indi­cates the IQs of Dutch autistic popu­la­tion as measured by the Nederlands Autisme Register (NAR), the Dutch Autism Register; the second bar graph indi­cates the IQs of the general popu­la­tion.

A diagram showing the distribution of IQ in autistic people registered by NAR compared to the general public.
Based on a diagram by NAR.

The lighter the color blue, the higher the IQ. Look at how much more autistic people had an IQ of 70 or lower compared to neurotyp­i­cals (7.5% compared to 2.3%).

But also notice how 53.1% (37.3% + 15.8%) of autistic people in the autism register have an above-average IQ! Almost 16% of us have an IQ higher than 130, compared to 2.3% in the general popu­la­tion.


Statistics

So breaking it down:

  • 7/10 of neurotyp­ical people have an average IQ (80–115); whereas
  • 2/10 of autistic people have an average IQ.
Average IQ (80–115)

Out of 10:

  • NT= 👨 👩 👨 👩 👨 👩 👨 = 7
  • AU= 👨‍🦰 👩‍🦰 = 2
Above Average IQ (116–130)

Out of 10:

  • NT= 👨 = 1
  • AU= 👨‍🦰 👩‍🦰 👨‍🦰 👩‍🦰 = 4
Gifted IQ (130+)

Out of 100:

  • NT= 👨 👩 = 2
  • AU= 👨‍🦰 👩‍🦰 👨‍🦰 👩‍🦰 👨‍🦰 👩‍🦰 👨‍🦰 👩‍🦰 👨‍🦰 👩‍🦰 👨‍🦰 👩‍🦰 👨‍🦰 👩‍🦰 👨‍🦰 👩‍🦰 = 16 (That’s more like­li­hood!)

So while more than half of autis­tics (53.1%) has above average intel­li­gence, only 15.9% of neurotyp­i­cals does.


Based on these statis­tics, autis­tics have a far better chance of having a high IQ than non-autistics.

So perhaps a more logical ques­tion would be: Can a non-autistic person have a high IQ?


For more about autism and intel­li­gence, read:

Autism & high intelligence

References   [ + ]

Anton Gollwitzer, Gaussian distribution, Giftedness, Intelligence, IQ, Matt Parker, Nederlands Autisme Register (NAR), Probability, Statistics, Video

Comment

  • Thanks for using emoji(s)
    Pictures good me like

    Will digest later. Looking forward to passing on.

    I have tests that put me on both ends of several spec­trum 'Bell'

    Not been reading site.. long

    Any UK, (Great Britian)
    Adult Female Aspie 'advo­cates' you are networked too?

    West coast amer­ican age 67, being pulled into the illegal system. Being confi­dent highly verbal, more of a curse than value currently.

    ASD/ADD regard­less of comor­bids
    In England is "a Learning Disability'!

    big crack to fall through

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