The Misnomer of ‘High Functioning Autism’: Intelligence is an Imprecise Predictor of Functional Abilities at Diagnosis
Alvares, Bebbington, Cleary, Evans, Glasson, Maybery, Pillar, Uljarević, Varcin, Wray and Whitehouse (2020)
Despite conflicting research, high functioning Autism is synonymous with expectations of greater skills and long-term outcomes. It is frequently used to describe an Autistic person without an intellectual disability. This research examined the intelligence quotient, adaptive behaviour and age at diagnosis. The study with under 18-year-olds had 1041 Autistic participants with an intellectual disability and 1184 without an intellectual disability. The research used the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scale to report functional abilities. The results showed that whilst the adaptive behaviour for the intellectual disability group was close to the intelligence quotients. The Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales were significantly below the intelligence quotients for children without intellectual disabilities. This gap remained large even at later stage diagnosis. The findings of this research suggest that intelligence quotient is not an appropriate gauge of functional abilities, particularly for Autistic people without intellectual disabilities. The authors state that high functioning Autism is inaccurate and should be removed from future research and clinical practices.
