What relationship is there between autism and IQ?

    Published: 06-16-2009
    Views: 13,308
    Autism expert Peggy Halliday discusses the difference between IQ and autism.

    Peggy Halliday


    Host: What relationship is there between autism and IQ?

    Peggy Halliday: That s a difficult question to answer, 40%-50% of children who Autism Spectrum Disorder are also diagnosed with mental retardation but most of the IQ test rely heavily on language and because autism is a language based disorder you may not be getting accurate interpretations of the IQ test.

    There is something that is called as advanced skill that we see sometimes in children with autism that allows them to have a great ability to perform musical instrument for example or they may be very in intelligent in math and I think sometimes we think of this as being typical in autism. It actually is not, it s actually very rare but it does occur so, you have these extremely bright people on the autism spectrum and then you do have diagnosed with mental retardation and then you have every thing in between.