We talk about cognition quite a lot here in a rather non specific way. This is a more precise list of my cognitive strengths and weaknesses.I wonder how much it matches other members here. I have ASD, SZ/SZ-A, social anxiety, and very probably dyspraxia .
Very high verbal ability
Superior pattern recognition ability
Very high numerical ability but poor/very poor ability when it comes to geometry
Low average matrix and mental rotation ability
Very poor visual memory
EF deficits(especially organising and planning)
Difficulty prioritising steps to be taken in multistep tasks
Variable ability to focus
Poor digit symbol substitution ability but good at Wonderlic type tests
Wow.
We have much in common.
I am impressed with your self analysis.
On some things I also have strong self-awareness [eventually!] but unfortunately that doesn’t necessarily allow for competent self advocacy, especially face to face…
Speech does not always equal communication.
Thank you verbosity, monotropism, tangentialism, difficulties with contextualisation and summarising… NOT!
And most I learned from my Aspergers’ assessment summary. Never saw the full report.
I appreciate your specificity [spiffing!]
I just wish that there’d been kind of help and support for school age children & teenagers like me back in 1961 to 1975, my school years, that’s available nowadays for such children and teenagers. Also that the mental health teams I’ve been under had adopted a much more holistic and,indeed intelligent approach. There was an opportunity to do so, to ask relevant questions, within just over a week of my 1st psych admission. Unfortunately, and indeed rather stupidly, disapproval of behaviour was seen as more important than the reasons why of such behaviour.
I’ve lived as best I can with ASD, very probably dyspraxia , and it would seem now ADHD -attentive type( based on things said by quite a few people with ADHD) with very little recognition of such and sod all support. Yes there’s the Sz/Sz- a, but the severe social anxiety- and the quite severe executive functioning difficulties - have been far more disabling than the Sz/Sz-a.
I never got any help with mental health growing up or in high school. My folks were relgious and were not into psychiatry. But when i was 10 the doc said i had adhd but my parents didn’t want to treat it.
They only learned more about mental health stuff once I exploded at age 23.
My friend [a psychiatrist] thinks my Sz and bipolar diagnoses are misdiagnoses and that I instead have episodic stress-induced psychosis due to inadequate support/housing for my autism.
An assessing social worker made recommendations to change that five years ago but they were never implemented probably due to tory cuts/austerity. Still things could be a lot worse.
Yeah, school was tough…
It was, maxed out manic psychosis that went on for months and months, i even randomly switched into other identities and back to myself whenever the character decided to come up. A lot of psychotic rage and back to laughing in rapid successions. Thats the short short story of it anyway. Still have ptsd from that one. Such is life lol. I wish i could say that was the only episode i had.
My daughter who’s now branch manager of a home care agency has worked with a wide variety of people needing help- those with ASD,SMI,physically disabled,intellectually disabled,dementia. She thinks my ASD is primary and the sz/sz-a secondary. The sz/sz-a being due to the experiences I went through as an undiagnosed autistic person.
