Intelligence Testing and the Potential of Autistic People

Do the people who seek to measure the intelligence of autistic people need to get out of our heads?


Rose Eveleth has written an important article for the Scientific American about the hidden potential of autistic people and intelligence testing:



The intelligence of autistic people is especially likely to be underestimated if it is tested by highly verbal instruments like the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC).  The subject is something Eveleth knows a great deal about because of her autistic brothers.  Her brother Decker was unable to finish an intelligence test based on verbal skills:





In order to accurately estimate the intelligence of autistic people, it's essential to use a test like Raven's Progressive Matrices, which does not emphasize verbal skills:



Intelligence testing issue can be a very painful and confusing issue for autistic people.  Some of the smartest people I know score very low on a test like the WISC.  I score in the low-average range for tests like the Raven and very high on verbally based tests.  I'm not smarter than them, and I know this for a fact.  We just have different kinds of brains.

Anyway, this is one of the best articles that's been published about autism this year, and you should read the whole thing.