OK, I am getting sick and tired of hearing this statement:

"Most autistics also have mental retardation."

Supposedly, 75% of us are retarded! Most of my personal aquaintances who are autistic haven't struck me as retarded at all. Some of them have been non-verbal. Others stimmed a lot or were otherwise very obviously autistic. Many of them were aspie (Asperger's), like me, but not always. At least three of them were not aspie. I have only met one individual who did seem a bit slow, and he was A: drugged up with all sorts of meds and B: had a primary dx of Tourettes, with a secondary of PDD. The majority of those that I meet are not retarded.

Of course, several of the peopel I've met also haven't been formally diagnosed. We made it all the way into adulthood before we found out, and suddenly the struggles and questions we'd had made sense and the pieces fell into place. Who exactly are they counting when they come up with these staistics, because I haven't been counted? Perhaps they only count those of us who are on SSI or SSDI; that's not fair.....

Additionally: if most of us are retarded, then explain this one to me: I applied for an autism research study. However, the study had a window of I.Q. range, anywhere between 80-120. In other words, if you are autistic and have an I.Q. of over 120, you cannot apply, too smart. Their study automatically sieves out the higher end of autism that *should* be studied and given more credit and recognition. I can see that they might consider 150 a bit high...but 120? I mean, 120 just does not seem that phenomenal to me. In fact, it seems a bit average.

Is there an agenda to discredit the fact that many of us are quite bright and have managed to cope reasonably well in the world?