My childhood was interesting, to say the least. I could read at 2 and spell out all 12 months of the year using toy letters at a very young age. I was able to pronounce cafeteria and other sophisticated words at around preschool m. However, I had some deficits due to autism and always scored average on the weschler IQ test due to things like processing speed and lack of vocabulary. The problem was that I never got sufficiently tested in non verbal abilities in tests such as NNAT or TONI. I would consistently score in the 90th percentile nationally in certain subjects and 95th-98th in the state (Oklahoma), and Advanced on subjects in state tests/assessments with results that indicated that I needed a more challenging program. I had scored very high on the writing portion of the ACT. In some of my mathematics classes, I had near perfect scores without trying much at all. I felt like I didn't have to pay attention to them because it came by easy and then my grade would drop due to bad study habits as a result. I also have had extremely good typing ability since a young age (which is a psychomotor ability that I have) despite other struggles with autism (like tying shoes).

Im 19, and recently I took a test to get into the international high IQ society. Now at first glance, I was skeptical of the test. It was an online exam with only 25 questions (and obviously there's flaws to an online exam that you can pay for and that has 25 questions). However, there was a very decent amount of people that had taken the test (100,000, which is a good sample size), and it measures nonverbal abilities well through sequences, patterns, etc. and adjusts the difficulty to how well you do. The private company is run by a lot of psychologists. When you think about it, many IQ or related tests are run by private companies these days, especially ones used in the education system for gifted screening and identification, such as the CogAT (which Mensa accepts). The IHIQS admissions test scores are approximately equal to how many people attain it, unlike other tests online. Therefore, 50% of the population won't be getting like a 120 IQ or anything, only 10% that take it will. Other reddit posts have suggested the scores were actually lower than the weschler IQ scores that they had received. Anyways, back to the test. I scored a 132 on a standard deviation of 15, or approx. two standard deviations above the mean. I got offered to join the international high IQ society since I was within their scoring criteria of 95th percentile or above on the test. I declined because I didn't want to pay $250 fee for mostly Internet forums. I would have accepted if it was Mensa, which has so much more to offer, but they don't accept online tests, even if they are normed and created by psychologists. The psychiatrist that I've been working with (for other issues) has confirmed that it is a pretty valid and accurate test and indicator of my IQ. She said that I absolutely have intellectual giftedness based on my past behaviors and other test scores. She said that the weschler was inaccurate at measuring true intelligence for autistic people and nonverbal ability tests were more accurate. Although there are some criticisms of these exams that are reasonable. Such as it being trainable and easily repeatable. Regardless, I scored higher than most of the people that would have done that anyways. Some say that the test is questionable since the founder was in association of the testing company, but isn't that the same with Mensa and their admissions test? A lot of people have found ways into Mensa through exploiting the tests. It's not just the IHIQS, although it's probably worse there tbf.

Anyways, now to my problems. I feel like things such as social life have been a struggle, and it's a shame since I feel like my abilities could have been more thoroughly developed by taking GATE in elementary and middle school. I think I would have had a much more fulfilling time socially and emotionally if I had taken those classes and connected with like minded peers instead of everything being a blur since there wasn't much that happened and because I was a social loner and couldn't connect with those kids. Most of my friends as of now are in Gifted and Talented classes/education or had taken it in the past and those are the people I can relate to. I was very antisocial in college because I couldn't relate to people very much and I got lonely. Does anyone relate to my story at all? I guess I would say that I'm possibly 2e (twice exceptional). I don't just have autism, but ADHD as well.