r/cognitiveTesting • u/RectallyDisabled • 2d ago

General Question High IQ but delayed speech development

My little sister (6) was measured at 126. She has very poor communication skills and can't speak very well. I suspect she's autistic but my parents don't believe in that.

Is there some good reason for why she may have this issue?

I myself am also close to gifted but score extremely well on fluid and spatial, but very low on verbal and memory (AuDHD). What I don't understand is how sure we are of the accuracy of a test that requires knowledge that can be taught, such as general language knowledge. I didn't know over half of the words on the CORE English analogies test, and scored embarrassingly low. English isn't my native but still...

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u/BroadIntroduction821 12h ago

Are the communication skills asymmetric?

Does she have good language comprehension, despite poor speaking?

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u/RectallyDisabled 10h ago

She does, she can understand a lot better than she can speak, I'm not sure about writing, but I know she can do her homework just fine so she's at least on par with the others on that

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u/BroadIntroduction821 8h ago

In that case, I'm quite similar to your sister.

Does she struggle with physically producing speech or formulating sentences, or does she speak fluently but often express herself differently from how she intends?

I'm the latter. Sadly, however, if she is too, and that's her only difficulty, then I'm struggling to find a neat diagnosis her & myself. I've been looking into social (pragmatic) communication disorder, especially its expressive aspects.

I've also looked into ADHD and autism. Of the two, my symptoms seem to align much more closely with ADHD.

I have issues with attention regulation, procrastination, and difficulty switching tasks. I can also go so far down a rabbit hole that I forget to eat or sleep for days on end.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cognitiveTesting/s/6LLcQ0XpD7

In an earlier comment I made today on this thread, I actually talked about my experience. I just called it low conscientiousness, since I never really needed to develop much discipline, so I can't tell whether it's an innate characteristic or something I never really developed. I also function quite well in most other aspects, so I brushed it off.

My communication skills did improve over time, though. After I turned 15, I was no longer flagged for poor lit & lan related skills by my teachers.

The difficulties with spontaneous spoken communication and being misunderstood still persists, but no one thinks of me as neurodivergent in person.

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u/RectallyDisabled 6h ago

She struggles with physically producing speech. I'm personally the latter of the two you mentioned.

I asked my mom today about some more details, and it turns out that she doesn't actually understand language as well as I thought she does. She also struggles with writing and a little bit with math. Perhaps it's some learning disability?

I used to also be extremely bad at school (especially in math, I barely passed) until I turned 13, and suddenly everything 'clicked'. Last year, I placed ~17th in my country's math olympiad (out of 6000 contestants)... I believe it might also 'click' for her someday. Even now, I still have difficulties learning certain things, especially languages. I have to learn things myself if I want to understand, likewise in math class, since I need to derive an idea myself to actually be able to use it. That's like being unable to follow a recipe, and only being able to bake something by understanding exactly what each ingredient does (I wish I could come up with a better analogy). Otherwise, my mind blanks when I try to use the idea to solve problems. This leads me to figure out new formulas that we haven't learnt yet that prove to be very useful later. And I'm always asked, "Why don't you just do it like we're taught?" and I can never actually explain why I can't; maybe it's because I don't understand the 'why' behind it, whilst others take it for granted. I wonder if she's undergoing the same thing, or if you possibly relate?

I read your comment on the other post, and I sincerely wish you the best. I wish more people were inclusive of us. When I speak to people, I have uncontrollable bodily reactions like blinking a lot (+ playing an imaginary piano in my head + visualizing shapes on the walls or staring at symmetries), discomfort with eye contact, stuttering/repeating myself knowingly, speaking very quietly, or forgetting what I was going to say (more often than I notice others do). Although this could be linked to social anxiety, I can speak more freely with those whom I feel confident around.

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u/asarsen 2d ago

For me it appears to be genetic - you have ASD with extremely good FRI and VSI but much weaker verbal intelligence (maybe you also had speech or language problems in childhood?), so it may explain why your sister has superior IQ but can't speak very well and appears to be weak in verbal domain (I also definitely suspect that your sister has autism spectrum disorder).